160Reviews Works Cited Brunei, Clovis. Bibliographie des manuscrits littéraires en ancien provençal. Paris: Droz, 1935. Pfîster,Max. "SprachlichesundLexikalisches zuGuirautRiquier undzurTroubadourhandschriftfl/'ZKPÄ 104(1988) :103111 . ReviewofJoseph Linskill, ed.,LesEpîtresde Guiraut Riquier, troubadourduXIIFsiècle, Liège: ATEO, 1985. Perugi, Maurizio. Le Canzone diArnautDaniel. Voi. 2. Milan & Napoli: Riccardo Ricciardi, 1978. Zufferey, François. BibliographiedespoètesprovençauxdesXIVe etXVesiècles. Genève: Droz, 1981. Nathaniel B. Smith and Thomas G. Bergin. An Old Provençal Primer. NewYork/London: GarlandPublishing, Inc., 1984. xxvii, 373 p. This Primer corresponds exactly to what a primer ought to be: "a book of elementary principles" (Random House Dictionary ). "This grammar book is meant," write the authors, "for students and scholars who wish to learn to read the troubadours' poetry, or to become familiar with the characteristics of this language fornonliterarypurposes, or to consult a thorough reference grammar in order, for example, to determine whether a certain textual reading is grammatically usual or possible, or to compare features of Provençal to those of related languages" (xiii). The primer contains 1) a first chapter detailing a brief historyand the character ofOldOccitan; then 2) a chapteron Old Occitan pronunciation andorthographyingeneral; 3)vowels and semivowels; 4) consonants; 5) nouns; 6) articles; 7) adjectives; 8) personal and possessive pronouns and adjectives; 9) "Other PronounsandAdjectives "; 10)"Verbs: Forms"; 11) "SpecialVerbs"; 12) "Verbs: Syntax"; and 13) "Other Parts ofSpeech and SyntacticalObservations ,"aswell asreadingselections. Thelastchapter (259-99) contains the following texts, approximately arranged in orderofincreasingdifficulty: l)Aisoson lasnaturasd'alcusouzels ed'alcunasbestias; 2)Aiso es la revelatio queDieufeasantPaulet asantMiqueldelapenasdesyferns;3)BarlaametJosaphat;4)Vida Reviews161 de la benaurada sancta Doucelina; 5, 6, and 7) the vidas and razos ofUc de Saint Cire, Raimbaut de Vaqueiras [one wonderswhy it is spelled Raimbaut, which is contrary to the rules formulated in par. 3.51, and Guillem de la Tor; 8) Raimon Vidal's Razos de trobar,9)Sordello'sEnsenhamend'onor, 10)MatfreErmengaud's Breviarid'amors [whynot quote from the new edition byPeter T. Ricketts?]; and 11)Boecis [whynot quote, instead offrom Crescini's Manuale, from the more recent edition by René Lavaud and Georges Machicot?]. There is a "Glossaryto theReading Selections ' (301-49, unfortunatelywithout text references). The publication closeswith aselectivebibliography, groupedaccordingto the Old Occitan language in general and to points corresponding to specific chapters ofthe Primerand a "Selected Index ofTerms andConcepts' . Anexcellentideaisthe composition,attheendof eachgrammatical chapter, ofa numberofexercisesofphonological transcriptions, morphological identifications and transformations , and even fill-ins, towhich solutions aregiven onpp. 249-58. A special mention should also be made of Nathaniel B. Smith's article "The Normalization ofOld Provençal Spelling", in which Smith convincinglyjustifies the choices made in thePrimerre: the interpretation of certain Old Occitan orthographical features. Obviously, aworklike this one is an easytargetfor criticism; therefore-especially given the present space limits-a discussion ofstatements which lend themselves to an observationwill not be attempted here. However, the use of the term "Old Provençal" must be discussed. The authors state (6) that "the unqualified termOPwilldesignatethetroubadours'koine" (6),inaccordance with their chronology (2), according towhich they call the period ofca. 800to ca. 1000"EarlyProvençal," andthatofca. 1000to ca. 1350 "Old Provençal (OP)." This is in contradiction with the statement on the same page that Occitan "is not, as sometimes alleged,arecentneologism,butratherisfirstattestedaround1300 under the form occitanus, a crossing ofoc and aquitanus 'Aquitanian '." The use ofthe termProvençalis allthe lesscomprehensible since the authors stress (7) that thetroubadourkoine points "toa more centralgeographicalbasis, namelyLanguedoc. Itnow seems probable that the territory bounded approximately by the major cities of Toulouse, Cahors, Rodez, Montpellier, Béziers, andNarbonne,thesourceofamajorityoftheearlydocumentsand much ofthe literary tradition, also provided the base ofthe troubadour 'skoine [yes,buthowthenmustthephenomenonGuilhem IXbeexplained?]andofanadministrativekoineiftherewasone." 162Reviews Especially since Languedoc seems indeed to be the linguistic "eye" ofthis medieval language, the term "Old Provençal" is out ofplace: WilliamD.Paden has adoptedthe onlypossible solution bycallinghisforthcomingpublicationIntroductiontoOldOccitan. Theterm"OldProvençal inthebookunderreviewisallthemore surprisingsinceingeneraltheauthorsarequite "modern,"e.g.,in taking socio-linguistic levels into consideration (6), by using the voweltrapezoid (28),andbydistinguishingbetweenphonological, {ihonetic,andscribalfeatures, etc. Theonlyobservationaboutthe inguisticpartworthwhilementioninghereisthefactthattheword formation (240-46) is listed in chap. 13 under "Other Parts of Speechand SyntacticalObservations," a classificationwhichis, to say the least, an unsatisfactory solution: a special chapter on the Old Occitan lexicon should have found a place in this ambitious Primer (the...