The influence of French on Middle English...

The influence of French on

Middle English syntax

Julia Schultz

7/3/2014

DGfS 2014: AG6 „Language in Historical Contact situations

(LHC): diagnostics for grammatical replication“ (Carola Trips,

Richard Ingham, Achim Stein)

Agenda

I. Previous research on the impact of

French on Middle English syntax

II. The research question and

methodology of the present study

III. The linguistic situation in medieval

Britain

IV. The position of the adjective in Old

French and Middle English

V. Conclusion

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The influence of French on Middle

English syntax– Julia Schultz 2

1. Previous research on the impact of

French on Middle English syntax

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Previous research on the impact

of French on Middle English

syntax

French influence on

English phrasing (Sykes1899, Prins 1952),

prepositions (Hornero-Corisco 1997, Iglesias-

Rábade 2000, 2003),

periphrastic comparatives (Gonzáles-Días

2008),

the position of adjectives (Fischer 2006, Trips

2014)

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English syntax – Julia Schultz 4

II. The research question and

methodology of the present study

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The research question and

methodology of the present

study

Research question:

To what extent might French have influenced the structure of the noun phrase in Middle English, especially the position of adjectives?

Methodology:

Full-text analysis: perusal of La Somme le roi (1279) and its direct translation Ayenbite of Inwyt (1340) to compare syntactic structures in French and Middle English

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III. The linguistic situation in medieval

Britain

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The influence of French on medieval

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The linguistic situation in

medieval Britain

Polyglot situation in medieval Britain

Anglo-French as an important linguistic medium for bilingual speakers in England up to and around Chaucer‘s time (c. 1066-c.1400) (Ingham 2012)

A considerable number of texts (mixed texts, translations etc.) reflect the linguistic situation in medieval Britain: interchange of languages (e.g. intercalation of French and English syntax)

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IV. The position of the adjective in Old

French and Middle English

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French influence on Middle English

syntax –

Julia Schultz 9

The position of the adjective in

Old French Old French: preposition of adjectives

comparatively common, especially with monosyllabic adjectives such as bon, bel or grand, as in:

(I) „[…] cil qui est si haut montez en prosperitez pense en son cuer premierement a sa grant digneté, […]“

(Somme le roi, chap. 32, §430)

[…] he who has obtained much prosperity thinks, in his heart, of his great dignity at first[…]

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English syntax- Julia Schultz 10

The position of the adjective in

Old French In Old French, adjectives can occur in

rhematic postposition, as in: (II) „sire, la aval desoz vostre pales a un

perron grant que j ai veu floter par desus l eve.“

(cited from the Nouveau Corpus d‘Amsterdam, Stein et al. (2006))

Sir, here upstream above your palace is a big stone which I have seen floating over the water.

=> Did this pattern influence Middle English syntax?

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Adjective positions in La Somme

le roi and Ayenbite of Inwyt Correspondences: postpositive adjectives in distinctive or

highlighting contexts with rhematic function, e.g.

(III) a. „car li consentemenz d‘avoir com-[b]-paignie a fame qui n‘est seue par mariaige est pechiez mortiex, selonc la sentence de l‘Evangile que dit que […].“ (Somme le roi, chap. 10, §82)

b. „Vor þe grantinge / to habbe uelaʒrede ulesslich / mid wyfmen / þet ne is naʒt his be spouse: ys zenne dyadlich / be þe dome / of godes spelle / þet zayþ.“ (Ayenbite, p.10-11)

Since the consent to sleep with a woman to whom one is not married is a deadly sin according to the Evangel, which says […]

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le roi and Ayenbite of Inwyt c. „Après touz ces dolereus poinz li done

li deables le coup mortel“


d. „Efter alle þise zorʒuolle poyns of sleuþe / him yefþ þe dyeuel / þane strok dyadlich“ (Ayenbite, p. 34)

After all these painful stabs, the devil gives him the deadly stroke.

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Englsh syntax – Julia Schultz 13


le roi and Ayenbite of Inwyt Deviations: adjectives that do not seem to fulfil any rhematic

function (i.e. thematic adjectives) can be used postpositively in the French text, but occur in preposition in the Middle English translation, as in:

(IV) a. „car tele ire longuement tenue et enveillie en cuer […] est haine ou rancune, qui est pechiez mortiex et contre ce commandement.“ (Somme le roi, chap. 10, §51)

b. „vor zuich wreþe / longe y-hyealde / and byuealde ine herte: is ine wreþe / and ine hate: þet is dyadlich zenne. and aye þise heste.“ (Ayenbite, 8)

Since this wrath kept and retained in the heart for a long time is hate or rancour, which is a deadly sin and against this commandment.

