The influence of French on Middle English syntax

Transcription

DGfS 2014: AG6 „Language in Historical Contact situations
(LHC): diagnostics for grammatical replication“ (Carola Trips,
Richard Ingham, Achim Stein)
The influence of French on
Middle English syntax
Julia Schultz
7/3/2014
Agenda
I.
II.
III.
IV.
V.
Previous research on the impact of
French on Middle English syntax
The research question and
methodology of the present study
The linguistic situation in medieval
Britain
The position of the adjective in Old
French and Middle English
Conclusion
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The influence of French on Middle
English syntax– Julia Schultz
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1. Previous research on the impact of
French on Middle English syntax
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Previous research on the impact
of French on Middle English
syntax
French influence on
 English phrasing (Sykes1899, Prins 1952),
 prepositions (Hornero-Corisco 1997, IglesiasRábade 2000, 2003),

periphrastic comparatives (Gonzáles-Días
2008),

the position of adjectives (Fischer 2006,
Trips
2014)
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II. The research question and
methodology of the present study
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The research question and
methodology of the present
study
Research question:
 To what extent might French have influenced the
structure of the noun phrase in Middle English,
especially the position of adjectives?
Methodology:
Full-text analysis: perusal of La Somme le roi
(1279) and its direct translation Ayenbite of Inwyt
(1340) to compare syntactic structures in French
and Middle English
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III. The linguistic situation in medieval
Britain
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The linguistic situation in
medieval Britain

Polyglot situation in medieval Britain

Anglo-French as an important linguistic medium
for bilingual speakers in England up to and
around Chaucer‘s time (c. 1066-c.1400) (Ingham
2012)

A considerable number of texts (mixed texts,
translations etc.) reflect the linguistic situation in
medieval Britain: interchange of languages (e.g.
intercalation of French and English syntax)
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IV. The position of the adjective in Old
French and Middle English
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French influence on Middle English
syntax –
Julia Schultz
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The position of the adjective in
Old French
Old French: preposition of adjectives
comparatively common, especially with
monosyllabic adjectives such as bon, bel or
grand, as in:
(I) „[…] cil qui est si haut montez en
prosperitez pense en son cuer
premierement a sa grant digneté, […]“
(Somme le roi, chap. 32, §430)
[…] he who has obtained much prosperity thinks,
in his heart, of his great dignity at first[…]
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The position of the adjective in
Old French
In Old French, adjectives can occur in
rhematic postposition, as in:
(II) „sire, la aval desoz vostre pales a un
perron grant que j ai veu floter par
desus l eve.“
(cited from the Nouveau Corpus d‘Amsterdam, Stein
et al. (2006))
Sir, here upstream above your palace is a big
stone which I have seen floating over the water.
=> Did this pattern influence Middle English syntax?
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Adjective positions in La Somme
le roi and Ayenbite of Inwyt
Correspondences: postpositive adjectives in distinctive or
highlighting contexts with rhematic function, e.g.
(III) a. „car li consentemenz d‘avoir com-[b]-paignie a
fame qui n‘est seue par mariaige est pechiez
mortiex, selonc la sentence de l‘Evangile que dit
que […].“ (Somme le roi, chap. 10, §82)
b. „Vor þe grantinge / to habbe uelaʒrede ulesslich / mid
wyfmen / þet ne is naʒt his be spouse: ys zenne
dyadlich / be þe dome / of godes spelle / þet zayþ.“
(Ayenbite, p.10-11)
Since the consent to sleep with a woman to whom one is not
married is a deadly sin according to the Evangel, which says
[…]
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c. „Après touz ces dolereus poinz li done
li deables le coup mortel“
d. „Efter alle þise zorʒuolle poyns of sleuþe
/ him yefþ þe dyeuel / þane strok dyadlich“
(Ayenbite, p. 34)
After all these painful stabs, the devil gives him
the deadly stroke.
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Deviations: adjectives that do not seem to fulfil any rhematic
function (i.e. thematic adjectives) can be used postpositively in
the French text, but occur in preposition in the Middle English
translation, as in:
(IV)
a. „car tele ire longuement tenue et enveillie en cuer […]
est haine ou rancune, qui est pechiez mortiex et contre ce
commandement.“ (Somme le roi, chap. 10, §51)
b. „vor zuich wreþe / longe y-hyealde / and byuealde ine
herte: is ine wreþe / and ine hate: þet is dyadlich zenne.
and aye þise heste.“ (Ayenbite, 8)
Since this wrath kept and retained in the heart for a long time
is hate or rancour, which is a deadly sin and against this
commandment.
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The „French plural“:
(VI) a. Dont de la boiche a l‘envieus issent […] .III.
manieres de paroles venemineuses;
b. Þanne of þe mouþe / of þe enuious / comeþ out /
þri manere wordes uenimouses. (Ayenbite, p. 28)
Three types of venomous words come out of the mouth of
envious people;
=>
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Contact-induced grammatical replication as a possible
explanation for the occurrence of these types of phrase
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V. Conclusion
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Conclusion
Postposition of adjectives in Middle
English should be seen in the light of
language contact with French
 Direct translations from the source into
the recipient language may reveal
instances of contact-induced
grammatical replication
 Medieval texts may point to multilingual
situation in Britain after 1066

