Old French and Comparative Gallo-Romance Syntax 9783110938166, 3484522321, 9783484522329

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BEIHEFTE ZUR ZEITSCHRIFT FÜR ROMANISCHE PHILOLOGIE BEGRÜNDET VON GUSTAV GRÖBER FORTGEFÜHRT VON WALTHER VON WARTBURG UND KURT BALDINGER HERAUSGEGEBEN VON MAX PFISTER

Band 232

FREDE JENSEN

Old French and Comparative Gallo Romance Syntax

MAX NIEMEYER VERLAG TÜBINGEN 1990

Gedruckt mit Unterstützung der University of Colorado at Boulder

CIP-Titelaufnahme der Deutschen Bibliothek Jensen, Frede: Old French and comparative Gallo-Romance syntax / Frede Jensen. - Tübingen : Niemeyer, 1990 (Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für Romanische Philologie ; Bd. 232) NE: Zeitschrift für Romanische Philologie / Beihefte ISBN 3-484-52232-1

ISSN 0084-5396

© Max Niemeyer Verlag GmbH & Co. KG, Tübingen 1990 Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. Das gilt insbesondere für Vervielfältigungen, Übersetzungen, Mikroverfilmungen und die Einspeicherung und Verarbeitung in elektronischen Systemen. Printed in Germany. Satz: pagina GmbH, Tübingen Druck: Allgäuer Zeitungsverlag, Kempten Einband: Heinr. Koch, Tübingen

Preface Conceived along the same lines as my Syntax of Medieval Occitan (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1986), the present work offers a synchronic description of Old French syntactical usage during the early and central period of the Middle Ages. It further focuses its attention on a comparison between the sentence structure of Old French and that of Medieval Occitan, enabling the reader to perceive at a glance which syntactical features are shared by both languages, and which ones are typically northern or southern or are favored in one area, but rare in the other. While this sustained comparative study adds an important dimension to the present monograph, it is never allowed to detract from the basic purpose of the book, that of offering its readers a very detailed and richly illustrated syntax of Old French from its timid beginnings as a literary medium until the end of the thirteenth century. Like Moignet, and Foulet before him, I have chosen a synchronic presentation of medieval syntax, paying only minimal attention to conditions in Latin or to ulterior developments in GalloRomance. All passages quoted from medieval or Latin texts are translated into English. Condensing the description of Medieval Gallo-Romance syntax into a one-volume work has required some space-saving efforts. I have omitted practically all discussion of morphology, though realizing full well that a comparative Gallo-Romance morphology would have been a desirable companion volume. I have refrained from writing one because of the sheer dimensions of such a task, and besides, morphology has on the whole been a less neglected discipline than syntax. The bibliography of the source material is, by and large, limited to the texts from which I have drawn my own example material. However, for a language which, like French, has been closely scrutinized by numerous scholars, it is no longer possible to infer syntactical usage solely from a personally constituted collection of medieval data. For one thing, it becomes imperative to discuss numerous passages, cited in past scholarship, and which are not always easy to track down. More importantly, no serious work on Medieval French syntax can disregard the extensive material contained in the monumental ToblerLommatzsch dictionary of Old French. Given these considerations, it would be quite impractical, and it would serve no useful purpose, to attempt to draw up a complete list of the texts which I have not had direct access to. Boulder, Colorado, April 1989

Frede Jensen

Acknowledgement I am indebted to the Council on Research and Creative Work (CRCW) at the University of Colorado for having awarded me a 1987-88 Faculty Fellowship, enabling me to pursue research at the universities of Aix-enProvence and Nice. I am grateful to these institutions for opening their libraries to me during my stay in France. It gives me great pleasure to thank the Fondation Camargo in Cassis, France, for having provided me with ideal working conditions during the Fall of 1987: a beautiful setting, a good library at my door-step, congenial fellowship. I wish to acknowledge my obligations to the Committee on University Scholarly Publications (CUSP), to the Eugene M. Kayden Faculty Award Committee and to the Dean of Arts and Sciences of the University of Colorado. Without the financial assistance I have received from these sources, the publication of my book would not have been possible. Last but not least, I wish to express my gratitude to Sandy Adler for the competence and speed with which she handled the manuscript preparation. It is hardly an exaggeration to say that she has shortened the production time by a full year or more through her expertise with the word processor. If my material is better organized, it is in no small measure attributable to her willingness to make all suggested changes and reshufflings.

