L'ambiguïté dans l'emploi du relatif-interrogatif en ancien français

The paper examines some aspects of the ambiguity caused by the distance between the <i>wh</i>- words and the antecedent in French medieval texts (from the beginning of the 12^th to the middle of the 13^th century). Uncertainty can appear when the <i>wh</i>- word's referent or when the relative clause type (i.e. restrictive versus non-restrictive) has to be recognised. The ambiguity induced by the polysemy of the forms has also been given consideration. An attempt has been made to determine how the enunciation <i>in praesentia</i>, i.e. the oral or to-be-<i><b>read-aloud</i></b> character of the texts, affects the disjunction phenomenon-generated referential instability – from the viewpoints of both contemporary and medieval reader.