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References
Brayer, E. – Leurquin-Labie, A. (eds.) (2008). La Somme le Roi par
Frère Laurent. Paris: Société des Anciens Textes Français.
Buridant, C. (1997): „La place de l‘adjectif épithète en ancien français:
Esquisse de bilan et perspectives.“ Vox Romanica 56: 109-145.
Buridant, C. (2000): Grammaire nouvelle de l‘ancien français. Paris:
Sedes.
Fischer, O. (2000): “The position of the adjective in Old English”. In:
Bermudez-Otto (et al.) (eds.): Generative Theory and Corpus
Studies: a Dialogue from 10 ICEHL. Berlin: de Gruyter, 153-181.
— (2004): “Developments in the category adjective from Old to Middle
English”. Studies in Medieval Language and Literature 19, 1-36.
— (2006): “On the position of adjectives in Middle English”. English
Language and Linguistics 10, 253-88.
González-Díaz, V. (2008): English Adjective Comparison. A Historical
Perspective. Amsterdam: Benjamins.
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English syntayx– Julia Schultz
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References
Heine, B. (2009): “Identifying instances of contact-induced grammatical
replication”. In: Obeng, S. G. (ed.): Topics of Descriptive and African
Linguistics: Essays in Honor of Distinguished Professor Paul Newman.
Munich: Lincom Europa, 29-56.
Heine, B. – Kuteva, T. (2007): “Identifying instances of contact-induced
grammatical replication”. MPI Leipzig.
— (2008): Constraints on contact-induced linguistic change”. Journal of
Language Contact – Thema 2, 57-90.
Hornero-Corisco, A. (1997): “French influence on English prepositions: A
study of Ancrene Wisse”. Studia Anglica Posnaniensia 23, 33-45.
Iglesias-Rábade, L. (2000): “French phrasal power in Late Middle English:
Some evidence concerning the verb Nime(n)/Take(n)”. In: Trotter, D. (ed.)
(2000): Multilingualism in Later Medieval Britain. Cambridge: Brewer, 93130.
— (2003): “French influence in Middle English phrasing: Some evidence
from at-prepositional phrases.” Neuphilologische Mitteilungen 104, 281301.
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References
Ingham, R. (ed.) (2010): The Anglo-Norman Language and Its Contexts.
York: York Medieval Press.
— (2012): The Transmission of Anglo-Norman. Language History and
Language Acquisition. Amsterdam: Benjamins.
Morris, R. (ed.) (1866): Dan Michel’s Ayenbite of Inwyt or Remorse of
Conscience. Vol I. [The Early English Text Society 23]. London: N.
Trübner and Co.
Prins, A. (1952): French Influence on English Phrasing. Leiden:
Universitaire Pers Leiden.
Stein, A. et al. (2007): Nouveau corpus d’Amsterdam. Corpus informatique
de textes français (ca 1150-1350), établi par Antonij Dees (Amsterdam
1987), remanié par Achim Stein, Pierre Kunstmann et Martin-Dietrich
Gleßgen. Stuttgart: Institut für Linguistik/Romanistik.
Sykes, F. (1899): French Elements in Middle English. Oxford: Horace Hart.
Trips, C. (2014): “The position proper of the adjective in Middle English: a
result of language contact”. In: Adjectives in Germanic and Romance.
Amsterdam, Benjamins, 73-93.
Wogan-Browne, J. (et al.) (eds.) (2009): Language and Culture in
Medieval Britain: The French of England c.1100-c.1500. Woodbridge:
York Medieval Press.
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syntax – Julia Schultz
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The influence of French on Middle English syntax

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