The presentative voici/voilà – Towards a pragmatic definition

This paper focuses on the presentative voilà in modern French. It advocates taking account pragmatic criteria (situation, viewpoint, etc.) and to combine five criteria (1) voilà introduces a referent and poses its existence; (2) voilà can have a textual or a non textual function; (3) voilà introduces a discrete or a non discrete referent; (4) voilà introduces a referent linguistically expressed or not; (5) voilà presents or represents) to analyse voilà-presentative. Doing so enables us to consider that voilà can be a presentative without being followed by a nominalised linguistic item.

► We study the presentatives voici and voilà in modern French. ► We identify five interrelated criteria to analyse them. ► Voici and voilà can be presentatives without being followed by a noun phrase.