Cover not available
Article published In:
Journal of Historical Pragmatics
Vol. 23:1 (2022) ► pp.1–28

The subjunctive in Renaissance French

An exploratory study through personal correspondence

ORCID logo

The aim of this study was to explore why the subjunctive, despite its lack of modal productivity, might persist in French. I argue that the subjunctive is a modally void fossil, persisting due to repeated usage following highly entrenched constructions. The focus here is on the behaviour of the subjunctive in Renaissance French, specifically in the sixteenth and early-seventeenth centuries. Content analysis of personal correspondence identified the real subjunctive usage that lies beneath the French polish applied by standardisation. Through analysis of the structures that trigger the subjunctive in complement clause environments, I explore the grammatical behaviour of the subjunctive. The subjunctive was routinised after regularly occurring verbal and non-verbal constructions, strengthening the subjunctive’s position in certain complement clause environments. This study has diachronic importance in identifying which salient forms might persist in French. There are insights into the behaviour – perhaps the foundations – of the subjunctive paradigm in French as it stands today.

Keywords: complement clauses, correspondence, French, subjunctive, language change, mood, Renaissance French
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
    • 1.1The situation at hand
    • 1.2Theoretical framework and background
    • 1.3This study
  • 2.Method
  • 3.Results
    • 3.1Overview of subjunctive-triggering constructions
      • 3.1.1Jean Calvin
      • 3.1.2Marguerite de Valois
      • 3.1.3Catherine de Bourbon
      • 3.1.4Michel de Montaigne
      • 3.1.5Overall trigger distribution
    • 3.2Cross-data similarities
      • 3.2.1Non-verbal triggers
      • 3.2.2Verbal triggers
    • 3.3Other observations
      • 3.3.1Present participle and gerund triggers
      • 3.3.2Context dependency of the subjunctive in complement clauses
  • 4.Discussion
    • 4.1Limitations
  • 5.Conclusion
  • Note
  • References
Published online: 26 September 2022
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/jhp.18009.eis
References (38)
Académie Française
1933 Grammaire de l’Académie Française [‘ Grammar of the Académy Française ’]. Paris: Firmin-Didot.Google Scholar
Ayres-Bennett, Wendy
2006 A History of the French Language through Texts. London and New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Berg, Thomas
2014 “On the Relationship between Type and Token Frequency”. Journal of Quantitative Linguistics 21 (3): 199–222. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bescherelle, Cécile Dubé, Hélène Guérard and Suzanne Teasdale
2013 La grammaire pour tous: dictionnaire de la grammaire en 27 chapitres, index des difficultés grammaticales [‘ Grammar for Everyone: A Dictionary of Grammar in 27 Chapters, Index of Grammatical Difficulties ’]. Montréal: Hurtubise.Google Scholar
Biber, Douglas
1995 Dimensions of Register Variation: A Cross-Linguistic Comparison. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bybee, Joan
2002 “Main Clauses are Innovative, Subordinate Clauses are Conservative”. In Michael Noonan and Joan L. Bybee (eds), Complex Sentences in Grammar and Discourse: Essays in Honor of Sandra A. Thompson, 1–17. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bybee, Joan L., Revere D. Perkins and William Pagliuca
1994 The Evolution of Grammar: Tense, Aspect, and Modality in the Languages of the World. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Bybee, Joan and Sandra Thompson
1997 “Three Frequency Effects in Syntax”. The Annual Proceedings of the Berkeley Linguistics Society: Proceedings of the Twenty-Third Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society. General Session and Parasession on Pragmatics and Grammatical Structure (1997), pp. 378–388. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Calvin, Jean and Françoise Bonali-Fiquet
1991 Lettres a monsieur et madame de Falais [‘ Letters to Monsieur and Madame de Falais ’]. Genève: Droz.Google Scholar
Canut, Cécile and Gudrun Ledegen
1998 “Après que… ou la fluctuation des modes en français parlé” [‘After which… or the Fluctuation of Mood in Spoken French’]”. Langage et Société [‘ Language and Society ’] 851: 25–53. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Chevalier, Jean Claude
1982 Grammaire Larousse du Français contemporain [‘ Larousse Grammar of Contemporary French ’]. Paris: Larousse.Google Scholar
Coffman Crocker, Mary E.
2014 Schaum’s Outline of French Grammar. New York: McGraw-Hill Contemporary Learning.Google Scholar
Cohen, Marcel
1960 Le subjonctif en Francais contemporain: tableau documentaire [‘ The Subjunctive in Contemporary French: A Documentary Table ’]. Paris: Sedes.Google Scholar
Damar, Marie-Ève and Laurent Fourny
2015 “Subjonctif ou indicatif?. Étude synchronique des fluctuations des jugements d’acceptabilité: analyse et perspectives” [‘Subjunctive or Indicative? A Synchronic Study of Acceptability Judgements: Analysis and Perspectives’]. Pratiques. Linguistique, littérature, didactique 167–1681: 1–18. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Dreer, Igor
2007 Expressing the Same by the Different: The Subjunctive in French. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Elspass, Stephan
2012 “The Use of Private Letters and Diaries in Sociolinguistic Investigation”. In Juan Manuel Hernández Campoy and Juan Camilo Conde Silvestre (eds), The Handbook of Historical Sociolinguistics, 156–169. Chichester, West Sussex, UK and Malden, Massachusetts: Wiley-Blackwell. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Evans, Mel