VI

Table of Contents

Preface Acknowledgement I. The Noun Noun Categories Declension Case Forms Case The Nominative The Accusative Double Accusatives The Accusative in Genitive Function The Accusative in Dative Function: the Absolute or Unmarked Dative The Accusative in Indications of Time, Place, Measure and Manner Case by Attraction Relics of Other Case Forms Number Collectives Internal Plurality and pluralia iantum Unica Abstracts Gender II. The Adjective Adjectives and the Noun Category Declension Grammatical Agreement The Comparison of the Adjective Synthetic Comparatives The Superlative The Neuter Adjective Position of the Adjective

page V VI 1 1 1 1 3 3 13 14 18 28 32 35 36 36 36 48 50 51 54 58 58 60 61 63 66 70 76 83 VII

III. The Numeral Cardinals Ordinals Multiplicative and Proportional Relations

89 89 98 103

IV. The Article Absence of Articles The Definite Article Demonstrative Force of the Definite Article The Indefinite Article Emphatic Use of un The Plural of the Indefinite Article The Partitive Article

106 106 108 121 122 125 125 127

V. The Pronoun 131 The Personal Pronoun 131 The Subject Pronoun 131 Subject Pronoun Substitutes 140 The Oblique Pronoun 141 Enclisis 142 Elision 143 The Weak Pronoun Series 143 The Pronominal Adverbs 144 The Pronoun as Predicate 144 Non-Repetition of Weak Pronouns 145 Dative Pronoun Syntax 146 The Tonic Pronoun Series 151 Weak Pronoun Sequencing 161 Lex Tobler and Its Implications 164 Weak Pronouns with Governing Verb and Infinitive . . . 165 Pronouns with the Imperative 167 Reflexive vs. Personal Pronouns 169 Reflexivity vs. Reciprocity 171 Reflexives and Non-Finite Verb Forms 172 Pleonastic Pronoun Use 173 The Possessive Pronoun 176 Morphology 176 The Weak Forms 178 The Tonic Forms 179 The Genitive as a Substitute for the Possessive 183 Pronoun Repetition and Pleonastic Use 183 The Function of the Possessive 184 Value of the Possessive 187 The Demonstrative Pronoun 188 VIII

A Morphological Outline The Uncompounded Forms Cist and c// Com cil qui Cestui; cesti and celui; cell The Neuter Demonstrative The Relative Pronoun General Observations The Use of the Individual Pronouns Qui; que and ce qui; ce que As Nominatives The Direct Object Forms: que and ce que Distributive qui . .. qui and que . . . que Cui Quoi Quel and lequel Dont Ont or on The Relative Adverb que The Relative Without Antecedent The Indefinite or Generalizing Relative The Interrogative Pronoun The Indefinite Pronoun VI. The Verb Transitive and Intransitive Verbs Verbs Constructed With an Indirect Object Pronominal and Reflexive Verbs Impersonal Verbs Voice The Active Voice The Passive Voice Auxiliaries and Modal Verbs Verbal Periphrases and Modal Auxiliaries Person, Number and Grammatical Agreement The Infinitive The Substantival Infinitive The Non-Substantival Infinitive Carrying its Own Subject . The Infinitive of Prohibition and Exhortation Pure and Prepositional Infinitives The Passive Infinitive Accusativus cum infinitivo Tense Value of the Infinitive The Historical Infinitive The Present Participle and the Gerund

