Middle French Research Articles

The distribution of non, nenny and non fait in Pre-Classical and Classical French

Abstract The aim of this study is to track the evolution in the use of the markers nenny, non + verb (non fait ‘no, it doesn’t’) and non in its absolute use between the middle of the 15th century and the end of the 18th. In Middle French, non already covers all the uses of the old markers nenny and non fait, but it remains in the minority. In Pre-Classical French (1550–1650), the frequency of nenny and non fait decreases considerably and, in Classical French (1650–1789), they become archaic. In the mid-17th century, non definitively assumes the functions of the medieval markers, which disappeared. The analysis of the temporal distribution of these markers helps to date the transition from ancient to modern uses. Several studies of phonetic, morphological and syntactic phenomena have also aimed to date the turning point between the medieval and the “classical” language, which occurs during the so-called “pre-classical” period. This research also seeks to contribute to the debate on the position of the boundary between Pre-Classical and Classical French on the basis of pragmatic criteria. The results support placing this boundary within the decade 1620–1630, as other studies did for morphosyntactic phenomena.

Une ancienne dénomination du puits absorbant figée dans la microtoponymie de la Haute-Saône : les Anduits (Lavigney, Malvillers et Melin)

Abstract Les Anduits, the name of a territory comprising parts of three Haute-Saône villages (Lavigney, Malvillers, and Melin), is the sole example of its type in French toponymy. Examination of the area leads us to postulate an Old Franc-Comtois (or Regional Middle French) *enduit ‘dry well’, nominalisation of the past participle of Old and Middle French enduire ‘seep in the ground (of water)’. This formation is parallel to the suffixal derivative ˹enduisoir˺ ‘dry well’, which is formed from the present participle stem of the same verb and is abundantly attested in the northern part of Franche-Comté (lexicon and microtoponymy).

Infinitive fronting as a transparency effect in Old and Middle French

In this article, we present a novel analysis of infinitive fronting in Old and Middle French (9th-16th century). We find that in sentences with modal verbs and clitic climbing, the infinitive may either follow the main verb or precede it. When the subject of the main verb is overt and the infinitive is fronted, the order is Subj-Vinf-Vfin. Moreover, we find that the object of the fronted infinitive either cliticises onto the main verb (i.e. clitic climbing) or moves as a full DP with the infinitive, in which case the order is Subj-Obj-Vinf-Vfin. We compare our data to Stylistic Fronting, and we show that infinitive fronting in Old and Middle French is a different mechanism. Our analysis takes infinitive fronting to be vP-movement to Spec,TP, an operation which patterns alongside other Transparency Effects. Therefore, infinitive fronting provides further evidence for monoclausal restructuring in earlier French.

Multilingual glossing and translanguaging in John of Garland’s Dictionarius: The case of Bruges, Public Library, MS 536

Based on an edition of the multilingual glosses, this paper investigates a copy of John of Garland’s Dictionarius extant in Bruges, Public Library, MS 536. This copy, written around AD 1300, perhaps in the vicinity of Bruges, includes some 800 interlinear glosses in Latin, Middle French and Middle English. The glosses target the lexicon and also basic Latin grammar. The linguistic characteristics of the glosses indicate that at least some of the glossators were competent in French as well as in English. Many of the lexemes of the French glosses are attested as loanwords in early Middle English; moreover, there are at least 30 instances of double glosses with French and English. As such, we argue that the glossators used “translanguaging” as a didactic strategy, and that the manuscript may have been created, for instance, for English students planning to study in Paris.

Stylistic Syntax of the Middle French Poetical Literary Composition

Stylistic Syntax of the Middle French Poetical Literary Composition

The "autopsy" enigma: etymology, related terms and unambiguous alternatives.

