La légitimation de la construction V1 à sujet nul en subordonnée dans la prose et le vers en ancien français

Abstract

La légitimation de la construction V1 à sujet nul en subordonnée dans la prose et le vers en ancien français

Clausal architecture in Early Old French

“…One way to reconcile many of the above examples with some variant of the Stylistic Fronting construction observed in Icelandic is to claim that the fronting of a non-subject observed in many of the previous examples is made possible by the fact that there is a null subject. Contrary to what is observed in 13th c. Old French, and as can be readily observed in (38) above, null subjects are regularly found in all types of embedded clauses in EOF, and not only in conjunctional clauses having a main clause V2 structure (Hirschbühler 1989(Hirschbühler , 1990. We might want to say that Spec,IP is the subject position where there is an overt subject, but, when no overt subject is projected, some other constituent comes to fill Spec,IP.…”

“…More damaging for the idea of a [P] feature on I triggering embedded V2 is the fact that, in EOF, embedded clauses may be V1 (Hirschbühler, 1990;Roberts, 1993 :98;Vance, 1988). This is illustrated in (40) and (41).…”

“…260,25) that I before my brother might-come 'that I might come before my brother' (Vance 1997:137, ex. 8) Finally, referential null subjects are licensed only where postverbal pronominal subjects are licensed, that is, in inverted V2 contexts (Dupuis, 1988;Hirschbühler, 1990;Vance, 1988 are not found in embedded clauses, except in conjunctional V2 clauses. Rare exceptions to these generalizations are explained as either archaic or innovative (Vance 1997:226-229).…”

On the nature of OV and VO order in Old French

“…27 Note that this is not the only change to suggest that the syntax of OF in the earliest texts of the period (EOF; first half of the 12th century and earlier) is quite different from that reflected in later texts (LOF; 13th century). First, the distribution of null subjects is distinct (Hirschbü hler, 1989(Hirschbü hler, , 1990Roberts, 1993;Labelle, 2007); they are possible in all types of embedded clauses in EOF, but not LOF. Second, the clausal subordinator ce que is productive in EOF, occurring with clauses acting as subject, direct 25 Extraposition is, however, almost certainly available in OF.…”

Diachronie du français et linguistique de corpus : une approche quantitative renouvelée

“…Nous différons l'interprétation approfondie de ces données (déjà signalées et étudiées, dans un cadre générativiste, par Dupuis 1988et Hirschbühler 1989et 1990, mais elles soulignent la nécessité d'un traitement différencié des différents types de propositions.…”