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Article published In:
Diachronica
Vol. 37:3 (2020) ► pp.273–317

Language sources and the reconstruction of early languages

Sociolinguistic discrepancies and evolution in Old French grammar

| The University of Texas at Austin | Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics Nijmegen
This article argues that with the original emphasis on dialectal variation, using primarily literary texts from various regions, analysis of Old French has routinely neglected social variation, providing an incomplete picture of its grammar. Accordingly, Old French has been identified as typically featuring e.g. “pro-drop”, brace constructions, and single negation. Yet examination of these features in informal texts, as opposed to the formal texts typically dealt with, demonstrates that these documents do not corroborate the picture of Old French that is commonly presented in the linguistic literature. Our reconstruction of Old French grammar therefore needs adjustment and further refinement, in particular by implementing sociolinguistic data. With a broader scope, the call for inclusion of sociolinguistic variation may resonate in the investigation of other early languages, resulting in the reassessment of the sources used, and reopening the debate about social variation in dead languages and its role in language evolution.
Keywords: social stratification, Old French, Latin, language change in early languages, negation, brace constructions, analytic verb forms, null subject, subject pronoun, pro-drop
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Recent research into social variation in Latin
  • 3.The “reconstruction” of Old French: Sources and language varieties
    • 3.1Grammars of dead languages: Sources
    • 3.2Varieties of Old French in the linguistic literature
    • 3.3“Informal” language
  • 4.The “reconstruction” of Old French grammar: Literary texts
    • 4.1Single negation
    • 4.2Subject pronouns: “Pro-drop”
      • 4.2.1La vie de St. Alexis
      • 4.2.2La chanson de Roland
      • 4.2.3La conqueste de Constantinople
    • 4.3Brace constructions
    • 4.4Preliminary conclusion: The “reconstruction” of Old French grammar
  • 5.Informal Old French: The Lapidaire en prose and the Gospels
    • 5.1Negation
    • 5.2Subject pronouns
    • 5.3Brace constructions in decline
  • 6.Conclusions
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • Abbreviations
  • References
Published online: 15 July 2020
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/dia.18026.bau
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