188 189 189 194 197 199 202 202 203 203 205 206 207 210 211 212 215 217 219 224 230 237 263 263 267 274 278 287 287 287 289 294 303 306 307 311 312 313 318 320 321 322 322 IX

The Past Participle Past Participles with Active Meaning The Imperative Tense and Mood The Present Tense The Past Tenses: The Imperfect, the Past Indefinite, the Preterite or Past Definite, the Pluperfect and the Past Anterior The Future and the Future Anterior The Conditional The Past Conditional The Second Conditional of Occitan Archaic Vestiges of the Latin Pluperfect Indicative . . . . The Subjunctive The Subjunctive in the Independent Clause The Subjunctive in the Noun Clause The Subjunctive in the Relative Clause The Subjunctive in the Interrogative Clause The Subjunctive in the Adverbial Clause The Subjunctive in the Temporal Clause The Subjunctive in the Causal Clause The Subjunctive in the Final Clause The Subjunctive in the Consecutive Clause The Subjunctive in the Concessive-Adversative Clause . The Subjunctive in the Conditional Clause The Subjunctive in the Modal Clause The Subjunctive with Potential Value The Subjunctive by Attraction VII. The Adverb Adverbs of Quantity and Intensity Adverbs of Manner Adverbs of Comparison Adverbs of Affirmation Adverbs of Negation The Expletive ne Adverbs of Place and the Pronominal Adverbs en and / Adverbs of Time VIII.The Preposition Adverbs vs. Prepositions Preposition and Complement Use and Semantic Content of the Prepositions

X

.

334 338 340 342 343 344 350 353 354 354 355 355 356 362 374 378 380 380 384 385 385 387 389 392 395 396 398 400 414 417 420 422 433 436 440 443 443 443 446

IX. The Conjunction Conjunctions vs. Adverbs and Prepositions Coordination vs. Subordination Conjunctions of Coordination Conjunctions of Subordination Que Temporal Conjunctions Causal Conjunctions Consecutive and Final Conjunctions Concessive Conjunctions Conditional Conjunctions Modal Conjunctions Role of ce as a Conjunctional Element, Repetition and Separability of the Subordinating Conjunctions X. The Clause The Structure of the Sentence Parataxis The Noun Clause The Adverbial Clause The Temporal Clause The Causal Clause The Consecutive and the Final Clause The Concessive-Adversative Clause The Conditional Clause The Comparative Clause The Relative Clause The Interrogative Clause Direct and Indirect Discourse Asymmetric Orders and Questions Elliptic Structures The Prefix reXI. Word Order Subject-Verb-Complement Combinations Inversion Word Order and the Two-Case System Emphasis and Anticipation Disruption of Close-Knit Syntactical Structures

469 469 469 470 477 477 478 482 484 487 488 489 493 496 496 497 500 503 503 505 505 507 508 515 518 522 526 527 527 529 530 533 537 540 540 543

Bibliography

544

Bibliography of Source Material

551

Word Index

558 XI

I. The Noun

Noun Categories 1. The division of nouns into categories or classes is based on semantic criteria. Proper nouns designate one specific individual or entity of a species or a group such as a human being, a city, a region, a country, etc.: Aucassin; Valence; Provence; France, while common nouns indicate any possible representative of a species or a group: dameisel 'young lord'; cite 'city'; terre 'land'; pai's 'country'. Collective nouns designate a group of individuals or entities, whether animate or inanimate: barnage 'all the barons in the service of a lord'; navie 'collection of ships, fleet'. Concrete nouns designate material beings or objects that can be perceived directly by the senses: ami 'friend'; palefroi 'palfrey'; chasne Oak', while abstract nouns denote concepts that can only be imagined: fro it 'cold'; soi 'thirst'; dolor 'sorrow'. While these divisions may at times seem somewhat artificial, they do present a certain grammatical interest: proper nouns, unlike common nouns, do not normally carry an article, collective nouns, though formally in the singular, may be constructed with a plural verb, and abstract nouns occur most commonly in the singular.