The concerted use of Greek-derived medical terms in the present day allows us to facilitate effective communication while honouring the historic roots of Western medicine. The word autopsy derives from its third century B.C. Hellenistic Greek etymon αὐτοψία ("to see for oneself"), later borrowed into Neo-Latin as autopsia and Middle French as autopsie. Throughout its etymological journey, autopsie underwent semantic narrowing from the passive sense "self-inspection of something without touching", to a purposeful action by an operator performing "an examination of the human body itself", to specifically "dissection of a dead human body". These curious turning points for the meaning of autopsie produced an auto-antonym: the same word now has multiple meanings, of which one is the reverse of another. The French autopsie used in the latter sense predates that documented for the English autopsy (attested 1829). Since the early nineteenth century, attempts were made to remedy the discrepancy between conflicting senses either by adding determining adjectives to the existing noun, or by substituting it with another word altogether. This review explores the etymological journey of autopsy, considers which related terms have been popularised throughout history, introduces the concept of lexical ambiguity and suggests unambiguous English compound (necropsy and necrotomy) and Latin-derived (non-invasive and invasive postmortem examination) alternatives to satisfy a recent appetite for clarity in international professional and next-of-kin communication.

Variantes d’éditeurs et évolution syntaxique au XVIe siècle

Abstract This article sheds light on the linguistic modifications found in nine successive sixteenth-century editions from Paris and Lyon of the anonymous prose version of La Belle Hélène de Constantinople. Particular focus will be placed on aspects of syntactic revision, such as subject-verb inversion in declaratives, placement of object pronouns, introduction of embedded clauses and separation of relative clauses from their antecedents. After a presentation of the textual tradition, linguistic variants will be examined in light of previous studies on Middle and Preclassical French, and then compared with data found in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century grammars. It is in prints from the second half of the sixteenth century that one tends to find linguistic variants that became predominant and spread. This confirms the hypothesis of a global linguistic change in the middle of the sixteenth century, which allowed the frontier between Middle French and Preclassical French to shift at that time. Corpora comprising various successive editions of the same text thus make it possible to observe and date phenomena of linguistic evolution and offer a window into the editorial habits concerning the language. They make it easier to see how the process of language standardisation was linked to the development of printing.

Le morphème d’insistance meismes en moyen français dans les oeuvres de Christine de Pizan – valeurs et emplois

Meismes, the morpheme of insistence in Middle French on the basis of Christine de Pizan’s works ‒ values and modes of use The aim of the present article is to analyze the functioning of the meismes morpheme in Middle French, on the basis of Christine de Pizan’s works, above all the attempt to define and arrange the contexts of occurence of its particular paradigms in the language that demonstrates the features of a hybrid system. The analysis of occurences containing the meismes morpheme shows a co-existence of defensive constructions known in Ancient French altogether with the new, more numerous ones. The use of the meismes morpheme is characterized by a strong regularity and a consequence of applying analogical structures, which constitutes a piece of evidence that the system stabilizes, and even codifies itself.

MOTIVATIONAL FEATURES OF THE LINGUOCULTURAL CONCEPT TEXTILE IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE

The article is dedicated to the investigation of the motivational features of the linguocultural concept TEXTILE in the English language. The investigation has been done within the framework of the cognitive scientific paradigm, namely, linguoconceptology and linguoculturology. Despite the large number of researches devoted to the study of motivational features of concepts in the English language, it should be admitted that the concept of TEXTILE still has not been properly investigated. According to the fact that the motivational features are understood as the internal form of the word, etymological analysis based on the comparative-historical method was used to identify them. The research was based on etymological dictionaries, general explanatory dictionaries of the English language and dictionaries of textile terminology. An etymological study of the English lexeme ‘textile’ revealed that its original form was a derivative from a Pre-Indo-European root meaning “to weave”. As a result of the study of the etymological dictionaries entries of the English language, 7 main motivational features of the studied concept were identified, namely: ‘canvas’, ‘cloth’, ‘fabric’, ‘texture’, ‘tissue', ‘web’ and ‘woven’. The source of the aforementioned English lexemes was both Germanic and Romance languages. Three of these lexemes come from Old French, namely ‘canvas’, ‘fabric’ and ‘tissue’; English lexemes ‘cloth’, ‘web’ and ‘weave (woven)’ come from Proto-Germanic; and the lexeme ‘texture’ is derived from Middle French. There is also a gradual increase in the volume of the concept structure due to the emergence of new components that reflect the current understanding of the concept under study. The prospect of the research is seen in further investigation of the verbalised concept of TEXTILE in the English language.

