Changes in status and paradigms? On subject pronouns in medieval french

Abstract

This paper addresses the debate on the morpho-syntactic status of subject pronouns in the pre-modern stages of the French language by reinvestigating this issue along with that of the number of paradigms of such elements. On the basis of a collection of the various evidence provided in the literature as well as hitherto ignored and novel empirical insights, the paper discusses the different views put forward and essentially argues that, in its medieval stages, French had two paradigms of, respectively, strong and phonologically clitic subject pronouns. From this finding as well as standard assumptions on the modern (standard) stage of the language the paper eventually concludes that, diachronically, French evinces continuity, rather than changes regarding the two issues under investigation.

Reconsidering the syntax of interrogatives in Caribbean Spanish. With especial reference to Dominican Spanish

“…This view, however, has been challenged, as it has been argued that Old French additionally has a paradigm of weak subject pronouns, being almost identical in form to their strong counterparts (inter alia Foulet 1935/36;Skårup 1975;Marchello-Nizia 1999;Zimmermann 2018a;cf. also Roberts 1993;Vance 1995).…”

“…(Li Quatre Livre des Reis, p.133, quoted from Zimmermann 2014, 2-3;2018b, 72) Fundamentally, as has been claimed with regard to some dialects of Dominican Spanish, Old French evinces the occurrence of a subject expletive, il, (cf. (34)) (Zimmermann 2014;2018a;b). 34 In view of the compelling evidence provided from varieties of Caribbean Spanish as well as the many parallels with a typologically related language, it seems natural then to assume that varieties of Caribbean Spanish have developed an additional paradigm of subject pronouns that are weak and (almost) identical in form to their strong counterparts.…”