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Chapitre D'ouvrage Année : 2018

Increase of pronominal subjects in Old French : Evidence for a starting-point in Late Latin

Résumé

In Modern French, the expression of the subject is mandatory, except in a few cases (including direct coordination between verbs). This situation strongly distinguishes French from the other Romance languages, and also from Latin. This results from a major evolution which French has gone through, as is evi- denced by Old French, a state of language during which null subjects were far more frequent than they are in Modern French. Studies have generally been focused on the decrease of null subjects, and on the simultaneous increase of pronominal subjects (personal pronouns) from Old French onwards. Less attention has been paid to the transition between Latin and Old French. However, some clues of this evolution may be traced as far back as Latin, and explain some disparities in the development of pronomi- nal subjects in Old French. In this study, I will analyse the growing use of personal pronouns in Old French, considering Latin as a starting point, and relying for this on several corpora, among which a bilingual Latin–Old French corpus. The study first surveys some specificities of Latin, namely the conditions under which 1st and 2nd person pronouns were expressed, as well as how Latin made up for the absence of 3rd person pronouns. Then it provides an overview of the situation in Old French, a time at which the paradigm of personal pronouns was completed, and highlight the skewing in the distribution of overt pronouns according to the verbal person. It thereafter turns back to Latin to search for some early signs of this evolution. Finally, relying on a bilingual Latin–Old French corpus, it addresses the issue of the translation of Latin personal pro- nouns in Old French, as well as that of Latin ille, a demonstrative pronoun from which the Old French 3rd personal pronoun il originates.
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Dates et versions

hal-04006084 , version 1 (27-02-2023)

Identifiants

  • HAL Id : hal-04006084 , version 1

Citer

Sophie Prévost. Increase of pronominal subjects in Old French : Evidence for a starting-point in Late Latin. Anne Carlier, Céline Guillot. Latin tardif - français ancien : continuités et ruptures, De Gruyter, pp.171-200, 2018, 978-3-11-048963-7. ⟨hal-04006084⟩
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