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Abstract(s)
In this paper we examine the construction of first entities in narratives produced by children of 5, 7, 10
years and adults1 . The study demonstrates that when children reformulate they try to construct entities
detached from the situation of enunciation, which means that they construct a detached or a translated
plane and they construct linguistic existence of entities. Entities must first be introduced into the enunciative
space and then comments will be made in subsequent utterances. Constructing existence supposes
extraction. This consists of “singling out an occurrence, that is, isolating and drawing its spatiotemporal
boundaries” (Culioli, 1990, p. 182) . Once the occurrence of the notion is constructed (which
means it has become a separate occurrence with situational properties), children can predicate about it.
However, there are children who do not construct the linguistic existence of entities.
I hypothesize that the mode of task presentation influences the success of constructing linguistic
existence. Sharing the investigator’s knowledge about the stimulus images, children do not ascribe
an existential status to the occurrence of the notional domain.