La substantivation de l'infinitif en ancien français : aperçu et perspectives

Abstract

Claude Buridant : The substantivation ofthe infmitive in Old French. In the first part ofthe article the infmitive is characterized in the whole verbal system and the generai theoretical parameters of this substantivation are brought out. Afterthis restatement the study is devoted to the substantivation of this mood and his fundamental characteristics in Old French, that is the possibility to have a complementation. A distinction is made between essential and accidentai substantivated infinitives. The first are characterized by morphological, syntactical and semantical criteria and seem restricted to fundamental zones of the human activities. The second, facultative, can have the characterization and complementation ofthe substantive and ofthe verb at one and the same time. They often are favoured by some conditions (use of the preposition de, verbal constructions, use of sanz point de) and express ail the functions of a noun. They often occurs as a synthetical form of thematization (condensed anaphoric recapitulation or cataphoric thematization) and as a preferential process of abstraction in the courtly and allegorie style ofthe 1 3th century. These possibilities and the range of these uses are more and more limited in the evolution, where French diverges in his typology ofthe other romance languages, and specially on and after the classical period, but the substantivation ofthe infmitive rises again actually - without complementation - in usingthe resources always available ofthe mood.