Sur un indéfini marginal: 'même' exprimant l'identité

The word 'même' in French meaning identity (cf. 'same' in English) occurs regularly among the indefinite adjectives in French grammar. Its syntactic and semantic properties though differ from those of prototypical indefinites. Our investigation tends to prove that 'même' together with the determiner constitutes a sort of complex determiner. Its syntactic, semantic and referential properties depend on the interaction of its two components. The referential instruction carried by 'même' consists in linking the referent to at least two correlates