Declension Case Forms 2. Old French, like Old Occitan, continues the two-case declension system of Vulgar Latin (L. Sch0sler: La declinaison bicasuelle de l'ancien francais, Odense, 1984). Based on the presence or the absence of an etymological final s, most masculine nouns maintain a formal distinction between the nominative and the accusative case: nom. sing. // murs < munis; ace. sing, le mur < muru(m); nom. plur. // mur < müri; ace. plur. les murs < muros 'wall(s)'. Feminine nouns ending in -e have no case flexion: nom. and ace. sing, la fille; nom. and ace. plur. les filles 'daughter^)', while third-declension feminines may or may not show a case differentiation in the singular, never in the plural: nom. sing, la flors or la flor; ace. sing, la flor; nom. and ace. plur. les flors 'flower(s)'. Masculine 1

nouns ending in -s or -z are deprived of a case flexion: nom. sing. // cars; ace. sing, le cors; nom. plur. // cars; ace. plur. les cars 'body, bodies', and similarly for //' braz 'arm', while those that carry no etymological -s in the nominative singular may add this flexional marker optionally: pater > pere(s) 'father'; senior > *seior > sire(s) 'lord'. Imparisyllabic nouns, which is to say nouns whose nominative singular is shorter and, with but a couple of exceptions, differently stressed than the rest of the paradigm, display a stronger differentiation between the case forms: nom. sing, trovere(s) < tröpälor; ace. sing, iroveor < tropatöre 'troubadour, poet'; nom. sing, enfes < infans; ace. sing, enfant < infante 'child'; nom. sing, cuens < comes', ace. sing, conte < cömüe 'count'; nom. sing, uem, horn < homo; ace. sing, home < homlne 'man'. 3. The murs - mur flexion exerts a strong pressure on all other masculine declensions. It is responsible for the tendency to add an analogical flexional s to asigmatic nominatives: frater > frere(s) 'brother'; latro > lerre(s) 'thief'; presbyter > prestre(s) 'priest', as well as for the breaking up, in Vulgar Latin or preliterary French, of the identical third-declension plural case forms into a distinctive nominative and accusative form: CL patres - patres > VL or early Gallo-Romance *patri - patres > pere peres 'fathers'; CL latrönes - latrönes > VL or early Gallo-Romance *latroni - latrönes > larron - larrons 'thieves', modeled on müri - müros > mur - murs 'walls'. It attracts into its orbit many neuter nouns, following the collapse of the neuter gender: CL vlnum - vinum > VL virtus vinu > vins - vin 'wine'. Its ultimate demise, towards the end of the medieval period, is brought about when final s drops from pronunciation, thus rendering most case distinctions imperceptible. 4. The exact provenance of the nominative singular -s encountered in many feminine nouns not ending in -e: nom. sing, flors or flor 'flower'; nom. sing vertuz or vertut 'virtue', has not been clearly established (Rheinfelder II 30). It may stem from an -s already available in Classical or Vulgar Latin: CL virtus > VL *virtutis > vertuz 'virtue'. It seems less likely that it could be drawn from an analogy with the masculine flexion (Foulet § 6). Old French has a few feminine plurals ending in -e; they are derived from Latin neuter plurals: paire 'pair(s)'; dole 'finger's breadth(s)'; charre 'cart-load(s)'. 5. The imparisyllabic flexion was also subject to analogical pressures. A flexional -s is commonly added to the nominative singular: lätro > lerre(s) 'thief; baro > ber(s) 'baron', and there are sporadic occurrences of a form leveling, resulting in the obliteration of the imparisyllabic feature itself. Thus the formation of a new nominative singular empereres for emperere < Imperator 'emperor' may lead to the occasional replacement of the regular accusative empereor < imperatore by an analogical emperere since, in most instances, the accusative equals the nominative minus -s as in murs - mur 'wall', and, in the same manner, bers - her 'baron' and

