Syntactic Change in Medieval French

0. V2 AND NULL SUBJECTS IN THE HIS TORY OF FRENCH The prototypical Romance null subject language has certain well known characteristics: verbal inflection is rich, distinguishing six per sonlnumber forms; subject pronouns are generally emphatic; and, when there is no need to emphasize the subject, the pronoun is not expressed at all. Spanish and Italian, for example, fit this description rather weIl. Modem French, however, provides a striking contrast to these lan guages; it does not allow subjects to be missing and, not unexpectedly, it has a verbal agreement system with few overt endings and subject pronouns which are not emphatic. One of the goals of the present work is to examine null subjects in two dialects of Romance that fit neither the Italian nor the French model: later Old French (12th-13th centriries) and MiddIe French (14th- 15th centuries). Old French has null subjects only in contexts where the subject would be postverbal if expressed (cf. Foulet (1928)), and Mid dIe French has null subjects in a wider range of syntactic contexts but does not freely allow a11 persons of the verb to be null. The work of Vanelli, Renzi and Beninca (1985) (along with many other works by these authors individually) shows that a number of other geographically proximate medieval dialects had similar systems, though it appears that there are significant differences in detail among them.

Klappentext

This book considers the synchronic and diachronic syntax of finite clauses in Medieval French from a generative point of view. Two salient and closely related features of Old French, the verb-second constraint and the limited distribution of null subjects, are followed through the Middle French period where they evolve in largely independent ways. The author argues, after consideration of several areas of controversy, that V2 in (late) Old French is triggered by topicalization in root clauses. Such questions as the position of postverbal subjects from the grammar of French are also addressed. The work further compares the syntax of Medieval French to that of Modern French and the Germanic languages and provides extensive documentation from Old and Middle French texts. Audience: This book will interest theoretical linguists and philologists, especially those concerned with the history of syntax of French, Romance or Germanic languages.

Zusammenfassung
`... this admirably meticulous study is a milestone in generativist historical linguistics.'
Journal of French Language Studies, 9 (1999)

Inhalt
1: Introduction.- 1.0. V2 and Null Subjects in the History of French.- 1.1. The Theoretical Framework.- 1.2. The Texts and the Methodology.- 1.3. Outline.- Notes.- 2: Old French as a V2 Language.- 2.1. Verb-Second Word Order.- 2.2. Theoretical Approaches to V2 in Romance and Germanic.- 2.3. V2 in Embedded Clauses.- 2.4. Conclusion on Theories of V2.- Notes.- 3: Main Clause Word Order in Old French.- 3.0. Overview of the Chapter.- One: V2 Effects and Main Clause Word Order.- Two: V2 and the Nature of Spec, AgrP.- Notes.- 4: Subordinate Clause Word Order in Old French.- 4.0. Overview of the Chapter.- 4.1. SVX Clauses.- 4.2. SPCV and Relative QUI CV Clauses.- 4.3. The Status of V2 Inversion in Embedded Clauses.- 4.4. Non-V2 Inversion in Old French Embedded Clauses.- 4.5. Conclusion to Chapter Four.- Appendix I.- Appendix II.- Notes.- 5: Null Subjects in Old French.- 5.0. Introduction: Old French and the Romance Null Subject Languages.- 5.1. The Syntactic Distribution of pro in OFr.- 5.2. Identification of pro's Content: The Role of Inflection.- 5.3. Exceptions to the Regular Distribution of pro in OFr.- 5.4. Null and Overt Atonic Pronouns in OFr Discourse.- 5.5. Conclusion to Chapter Five.- Notes.- 6: Null Subjects and Syntactic Change in Middle French.- 6.0. Overview.- 6.1. Syntactic Changes in the 15th Century.- 6.2. Against A V to C Analysis of CSV in Middle French.- 6.3. The Distribution of Null Subjects in the 15th Century.- 6.4. THE LOSS OF pro.- 6.5. Conclusion to Chapter Six.- Notes.- 7: The Decline and Loss of V2 in French.- 7.0. Introduction.- 7.1. Previous Accounts of the Loss of V2 in French.- 7.2. The Decline of V2.- 7.3. The Loss of V2.- 7.4. Conclusion: V2 and Null Subjects.- Notes.- References.- Index of Authors.- Index of Languages.