This master’s thesis aims chiefly to identify how native and non-native speakers express absence of obligation in French, how they interpret the modal verbs devoir, falloir, and avoir à when negated, and whether the two groups of speakers differ from each other in their choices. At the beginning, the theoretical part deals with deontic modality and, in particular, the absence of obligation, as well as the ways in which the latter is expressed in French and the factors that can influence the speaker’s choice. The treatment of the subject in FLE (French as a foreign language) is also studied. The empirical section consists of two parts. Firstly, corpus analysis serves as a preliminary study to illustrate the two different deontic uses of the three examined modal verbs, of which devoir and falloir seem to express prohibition most often, whereas avoir à lends itself more easily to expressing the absence of obligation. In addition, the verb tense was found to have a considerable influence on the interpretation of the verb. Next, the section based on the results of a questionnaire shows, on the one hand, the tendencies of native and non-native speakers in expressing the absence of obligation, and in interpreting negated modal verbs on the other. It emerges that there are indeed some differences between the uses and interpretations of non-native speakers and those of native speakers (particularly with regard to the verb most often used to express absence of obligation), while others turn out to be less significant (such as the choice of a modal verb instead of a periphrastic structure). The influence of each of the three verbs and the verbal tense on the interpretation of the negated modal verbs is also examined. Although the thesis does not actively seek to identify the causes of these differences, a few lines of inquiry are nonetheless proposed, particularly with regard to the lack of treatment of this subject in FLE.
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