Dante’s Hell in Middle French: Between Respect for the Source and Ambitions of the Translator

This paper focuses on the most ancient French translation of Dante’s Inferno known to this day (Torino, BNU, L.III.17). More specifically, this article studies the first six cantos. The translation is analysed with consideration to three aspects. Firstly, it is compared to the contemporaneous translations to Middle French, between the 15th and 16th centuries, with a focus on methods, conceptualisation of translation, and translators’ goals. Secondly, the Enfer is studied as a translation of Dante’s work by describing the translator’s strategies towards their source. Several linguistic elements are thus discussed, which manifest a will to remain true to the original work, nuanced by some translating mechanisms that show the opposite behaviour. Thirdly, the translation is studied as a literary object per se, through an analysis of stylistic elements that the translator kept or introduced. These three aspects allow a global judgment of the text and highlight its qualities, which will need to be extended to the whole Enfer.

Vanitas in the Middle French Novel “Chevalier Errant” by Tommaso Saluzzo (the evolution of the “Knight’s Code of Honor” in the XIV century)

Vanitas in the Middle French Novel “Chevalier Errant” by Tommaso Saluzzo (the evolution of the “Knight’s Code of Honor” in the XIV century)

Pizan, Christine de. "The God of Love's Letter" and "The Tale of the Rose": A Bilingual edition eds. and trans. by Thelma S. Fenster and Christine Reno

Reviewed by: Pizan, Christine de. "The God of Love's Letter" and "The Tale of the Rose": A Bilingual editioneds. and trans. by Thelma S. Fenster and Christine Reno Ashley Holt Pizan, Christine de. "The God of Love's Letter" and "The Tale of the Rose": A Bilingual edition. Eds. and trans. Thelma S. Fenster and Christine Reno. With Jean Gerson's "A Poem on Man and Woman."Thomas O'Donnell. Trans. Foreword by Jocelyn Wogan-Browne. The Toronto Series, 79. Iter Press, 2021. Pp [xiii]- 209. ISBN 978-1-64959-006-0. $41.95 (paper). ISBN 978-1-64959-007-7. $41.95 (eBook). In this volume, respected Christine de Pizan scholars Thelma S. Fenster and Christine Reno provide meticulously translated editions of Christine de Pizan's poems " The God of Love's Letter" [ Epistre au Dieu d'amours] and " The Tale of the Rose" [ La Dit de la Rose]. The text's generous introduction covers Christine's work as a defender of women and public figure—in particular, her participation in the Querelle de la Rose. Brief descriptions of the manuscripts consulted are given and editorial policies are explained. Thomas O'Donnell similarly introduces his translation of Jean Gerson's poem "A Poem on Man and Woman"—included at the end of this volume as an example of the misogyny of "official" Church doctrine. This includes general background to Christine's adoption and use of the language of "natural law" as a methodical push back against systemic misogynism. Fenster and Reno's creation of "genetic presentations" of "The God of Love's Letter" and "The Tale of the Rose" is noteworthy. Based on the earliest extant manuscripts of each poem, their editions attempt to trace Christine's editorial changes to the texts over time. This is accomplished through translation notes, historical background, notes on Christine's literary influences, and rejected readings and spelling variants of the various extant manuscripts. Fenster follows in Christine's footsteps: reworking earlier versions of translations she wrote with Mary Carpenter Erler in their 1990 work, Poems of Cupid, God of Love. The modern English translations of Christine's poems are a pleasure to read. While it slightly diverts attention from the original verse, the English facing translations are helpful for those who do not read Middle French. The choice to translate Christine's verse into prose, rather than preserving its rhyme scheme, faithfully preserves the meaning of the original Middle French. Textual notes following each poem illuminate the translators' word choices as well the historical and literary influences that play a role in Christine's work. O'Donnell's translation of Gerson's "A Poem on Man and Woman" is an interesting addition to the end of this volume as an example of the entrenched misogyny and complex system of social and political inequality that inspired Christine's work. However, this poem's placement at the end of the text feels like something of an afterthought, rather than a conversation with Christine's poems. Fenster and Reno bring together their considerable expertise to contextualize two of Christine's earliest works championing women framed against her engagement in the infamous Querelle. There is little new material in the introduction for Christine specialists. However, Fenster and Reno's carefully [End Page 198]curated content would be ideal for students and independent scholars, either of French literature or women's and gender studies, looking to increase their depth of understanding of Christine as a writer, intellectual, editor, participant in scholastic debate, and public defender of women. The bilingual format, guide to reading Christine's poetry, and translator's notes make this text invaluable for use in both undergraduate and graduate courses. Ashley Holt Louisiana State University Copyright © 2022 Women in French Studies

