Les inférences comme source du comique dans les proverbes français

Abstract

The following article describes inferences (implications and pragmatic presuppositions), which are a source of humour in French proverbs. The corpus includes both formally unmarked proverbs as well as priamels, wellerisms and dialogic proverbs. The comic aspect of the analysed cases is motivated not only by the presence and type of the inferred content, but also by the contrasts between the inferences. These oppositions’ character can be both internal and external. The former refer to relations between implications and/or presuppositions, while the latter refer to the relation of the subtext to the meaning of the sentence (a contrast or a repetition of inference by proverb meaning).