also barons - baron are encountered as variants of the normal her - baron flexion from Late Lat. baro - baröne. Of the feminine imparisyllables only suer - serour < söror - söröre 'sister' and a few nouns in -ain such as pule - pulain < pütta - püttäne 'prostitute' survive in Old French, while the rest had succumbed to form leveling in preliterary times: CL ratio ratiönem > VL *rationis - ratiöne > raisons - raison 'reason'; CL dolor dölorem > VL *dölöris - dölore > dolors - dolor 'grief. 6. The declension system is usually well observed prior to and during the thirteenth century, though with some dialectal variation and with an ever-increasing amount of flexional errors toward the end of that period. The end result of this process is the elimination of one of the two case forms, in by far most instances the nominative. Tied phonetically to the fall of final s from pronunciation, this development had begun very early in the Anglo-Norman dialect, and several declensional errors may be seen in the Oxford manuscript of the Chanson de Roland. The picard dialect, on the other hand, still observes the two-case system in the fourteenth century, and one of the last writers to use it correctly is Froissart around the year 1400. An increase in the use of prepositions and stricter rules governing word order make up for the loss of the case differentiation. While, on the whole, it falls outside of the scope of the present work to examine the details of the elimination of the two-case system, mention is made of certain syntactical structures that may have hastened the declension collapse, among them comparisons, anacolutha and attraction, etc. In the following discussion of case syntax, example material involving adjectives is included, the rules being essentially the same as for nouns.

Case The Nominative 7. The principal functions of the nominative case are those of subject of the main verb and predicate of the verb estre 'to be': // dux de Venice vit bien que li pelerin n'estoient mie a aise (Clari 17.1) 'the Duke of Venice realized that the pilgrims were not happy'; // quens Garins de Biaucaire estoit vix el frales (Aucassin 2.7) 'Count Garin de Beaucaire was old and frail'; molt m'a uns jaianz domagie ( Yvain 3846) 'a giant has caused me great harm'; oil chevaliers amis estoit a la pucele del castiel (Bel Inconnu 1976) 'that knight was a friend of the maiden of the castle'; and Occ. merces esperduda (B. de Ventadorn 31.41) 'compassion is lost'; ors ni leos non etz vosges (ibid., 1.55) 'you are not at all a bear nor a lion'; lanquand li jorn son lone en mai (J. Rudel 5.1) 'when the days are long in May'. In the following passage: vous estes monpere, . . . et vous estes mes barons, et vous estes mesfreres (Pontieu 491) 'you are my father, and you are my husband,

