The Decline of the French Passé Simple

Introduction
1 A Story Needs to Be in the Past Historic. Otherwise, Nobody Knows It’s a Story …
2 A Not So Simple Past …
3 The Future of This Past …

1 Language Evolution
1 Introduction
2 Stages of Language Evolution
3 Innovation
4 Propagation
5 Mechanisms for Language Evolution
6 Results of Language Change
7 Evolution in the Domain of the Past
8 A ‘Dia-Model’ of Evolution and Change

2 Once Upon a Time … There Was the PS
1 From Latin to French
2 In Old French
3 In Middle French
4 In Classical French
5 In Modern French
6 Conclusions on the Diachronic Evolution of the PS

3 Favourable Factors for PS Use in Contemporary French
1 Age Grading (Personal Diachrony)
2 Geographical Variation (Diatopie)
3 Social Variation (Diastratie)
4 Gender Variation (Diagénie)
5 Variation according to the Medium (Diamésie)
6 Variation across the Context of Use (Diaphasie)
7 Cotextual Variation
8 Conclusion on the Diachronic Evolution of PS

4 The Not So Simple PS
1 Previous Descriptions of the PS
2 Defining the Specific Profile of the PS
3 Conclusion

5 Substitutes for PS in Contemporary French
1 The Past Connection
2 Going Global
3 Looking Forward
4 Conclusion

6 Methodology for the Corpus Analysis
1 Introduction
2 Methodology
3 Corpus
4 Opening

7 The PS across Modes in Contemporary French
1 Modes of Speech (Conversing)
2 Modes of Speech (Monologuing)
3 Modes of Speech (Reciting): Néo-contes
4 Modes of Speech (Speaking of What Is Written)
5 Modes of Writing
6 The Actual Use of the PS across Modes

8 The PS in Micro-Diachrony
1 Presentation of the Corpus
2 Corpus Le Monde
3 Corpus L’Humanité
4 Corpus Le Soir
5 Corpus La Libre Belgique
6 Conclusions on Sports Reports in Micro-Diachrony

9 Conclusions
1 Chronicle of a Death Foretold
2 Some Hundred Years of Decrepitude?
3 Living to Tell the Tale
4 On the Day They Were Going to Kill It?
References