Dataset abstract The dataset includes an annotated corpus sample of N = 2000 French sentences with se mettre à or commencer à (1000 observations of each verb). The sample was drawn from the literary corpus Frantext (FT) and the journalistic corpus Le Monde (1000 observations from both corpora). The sample is balanced for verb as well as corpus, so we have 500 observations for each Verb-Corpus combination. The data is annotated for 8 variables: Source (corpus), Verb, Mood & Tense, Event type, Adverb presence, Adverb token, and Adverb type. Article abstract This article compares the usage of commencer à ‘to begin’+Vinf. and se mettre à ‘to start’ + Vinf. in modern French. Using a corpus sample of 2000 observations, we examined the effect of Adverbial complementation, Event type (aspect), Tense. Based on a mixed-effects logistic regression analysis, we found evidence for Event type – se mettre à is associated with activities – and Tense – se mettre à seems to be associated with Passé Simple, Futur proche and Subjonctif présent, whereas commencer à with Plus-que-parfait and Indicatif Imparfait. We discuss the results in the frame-semantic model of Croft (2012). We make the case that commencer à can have the profile of an achievement or that of an accomplishment while se mettre à manifests only one profile, i.e. that of an achievement. Our results support a one-component approach to aspect in which the result of the interaction between grammatical aspect and lexical aspect can be attributed to the same aspectual contour. References Croft, William (2012). Verbs : aspect and causal structure. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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• Le Monde: http://catalog.elra.info/en-us/repository/browse/ELRA-W0015/
• Frantext: https://www.frantext.fr/