and you are my brother', we have a declensional error with man pere for mes peres, but I would not venture to generalize from there and from a couple of additional occurrences that the predicate of eslre is somehow more vulnerable to case violations than the subject (but cf. Moignet, p. 89). Only a detailed statistical study could uncover the existence of such a trend. In: ce fu un samedi (Erec 4237), we have an instance of the adverbial use of the accusative, serving to mark point in time, and not a true predicate, the meaning being 'it happened on a Saturday' and not 'it was a Saturday'. 8. In impersonal constructions the pronominal subject // 'it, there' may be accompanied by a complement in the nominative case, which had come to be looked upon as the logical subject of the verb: // tie t'an puet blasmes venir (Charrete 3443) 'you cannot be blamed for it'; si sanble qu'ils'an isse uns cers (ibid., 5801) ' it seems that a stag is coming through it (i.e., the doorway)'; // n'i failloit ne fers ne clos ( Yvain 753) 'it (i.e., the horse) was lacking neither shoe nor nail'. The same syntax is found where the impersonal subject is not formally expressed: en Cliges ne failli nus biens (Cliges 2752) 'in Cliges no good quality was missing'; talanz liprant que il s'an aille (ibid., 5020) 'he wishes to leave' (Woledge, pps. 31-33; Moignet: «L'unipersonnel avec theme nominal en ancien fransais», Melanges offerts a Ch. Rostaing, Liege, pps. 739-750). However, the complement of the impersonal construction may also be in the accusative case, and this, incidentally, is the only syntax mentioned by Menard (§ 1 Rem. 1): paour m'est prise (Chansons sat. 13.2) Ί became afraid'; /'/ / maneit un tirant (cited by Nyrop V § 94, 1 Rem.) 'a tyrant was living there'. Occitan shows a similar uncertainty, though with a marked preference for the nominative: esirains consiriers m'en ve (Peirol 3.17) 'a terrible worry besets me'; a pauc pietatz no m'en pren (P. d'Alvernhe 12.30) Ί almost feel pity for him', while the accusative is relatively rare: venra un fort raubador (P. Cardenal 74.19) 'there will come a powerful thief (Jensen §§661-664). It is the accusative, however, that may represent the primitive syntax. 9. The nominative is used with copulative verbs which, like estre, stress existence, such as devenir 'to become' and demorer; remaneir both 'to remain': devinrent tot si home (Aucassin 34.16) 'they all became his vassals'; chevaliers bels e genz devint ( Yonec 115) 'it (i.e., the bird) became a beautiful and gracious knight'; Joseph mout liez demoura (Boron 2914) 'Joseph remained very joyous'; Loot's remest ses eritiers (Couronnement 243) 'Louis remained his heir'; // est remes vis (Montreuil 1520) 'he stayed alive'; and Occ. esdevenon amic (Marcabru 32.15) 'they become friends'; mas eu remanhfis e verais (G. de Bornelh 6.40) 'but I remain faithful and sincere'. The nominative serves as predicate of estre faiz 'to be made, to become': quant fui fait arcevesques (Becket 3441) 'when I was made archbishop'. The locution estre levez 'to be elevated to', on the other hand, is constructed with the preposition a: Eneas fu a roi levez (Eneas 10105) 'Eneas was

elevated to king', but there are occurrences in Occitan of a predicative construction: fui bisbes levatz (Appel 107.104) was elevated to bishop'. The verb sembler may serve as the equivalent of a copulative, carrying the meaning of 'to seem or appear to be', in which case it is constructed with the nominative: preu do m me semble (Mori Artu 16.15) 'he seems to me to be a man of worth'; ce samble uns paradis terrestres (Montreuil 6314) 'it seems to be an earthly paradise'; and Occ. e.n Raymbaulz . . . sembla trap mielhs joglars que cavalliers (Perdigon 12.56) 'and lord Raimbaut appears to be a minstrel far more than a knight'. Occ. parer is commonly used as a copulative with the meaning of 'to seem to be': e.l reis Felips anhels mi par (B. de Born 23.51) 'and King Philip seems to me to be a lamb', but this usage does not seem to have a parallel in Old French. 10. Some verbs may assume copulative function while, at the same time, preserving a distinct semantic value, so gesir 'to lie'; naistre 'to be born'; morir 'to die'; cheoir 'to fall', etc. Cumulating two separate functions, these verbs have not been reduced to the status of colorless copulatives like estre (Meyer-Lubke III § 399; Gamillscheg, p. 602). In accordance with standard copulative syntax, they take the nominative, and they are mostly combined with an adjective or a past participle, less frequently with a noun: lors dit au lyon qu'il. , , toz coiz segise ( Yvain 4467) 'then he tells the lion to lie still'; // empereres chiet mors a lerre (Mori Artu 161.50) 'the emperor falls to the ground dead'; /'/ acoucha malades (ibid., 38.2) 'he went to bed sick'; tot autresi con li solauz qui nest molt clers (Cliges 2720) 'just like the sun which is born very bright'; car nus n'an puet eschaper vis (Erec 5415) 'for nobody can escape from it alive'; repaira vainkiere (Pontieu 522) 'he came back a conqueror'; and Occ. mielhs mi fora jazer vestitz que despolhatz (J. Rudel 4.36) 'it would have been better for me to lie fully clothed than naked'; puois irai pelegrins (A. de Peguilhan 37.35) 'then I shall go as a pilgrim'. Citing as an example of this syntax the following passage from Cicero: nemo sahat sobrius 'nobody dances when he is sober', Väänänen (§ 357) explains that the adjective stands in an appositional relationship, not to the subject but rather to the action in which the subject is engaged, serving as some sort of circumstantial apposition, with the main emphasis clearly focused on the verb. The following passage may serve as a vivid illustration: a tant vint d'une chanbre fors la pucele . . . Molt vint sinple et mue et teisanz ( Yvain 3951) 'then the maiden came out of a room. She came in a very modest and quiet manner'. 11. The nominative is the norm for the complement of certain reflexive verbs which, like estre, serve to express the presence of a given quality in the subject: soi sentir 'to feel'; soi trover 'to find oneself; soi veoir 'to see oneself; soi faire 'to become' or 'to pretend to be'; soi feindre 'to pretend to be', etc. In this factitive construction, agreement is normally made with the subject rather than with the direct-object reflexive (Nyrop V § 95,3; Meyer-Lübke III § 397; S. de Vogel § 46,1; Jensen § 48): eil se sent navrez a

