L'œuvre lexicographique d'un pionnier des Lumières : Henri Basnage de Beauval

This thesis focuses on the Dictionnaire universel of 1701. The Dictionnaire universel was compiled by Antoine Furetière in 1690 and revised by Henri Basnage de Beauval in 1701. Basnage's edition evolves from Furetière's in several respects. In addition to increasing the number of entries and enriching the existing entries with more precise content, Basnage introduces a number of lexicographical details that Furetière had not taken into account. These include writers’ quotations, usage labels containing the lexicographer's judgements on the frequency of words and the axes of linguistic variation, grammatical elements such as verbal inflections and syntactic constructions, indications concerning spelling and pronunciation, and discussions of language experts. The result is a descriptive and encyclopaedic work which at the same time helps the reader to decode the texts, while guiding his or her linguistic choices in the encoding phase. In addition to highlighting the orthographic innovations in relation to Furetière's work, we examine both the macrostructure and the microstructure of the work. As far as the macrostructure is concerned, the analysis of domain designations gives an idea of the specialised lexicons to which Basnage, after Furetière, gives importance. As for the microstructure, the study of two of the most significant elements of the revision, masterfully framed in a refined architecture, namely the quotations and the usage labels, reveals the author's pedagogical and sociolinguistic intentions. As far as the lexicon is concerned, the analysis of the pictorial field and of the part of the grammar devoted to the parts of speech shows the use of certain sectorial and linguistic sources. The study of Basnage's Dictionnaire universel highlights not only the often unresolved questions the lexicographer was confronted with, but also the dynamics and actors of the French and European cultural scene of the 17th century. More specifically, it invites to look at the reference works of the time, on which the dictionary is based. This thesis is rooted in a project to digitise the "Basnage", which has gradually been extended to the works upstream (the "Furetière") and downstream (the "Trévoux"), thus providing a basis for much future research.