Apport d’un sondage d’opinion à l’étude du gérondif négatif

What is the relationship between the negative gérondif and the sans-infinitive construction in contemporary French? This study brings some elements to the discussion. It proposes the results of an epilinguistic acceptability and metalinguistic awareness test administered to undergraduate students. The results show that the alternation between the gérondif and sans-infinitive is much more frequent and that the infinitive is the less marked element of the pair. The analysis of the non-experts’ intuitions also shows that these are much less clear-cut than those of linguists and that their representations are highly dependent on context and co-text.