mart (Mort Artu 161.28) 'he feels mortally wounded'; nuz se trueve ( Yvain 3019) 'he finds himself naked'; nuz se voit (ibid., 3016) 'he sees himself naked'; quant tu te veissi vix et orz (Queste 144.16) 'when you saw yourself so vile and base'; ne vos sai dire come il s'en firet liez (Saint Alexis 125) Ί cannot tell you how happy he became because of it'; il s'estoit fais empereres par tra'ison (Clari 28.11) 'he had become emperor by treason'; and Occ. encolpatz no'm sen (G. de Bornelh 24.11) Ί do not feel guilty'; mout se fenh prims e savis (Sordel 25.9) 'he pretends to be very clever and wise'; mil amic s'en fan ric (Marcabru 26.27) 'a thousand friends become rich because of it'. The syntax remains somewhat fluctuating in this structure, however, and it is a relatively easy matter to find passages in which agreement is made with the direct-object reflexive instead of with the subject: /'/ sesenli molt blecie (Aucassin 24.85) 'he felt seriously wounded';ye me sanl fort (Erec 5225) Ί feel strong'; en sun lit malade (var. malades) se feint (AFW III 1688) 'in his bed he pretends to be ill'; ume se demustrout (Thaiin 242) 'he showed himself to be a man'; messire Gauvains se voit che a terre (Queste 152.25) 'my lord Gauvain sees himself thrown to the ground'. In Occitan, this seems less common: no's sentia ges ben san (Flamenca 6336) 'he did not feel very well at all'. The syntax of soi faire 'to become' or 'to pretend to be' deserves a closer look. A comparison of the following passages: // empereres se fait e balz e liez (Roland 96) 'the emperor becomes jubilant and happy'; qui roi se feit il doit morir (Boron 1806) 'he who pretends to be a king must die', would seem to indicate that the nominative is the norm whenever soi faire forms a single unit 'to become', while the accusative is the preferred form when the two elements remain relatively independent, the meaning being 'to elevate oneself to, to proclaim oneself or 'to pretend to be'. This is at most a mere trend, however, rather than a rigorously observed distribution. Thus it is the accusative that appears in the following passage, where se fist means 'he became' and not 'he pretended to be': de la parole Deu se fist preeche r (Becket 737) 'he began to preach the word of God', lit. 'he became a preacher of the word of God', and there are also instances of the nominative used in contexts that clearly call for the meaning 'to pretend to be': il se feisoit verais amerres, s'estoit fos, souduianz et lerres (Yvain 2725) 'he pretended to be a faithful lover, and yet he was mad, deceitful and a thief; cresti'en se font, mes il mentent (AFW III 1580) 'they pretend to be Christian, but they lie'. 12. Since the factitive soi tenir por / a 'to consider oneself (to be)' denotes a quality attributed to the subject, it may be constructed with the nominative case; the prepositional complement is usually an adjective or a past participle, less often a noun: se vos ainsi le fasi'ez, je m'en tendroie a bien paiez (Rose 3996) 'if you do it in this manner, I would consider myself satisfied'; porfos mepuis tenir ( Yvain 1432) Ί can consider myself mad'; por mort et por tra'i se tienent (Charrete 5188) 'they consider them-

