Changes in Clausal Organization and the Position of Clitics in Old French

Abstract

From the perspective of language change, grammaticalization is generally viewed as the process whereby ‘a lexical item or construction in certain uses takes on grammatical characteristics’. Roberts and Roussou (1999) account for this type of change as resulting from the reanalysis of lexical heads into functional heads. This chapter discusses the diachronic changes that do not fall under this definition, viewed as exemplifying a type of grammaticalization whereby illocutionary features come to be associated with distinct functional heads. It analyses the changes in the clausal organization of Old French as following from the fact that the Topic/Focus functional head common to all clause types of the first stage gives way to a system with a number of separate illocutionary heads. The chapter argues that the weakening of the Tobler–Mussafia (TM) constraint excluding object clitic pronouns from initial position in main clauses in Old French (OF) results from a gradual replacement of a common representation for V1 initial clauses by a new system where (1) satisfaction of a discourse-related [Top]/[Foc] feature by V is minimized, and (2) there is a reanalysis of the CP layer, with grammaticalization of illocutionary type features.

Initial subordinate clauses in Old French: Syntactic variation and the clausal left periphery

“…Although an XP (the subordinate in cum) precedes the finite verb truvad 'found' in (35), the postposition of the clitic i shows that SpecFocus is in fact empty. It follows that the initial subordinate is left-peripheral (corroborating Labelle and Hirschbühler, 2005).…”

“…Data from Skårup (1975) and Donaldson (2011) The timing of these occurrences corresponds remarkably well to a major grammatical change in Old French, in which the possibility for SpecFocus to be empty in main declaratives was lost. Whatever the causes of this change, its effects were profound in Old French grammar: V1 declaratives disappeared (Skårup, 1975;Rouveret, 2004;Simonenko and Hirschbühler, 2012), and the behavior of object clitics evolved in a variety of clause types and in coordinated clauses (Hirschbühler and Labelle, 2000;Labelle and Hirschbühler, 2005). The earliest attestations of initial subordinates in SpecFocus, in the mid-12th century, coincide with the emerging requirement to overtly saturate SpecFocus.…”

“…Once the overt saturation of SpecFocus becomes obligatory, the possibility of postverbal object clitics in main declaratives is lost, as the condition that triggered them --empty SpecFocus --is no longer licit. Note that this change in clause structure affected declaratives, imperatives, and interrogatives differentially: In imperatives, for example, the finite verb continues to appear initially, and postverbal object clitics remain possible (see Labelle and Hirschbühler, 2005).…”

“…Fleischman (1990) considers quant clauses in Old French to be akin to a temporal adverbial, Ménard (1988) categorizes quant clauses as (temporal) circumstantial phrases, and Buridant (2000) considers quant clauses followed by main clauses to constitute a temporal-main sequence. Similarly, Labelle and Hirschbühler (2005), working in a generative framework, consider initial quant clauses as adverbials. If the reasoning of these diverse scholars is correct, then it is reasonable to situate initial quant clauses, as temporal circumstantial phrases, in the SceneScetting projection of Frame, as Benincà (2006:56, 76) and Benincà and Poletto (2004:66) do for other temporal adverbials; more generally, Skårup (1975:399) offers independent confirmation that adverbials (temporal and other) can occur in the left periphery.…”

On the nature of OV and VO order in Old French

“…Third, the nature of V2 clauses and the possibility of V1 and V3 clauses are distinct in the two periods (Rouveret, 2004;Labelle, 2007;Labelle and Hirschbü hler, 2011;Zaring, 2011). Finally, the Tobler-Mussafia Law is operative in positioning clitic pronouns in EOF, but not in LOF (Rouveret, 2004;Labelle and Hirschbü hler, 2005;Labelle, 2007;Simonenko and Hirschbü hler, 2011). Thus, the additional change in the loss of the EPP feature on Part/InfinP is simply another aspect of a more global change in clause structure underway in the language.…”