Nous pronoun: on the problem of systemic foundations of constructive potential in discourse

The article deals with the problem of the essence of semantics of the French pronoun nous as a personal quantifier in the context of a general theory of personal pronouns and a theory of discourse personalization. It is substantiated the syncretism of the pronominal sign, which is revealed in its egocentric structure, and its formulas reflect different approaches to the categories of subjectivity, multiplicity, type of reference, identification. We have identified two main ways of implementing the personalization of an utterance through the pronoun nous: the method of iconic inclusion and the method of associative symbolic inclusion in the signification of a referential group. The first way reflects the basic level of categorization of the meaning of nous: the designation of persons by their communicative status in the chronotope of direct deixis in a certain reference. This way is motivated by a sign of common activity, including simultaneous locution. The second way reflects the transition in categorization to the level of abstraction by the mechanism of metonymic transfer and introduces the conditional character to an indefinite reference, which allows not so much designating the existing group of nous, but creating it in the discursive time of constructing an utterance. The transition to the associative level of indicating personal multiplicity brings the statement to a symbolic mode of functioning, associated with the construction of value-saturated concepts in interpretation.