Université de Montréal - Thèse sous forme numérique

183evokes the last stage of the criminal court proceedings, i.e. the verdict. At the end of thetrial, the judge(s) and/or the jury have to decide whether the defendant is guilty or not of acrime of which he is accused. Their role is to reach a decision that performs the act ofacquit (to find somebody not guilty of the charges of which they are accused) and/or ofconvict (to find somebody guilty of the charges of which they are accused).(Criterion 2) Secondly, the verb convict is a predicative unit whose actants areterms themselves. In the corpus, the first actant of convict is realized by terms such asjudge, court and jury, the intervenients who have to reach a decision on a case. The secondactant of convict is typically the accused or the appellant, the intervenients in a case onwhich a decision is reached. The third actant of convict corresponds to the charges broughtagainst the defendant (assault, manslaughter, murder, etc.).(Criterion 3) Thirdly, convict is a term because its morphological derivativesconviction and convicted (adjective) are terms semantically related to it. The termsconviction and convicted occur not only in the corpus but also in the Criminal Code(R.S.C., 1985, c. C-46, s.662):Conviction for infanticide or manslaughter on charge of murder(3) Subject to subsection (4), where a count charges murder and the evidenceproves manslaughter or infanticide but does not prove murder, the jury may find theaccused not guilty of murder but guilty of manslaughter or infanticide, but shall noton that count find the accused guilty of any other offence.487.071 (1) Before taking samples of bodily substances from a person under anorder made under section 487.051 or an authorization granted under section487.055 or 487.091, a peace officer, or a person acting under their direction, shallverify whether the convicted offenders index of the national DNA data bank,established under the DNA Identification Act, contains the person‘s DNA profile.(Criterion 4) Finally, convict is a term because it relates paradigmatically to otherterms of the same subject field. Convict is the antonym of the term discharge and acquitwhich can be found in the corpus.