Clausal architecture in Early Old French

Abstract

In this paper we study the clausal architecture of Old French as it can be assessed from texts dating from the first half of the 12 th century, a period labeled here for convenience Early Old French, and we compare it to what is known of 13th c. Old French. We show that the embedded clauses in our data are very different from 13 th c. Old French. Both main and embedded clauses are verb second (V2) in some sense, but this state of the language cannot be qualified as a symmetrical V2 language. We propose to derive main clauses with a layered CP and embedded clauses with IP, and we spell out more precisely the clausal architecture we propose for both main and embedded clauses.

On the nature of OV and VO order in Old French

“…1 Perceval is thus situated between these two ends of the OF spectrum. Nonetheless, it displays many of those properties identified for EOF by Labelle (2007) and Rouveret (2004), and I have shown elsewhere (Zaring, 2010) that OV order in LOF differs from the earlier period only in frequency and sensitivity to information structure. Consequently, we will take the data drawn from Perceval to be representative of OF as a whole.…”

“…Analyses vary accordingly. For example, Labelle (2007) argues that V2 is a property of both matrix and embedded clauses in EOF (although the latter primarily have V2 in IP, not CP), while Mathieu (2006bMathieu ( , 2009 argues that V2 is restricted to matrix clauses throughout the OF period and that apparent embedded V2 is in fact Stylistic Fronting of the Icelandic sort. Zaring (2011) argues that Mathieu is correct but only for the LOF period, concluding with Labelle that EOF has generalized V2.…”

Verb second and its deviations: An argument for feature scattering in the left periphery

“…through lower copy spell-out or prosodic inversion) in order to avoid appearing in a clause-initial position. However, Labelle (2007) presents evidence that Early Old French had no restriction against intonational phrase-initial object clitics. In particular, object clitics can appear immediately after parentheticals, which are expected to produce intonational phrase breaks.…”

“…knew Brendan from the air rainy that the weather was very worrisome 'Brendan knew from the wet wind that the weather was worrisome.' Labelle (2007) argues that V1 orders are derived by verb-movement to a higher landing position than in V2 clauses, an analysis supported by the placement of object clitics. In V2 clauses, object clitics appear in an immediately preverbal position.…”

“…While generally V2 (Foulet 1928;Dupuis 1989;Roberts 1993;Vance 1997;Labelle 2007), the language permits both V2 and V1 orders in declarative main clauses (Labelle & Hirschbühler to appear).…”