The attribution of agentivity is an important enunciative operation. Our conception of time leads us to assign causes to actions and events. Linguistic “agency” or agentivity can be distinguished from linguistic causality (or causativity) by the fact that an animate entity (generally human) can be identified as the ultimate cause of an action or event. Animate entities are formally accorded intention, control and telicity over their own actions. However there are regular cognitive shifts from prototypical agency. Agentivity is a complex concept often allowing differing degrees of agency and the transfer of agency between actual or potential agents (the doubling of agents, delegated agency, etc.). Agentivity refers to the ascription and linguistic encoding of cognitive and enonciative operations which are at the disposal of an utterer / enunciator. Constructions which show nonprototypical agentivity are thus of particular interest. French constructions such as se faire + infinitif, se laisser + infinitif, se voir + infinitif, faire + infinitif as well as English constructions with get and have are revealing. Here there is a question as to the interpretation of the participative role of the animate subject. In certain cases control can be attenuated or even cancelled. In fact, se faire and get constructions have much in common, including their recent specialization as passives which describe unpleasant circumstances. This work uses concepts from Culioli’s Theory of Enunciative Operations. The contribution of an informative principle (recent developments in linguistic theories of information such as Vallduví’s “information packaging” and Lambrecht’s “informational structure”) makes it possible to detect in constructions similar to se faire + infinitif, a pragmatico-enunciative role which can be distinguished from canonical passives. The use of these constructions reflects the subjective and intersubjective management of information and the process of enriching the knowledge of one’s interlocutor with information indicating stance and positioning.
Agentivity, modalities of control and subjectivity