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le roi and Ayenbite of Inwyt

The „French plural“:

(VI) a. Dont de la boiche a l‘envieus issent […] .III. manieres de paroles venemineuses;


b. Þanne of þe mouþe / of þe enuious / comeþ out / þri manere wordes uenimouses. (Ayenbite, p. 28)

Three types of venomous words come out of the mouth of envious people;

=> Contact-induced grammatical replication as a possible explanation for the occurrence of these types of phrase

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V. Conclusion

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Conclusion

Postposition of adjectives in Middle

English should be seen in the light of

language contact with French

Direct translations from the source into

the recipient language may reveal

instances of contact-induced

grammatical replication

Medieval texts may point to multilingual

situation in Britain after 1066

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References

Brayer, E. – Leurquin-Labie, A. (eds.) (2008). La Somme le Roi par

Frère Laurent. Paris: Société des Anciens Textes Français.

Buridant, C. (1997): „La place de l‘adjectif épithète en ancien français:

Esquisse de bilan et perspectives.“ Vox Romanica 56: 109-145.

Buridant, C. (2000): Grammaire nouvelle de l‘ancien français. Paris:

Sedes.

Fischer, O. (2000): “The position of the adjective in Old English”. In:

Bermudez-Otto (et al.) (eds.): Generative Theory and Corpus

Studies: a Dialogue from 10 ICEHL. Berlin: de Gruyter, 153-181.

— (2004): “Developments in the category adjective from Old to Middle

English”. Studies in Medieval Language and Literature 19, 1-36.

— (2006): “On the position of adjectives in Middle English”. English

Language and Linguistics 10, 253-88.

González-Díaz, V. (2008): English Adjective Comparison. A Historical

Perspective. Amsterdam: Benjamins.

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English syntayx– Julia Schultz 18

References

Heine, B. (2009): “Identifying instances of contact-induced grammatical

replication”. In: Obeng, S. G. (ed.): Topics of Descriptive and African

Linguistics: Essays in Honor of Distinguished Professor Paul Newman.

Munich: Lincom Europa, 29-56.

Heine, B. – Kuteva, T. (2007): “Identifying instances of contact-induced

grammatical replication”. MPI Leipzig.

— (2008): Constraints on contact-induced linguistic change”. Journal of

Language Contact – Thema 2, 57-90.

Hornero-Corisco, A. (1997): “French influence on English prepositions: A

study of Ancrene Wisse”. Studia Anglica Posnaniensia 23, 33-45.

Iglesias-Rábade, L. (2000): “French phrasal power in Late Middle English:

Some evidence concerning the verb Nime(n)/Take(n)”. In: Trotter, D. (ed.)

(2000): Multilingualism in Later Medieval Britain. Cambridge: Brewer, 93-

130.

— (2003): “French influence in Middle English phrasing: Some evidence

from at-prepositional phrases.” Neuphilologische Mitteilungen 104, 281-

301.



References Ingham, R. (ed.) (2010): The Anglo-Norman Language and Its Contexts.

York: York Medieval Press.

— (2012): The Transmission of Anglo-Norman. Language History and Language Acquisition. Amsterdam: Benjamins.

Morris, R. (ed.) (1866): Dan Michel’s Ayenbite of Inwyt or Remorse of Conscience. Vol I. [The Early English Text Society 23]. London: N. Trübner and Co.

Prins, A. (1952): French Influence on English Phrasing. Leiden: Universitaire Pers Leiden.

Stein, A. et al. (2007): Nouveau corpus d’Amsterdam. Corpus informatique de textes français (ca 1150-1350), établi par Antonij Dees (Amsterdam 1987), remanié par Achim Stein, Pierre Kunstmann et Martin-Dietrich Gleßgen. Stuttgart: Institut für Linguistik/Romanistik.

Sykes, F. (1899): French Elements in Middle English. Oxford: Horace Hart.

Trips, C. (2014): “The position proper of the adjective in Middle English: a result of language contact”. In: Adjectives in Germanic and Romance. Amsterdam, Benjamins, 73-93.

Wogan-Browne, J. (et al.) (eds.) (2009): Language and Culture in Medieval Britain: The French of England c.1100-c.1500. Woodbridge: York Medieval Press.

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