2017 “Royal Language and Reported Discourse in Sixteenth-Century Correspondence”. Journal of Historical Pragmatics 18 (1): 30–57. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Fidelhotlz, James L.
1975 “Word Frequency and Vowel Reduction in English”. Chicago Linguistic Society 111: 200–213.Google Scholar
Grevisse, Maurice and André Goosse
2011 Le bon usage: grammaire française [‘ Correct Usage: French Grammar ’]. Bruxelles: De Boeck Duculot.Google Scholar
Hawkins, Roger, Richard Towell and Marie-Noëlle Lamy
2015 French Grammar and Usage. London and New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Hickey, Raymond
2019 “Mining Emigrant Correspondence for Linguistic Insights”. In Raymond Hickey (ed.), Keeping in Touch: Emigrant Letters across the English-Speaking World, pp. 1–24. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Howard, Martin
2012 “From Tense and Aspect to Modality: The Acquisition of Future, Conditional and Subjunctive Morphology in L2 French: A Preliminary Study”. In Emmanuelle Labeau and Inès Saddour (eds), Tense, Aspect and Mood in First and Second Language Acquisition, 201–223. Amsterdam and New York: Rodopi.Google Scholar
Koch, Peter and Wulf Oesterreicher
1985 “Sprache der Nähe – Sprache der Distanz. Mündlichkeit und Schriftlichkeit im Spannungsfeld von Sprachtheorie und Sprachgeschichte” [‘Language of Proximity – Language of Distance. Orality and Writing in the Field of Tension between Language Theory and Language History’]. In Herausgegeben von Olaf Deutschmann, Hans Flasche, Bernhard König, Margot Kruse, Walter Pabst and Wolf-Dieter Stempel (eds), Romanistisches Jahrbuch, pp. 15–43. (Volume 361.) Berlin and New York: De Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lamiroy, Béatrice
2018 Linguistique historique et linguistique comparée, même combat? [‘ Historical Linguistics and Comparative Linguistics, the Same Combat? ’]. Paris: Classiques Garnier.Google Scholar
Loengarov, Alexander
2006 L’alternance indicatif/subjonctif dans les langues romanes. Motivation sémantico-pragmatique et grammaticalisation [‘ Indicative/Subjunctive Alternation in Romance languages: Semantic–Pragmatic Motivation and Grammaticalization ’]. Leuven: Katholieke Universiteit Leuven.Google Scholar
Mévil, Sainte-Marie and Ernest De Fréville
1857 “Lettres inédites de Catherine de Bourbon, princesse de Navarre, recueillies par Ernest de Fréville (premier article)” [‘Unpublished Letters of Catherine de Bourbon, Princess of Navarre, Collected by Ernest de Fréville (first article)’]. Bibliothèque de l’école des chartes 181: 127–152. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
de Montaigne, Michel and Félix Sébastien Feuillet de Conches
1863 Lettres inédites de Michel de Montaigne et de quelques autres personnages du XVIe siècle [‘ Unpublished Letters of Michel de Montaigne and Other Notables of the XVI Century ’]. Edited by F. Feuillet de Conches. Paris: Henri Plon.Google Scholar
Nevalainen, Terttu and Helena Raumolin-Brunberg
1996 Sociolinguistics and Language History: Studies Based on the Corpus of Early English Correspondence. Amsterdam: Rodopi.Google Scholar
Poplack, Shana
1992 “The Inherent Variability of the French Subjunctive”. In Christiane Laeufer and Terrell A. Morgan (eds), Theoretical Analyses in Romance Linguistics: Selected Papers from the 19th Linguistic Symposium on Romance Languages (LSRL XIX) 21–23 April 1989 Ohio State University. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2001 “Variability, Frequency, and Productivity in the Irrealis Domain of French”. Typological Studies in Language 451: 405–430. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Poplack, Shana, Rena Torres Cacoullos, Nathalie Dion, Rosane de Andrade Berlinck, Salvatore Digesto, Dora Lacasse and Jonathan Steuk
2018 “Variation and Grammaticalization in Romance: A Cross-Linguistic Study of the Subjunctive”. In Wendy Ayres-Bennett and Janice Carruthers (eds), Manual of Romance Sociolinguistics, 217–252. Berlin, Munich and Boston: de Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Poplack, Shana, Allison Lealess and Nathalie Dion
2013 “The Evolving Grammar of the French Subjunctive”. International Journal of Latin and Romance Linguistics 25 (1): 139–195. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Raumolin-Brunberg, Helena and Terttu Nevalainen
2007 “Historical Sociolinguistics: The Corpus of Early English Correspondence”. In Joan C. Beal, Karen P. Corrigan and Hermann L. Moisl (eds), Creating and Digitizing Language Corpora, 148–171. London: Palgrave Macmillan. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Reppen, Randi, Susan M. Fitzmaurice and Douglas Biber
2002 Using Corpora to Explore Linguistic Variation. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Sergeeva, Evgeniya and Jean-Pierre Chevrot
2012 “The Acquisition of French Verbal Tenses by Russian Adult Learners: Stem Alternation and Frequency Effect”. In Emmanuelle Labeau and Inès Saddour (eds), Tense, Aspect and Mood in First and Second Language Acquisition, 179–200. Amsterdam and New York: Rodopi.Google Scholar
de Valois, Marguerite
1886 Lettres inédites, tirées de la Bibliothèque Impériale de Saint-Pétersbourg [‘ Unpublished Letters Taken from the Imperial Public Library of Saint Petersburg ’]. Paris: H. Champion.Google Scholar
Varvaro, Alberto
2013 “Sociology of the Romance Languages”. In Martin Maiden, John Charles Smith and Adam Ledgeway (eds), The Cambridge History of the Romance Languages, 335–360. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Winters, Margaret E.
1989 “Diachronic Prototype Theory: On the Evolution of the French Subjunctive”. Linguistics 27 (4): 703–730. DOI logoGoogle Scholar