Le « mot-phrase » dans les conceptions syntaxiques de Lucien Tesnière

Several of Tesnière's drafts and files that remain available at the Bibliothèque nationale de France provide materials for a renewed approach of the concept of mot-phrase (lit. ‘sentence word’, also called phrasillon), a category close to the traditional heterogeneous class of interjections. In the Éléments de syntaxe structurale, Tesnière states that the mot-phrase is used as a sentence and that it lacks syntactic properties at a lower level. It is therefore considered irrelevant for the study of syntax. However, this stance contrasts with Tesnière's previous views on the matter. This paper contains an edited version of a draft entitled Chapitre I. - Les mots phrases ou phrasillons. Comparing the contents delivered by this document with Tesnière's published works helps us understand the difficulties he experienced to classify the mot-phrase among other parts of speech with respect to their syntactic properties : their relationships with governor words and dependents, as well as their behaviours in the system of transfer.