Among, marqueur de discrétisation

Abstract : This paper is part of a larger project which aims at elaborating an abstract representation of the main prepositions of English based solely on the metalinguistic tools of the Théorie des Opérations Enonciatives, particularly the operation of location and its different values: identification, differentiation and disjunction. Some prepositions can modify the aspectual value of the verb they are governed by, either by discretizing it (identification) or on the contrary by massifying it (identification). Among is the marker of a similar operation, but which does not bear on the phrase that the preposition completes, but on its own complement, which it defines as a set of discrete entities, at once identifiable and different from one another.