Synchronic and diachronic analysis of prepositional multiword modifiers across Romance languages

Abstract Lexicological and lexicographical studies on multiword expressions in Romance languages have significantly increased in recent years. Even though some attention has been paid to Multiwords functioning as adjectives and adverbs, the structural and the functional relation between them has not been clarified yet. Employing both a qualitative and quantitative approach, this corpus-based investigation aims at exploring the diatopic distribution and the evolution of Romance multiword lexemes having the form of a prepositional phrase and the function of an adjective or/and an adverb (or both functions). According to data taken from corpora of Latin, Old Italian, Old Spanish and Middle French, this contribution investigates the relationship between the different degrees of schematicity and the productivity of this kind of multiword lexemes in order to highlight the evolutional path and the diachronic/diatopic principles engaged in the multiword modifying system across the different Romance languages taken into consideration.

Rubriche e immagini negli incunaboli della “Danse Macabré” di Parigi

This article discusses the rubrics introducing the characters in the incunables of the middle French Danse Macabre. These rubrics are not a part of the original text, but of a paratext added later during the transmission of the originally hybrid work of art, which was based on the fusion of text and image. This study shows that the distribution of the variants in the rubrics is strictly related to the particularities of the dissemination of the Danse Macabre. The rubrics in the printed tradition are compared to those in the extant manuscripts transmitting the same text; text-image relations are also taken into account. In particular, the study of the rubrics allows to see that the influence of the iconographic elements on the text changes significantly with the passage of the Danse Macabre from manuscript to print.

The Development of Exceptional Case Marking in Romance with a Particular Focus on French

Abstract This paper traces the development of so-called Exceptional Case Marking (ECM) under perception, permissive and causative verbs in Romance. Synchronically, we can observe various patterns in the distribution of ECM complements under these verbs. In Portuguese and Spanish, ECM is often possible under all permissive and causative verbs, whereas in French, Catalan and Italian it is usually restricted to perception and permissive verbs. A detail that has not been much discussed is the fact that, for many speakers, ECM with a given verb is often restricted to contexts in which the embedded ‘subject’ is a clitic. Some speakers of Modern French display this pattern with the verb faire ‘make’, for example (Abeillé, Anne, Danièle Godard & Philip Miller. 1997. Les causatives en français : Un cas de compétition syntaxique. Langue Française 115. 62–74. https://doi.org/10.3406/lfr.1997.6222). In this paper, I claim that laisser ‘let’ probably also displayed this pattern in Middle French. In Old French, however, what appears to be the opposite pattern is observed. Following (Pearce, Elizabeth. 1990. Parameters in Old French syntax: Infinitival complements. Dordrecht: Kluwer), I attribute this to the morphological variability of dative case in Old French. I propose a case-based analysis of the clitic ECM pattern, whereby ECM complements in Romance are phases unlike clause union complements (see Sheehan, Michelle & Sonia Cyrino. 2018. Why do some ECM verbs resist passivisation? A phase-based explanation. In Sherry Hucklebridge & Max Nelson (eds.), Proceedings of NELS 48 (vol 3), 81–90. University of Massachusetts). Where such complements are embedded under light verbs, the Phase Impenetrability Condition (Chomsky, Noam. 2001. Derivation by phase. In Michael Kenstowicz (ed.), Ken hale: A life in language, 1–52. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press) prevents accusative case from being assigned to the lower subject except in instances of cliticization. When the matrix verb is reanalysed as a full verb, however, v becomes the case-assigning head and so ECM becomes generally available, regardless of the clitic/non-clitic status of the causee.

