French verb tomber and its synonyms: down and beyond

The aim of the study is to identify and describe frame situations in the use of the verbs tomber, chuter, choir, and, in some cases, dégringoler in French. Semantic parameters relevant to each of the analyzed verbs are also described. The study is based on Frantext – the French corpus of XX century literary texts. The Russian National Corpus and Google.fr search results were also used to describe some contexts. The analyzed contexts can be divided into several groups in which the verbs are used to express different types of falling. Verbs tomber, choir, and chuter are used in the literal sense to describe the following situations of falling: (i) free falling (an object, a person), (ii) detaching (hair, teeth), (iii) falling out of the container (a fledgling) and falling into the container (a person), (iv) loss of vertical orientation (a person, a building, a tree). Natural phenomena, such as precipitation (snow, rain) and liquids, can also be used as subjects of falling in French. The most frequent contexts in which the analyzed verbs of falling are used in the figurative sense are: (i) the change of natural phenomena (nightfall), (ii) the decrease of some parameter on the scale (temperature), (iii) accidental events, (iv) the state of a person (falling in love), (v) death (of a person). In addition, the study identifies an intermediate meaning between the literal and the figurative, relating to the description of physical objects (most often, items of clothing or body parts): the verb tomber can be used in situations where the subject is “attached” at the top and the rest moves (relatively) freely (curtains, a skirt). In general, it is not typical in French to use specific verbs to distinguish different types of falling. In most cases, the semantic meaning of falling is expressed with the usage of the verb tomber and, occasionally, with its synonyms chuter and, more rarely, choir, both indicating that the subject moves downwards on the vertical plane. All the analyzed contexts are characterized by the unpreparedness or randomness of the event in both literal and figurative uses.