Sémantique des noms généraux sous-spécifiés et construction du sens

The purpose of this study is to discuss and justify the treatment of general –unspecific– nouns within the framework of discursive semantics, addressing the question of at which level and by which components the meaning of these nouns is constructed. In so doing, this paper raises the question of the legitimacy of a separate categorization for general –unspecific– nouns since, from several points of view, these nouns could be said to be superordinate. Since their reference depends on other units pertaining to different ranks, the question of meaning construction proves to be unavoidable.