Since the 1970s, diachronic studies, and more particularly diachronic semantics, have found increasing favour. Two factors have contributed to this revitalisation: on the one hand, the approach called grammaticalization; on the other hand, the use of new “enunciation" theories or semantic-pragmatic theories. Thanks to this second factor, the function of the historic dimension played by semantics has been clarified, in particular, discourse markers.