Cinquante ans d’études sur le moyen français dans les pays nordiques (1965-2015)

The article is a survey of the research done on Middle French (MF) in the Nordic countries during the period 1965-2015, a time of fruitful scholarship in that area. It starts with an examination of the use of the term Middle French in Nordic research, seldom used until the 1980s. The three subchapters concern a) text editions, b) literary research and c) linguistic studies. The twenty-one text editions published during those fifty years represent hagiographies and miracles, technical cynegetic and military treatises and inter- and intralingual translations. Literary research is scarce; not a single monograph entirely devoted to MF literature was published. The Danish journal “Revue Romane” is the publication responsible for the biggest amount of literary research, including reviews of recent publications. The linguistic subchapter presents monographs and other studies, representing diachronic and synchronic research. The first Nordic monograph on MF is Ulla Jokinen’s Les relatives en moyen français (1978), which can be considered as the pioneer of MF linguistic research in Northern Europe. The central name in diachronic research is Lene Schøsler, whose studies often deal with the entire history of the French language since its Latin origins. Among the various topics in synchronic research, one can especially mention the studies concerning translations and translation techniques. The contribution of Nordic scholars to MF research has been quite considerable, but this may no longer be the case in the future, since academic teaching and thus also research is more and more limited to contemporary French.

A History of One Doublet: the Pair Dîme and Décime in Middle French

A History of One Doublet: the Pair Dîme and Décime in Middle French

Root morphemes of greek-latin origin in the process of contamination

In the article the author analyzes unique iterative fragments in the complex of contaminated words of the French language, which have a stable character and regularly repeat in the words of different denotative attributions. In the role of iterative fragments the word-forming root morphemes of Greek-Latin origin, word-formants, isolated from the fragments of full-valued words, which are merged as a result of deliberate or spontaneous truncation in the process of contamination, are also used in the contamination. An important factor, as the author notes, is that Greek-Latin formants, being involved in the process of contamination, act as one of the components in combination with another component-a fragment of a truncated full-valued word, and become components of the original compound word, the meaning of which they represent. Observations and significant conclusions are contained in V.M. Leichik's article called «About a non-researched way of word composition in modern French» (1966)which investigates historical roots of French words composing and describes contamination in diachronic aspect in old and middle French. Thus, the appearance of contaminated units is associated with the need to strengthen the semantics of words that exist in the language, give the neoplasms a peculiar, ambiguous charge of semantic capacity, replenish the language with stylistically brightly colored words that express a whole range of connotative signs.

New Light on Early Middle English Borrowing from Anglo-Norman: Investigating Kinship Terms in grand‑

Abstract It is well known that the set of kinship terms in Middle English showed considerable influence from French. In the case of aunt and uncle, this accompanied major restructuring of the system of kinship terms, as the Old English set of four distinct terms for paternal and maternal uncles and aunts were replaced by just two terms for ‘uncle’ and ‘aunt’, regardless of whether paternal or maternal. In comparison, the words for ‘grandfather’ and ‘grandmother’ have attracted little attention, as their story has appeared simpler: Old English had words for ‘grandfather’ and ‘grandmother’, irrespective of whether paternal or maternal, and so did Middle English. The terms are also similar in structure, with native terms in which words for ‘father’ or ‘mother’ are the head and eald ‘old’ is the modifier (whether in a compound or a phrasal structure) being replaced by borrowed terms (grandsire, granddame) or hybrid terms (grandfather, grandmother) in which French grand ‘big’ is the modifier. This paper shows that behind this apparently simple story there lurk some significant complications which point to considerable disruption and instability in the terms for ‘grandfather’ and ‘grandmother’ in both Middle English and French (with interesting and perhaps significant parallels also in other West Germanic languages). Consideration of these complications also casts new light on early lexical borrowing into Middle English from Anglo-Norman.

Law, Policy, and the Social Construction of Disaster

Emerging in the English language during the 1590s, the etymological origins of the word “disaster” are found in désastre from Middle French (1560s) and disastro from Italian, meaning “ill-starred,” with “dis-,” a pejorative and “astro” meaning “star” or “planet”—from the Latin astrum and from the Greek ástron. The notion was of “an unfavorable aspect of a star or planet,” a “malevolent astral influence,” or a “calamity blamed on an unfavorable position of a planet.”