selves dead and betrayed'; et par ce ne se tendroient il plus a si deciple (Queste 76.15) 'and therefore they would no longer consider themselves his disciples' ; and Occ. eram tenh per enganatz (P. Vidal 25.14) 'now I consider myself deceived'; totz horns per pagatz s'en ten (Flamenco 7245) 'everybody considers himself satisfied with it'. However, the presence of a preposition in this locution has led to a certain preference for the accusative case: ce deduit prendras mout en gre et t'en tendras bien a paie (Rose 2699) 'you will enjoy this entertainment very much, and you will consider yourself satisfied because of it'; a mart se dent et a trahi (Vergi 189) 'he considers himself dead and betrayed'; car ge me tieng a veincu (Mort Artu 27.21) 'for I consider myself defeated'; ne te tiens tu orporfol? (Charrete 1792) 'don't you consider yourself foolish now?'. This contrasts sharply with Occitan usage, where the accusative is practically nonexistent in the reflexive structure of this verb (Jensen § 985; Meyer-Lubke III § 36), and there is yet another difference between North and South: in Occitan, tener se 'to consider oneself (to be)' is commonly encountered unaccompanied by a preposition. The norm is consistently the nominative: c'ab menhs m'en tengra paiatz (G. de Bornelh 39.39) 'for I would consider myself satisfied with less'; me tenria paubres ses vos (P. Vidal 39.48) Ί would consider myself poor without you'. It may be the widespread use of the prepositionless variant in Occitan that explains the unchallenged position of the nominative in the South as opposed to the case fluctuation encountered in the North. The nominative is standard in the passive: cil devra estre tenuz a meslre et a pastre (Queste 77.16) 'he will have to be considered master and shepherd'. If tenir a /por 'to consider, to hold to be' is used actively about considering somebody else to be something, the accusative meets with no competition from the nominative case: // Chevaliers que vos devez tenir a mestre et a pastor (ibid., 78.21) 'the Knight whom you must consider master and shepherd'; nus ne le pooit tenir a coart (Mori Artu 184.23) 'nobody could consider him a coward'; a trahitor desloial le tient ses sires (Vergi 186) 'his lord considers him an unfaithful traitor'; and Occ. de tot I'emperi'l tenien per senor (Boeci: Appel 105.37) Of all the empire they considered him the lord'. In this passage: nus n 'en orroit parier qui plus ne t'en tenist por her (Beroul 1178) 'nobody would hear about it who would not consider you nobler because of it', I take her to be an analogical accusative. 13. Other factitives constructed with the nominative case are soi clamer; soi apeler both 'to be called, to call oneself, to proclaim oneself: molt se clainme dolanz cheitis ( Yvain 4126) 'he proclaims himself very wretched and miserable'; car cil qui soloient amer se feisoient cortois clamer et preu et large et enorable (ibid., 22) 'for those who used to love proclaimed to be courtly, valiant, generous and honorable'; mil foiz las et dolanz s'apele (ibid., 3490) 'a thousand times he calls himself unhappy and wretched'; and Occ. e Jovens se clama vencutz (Marcabru 4.44) 'and Youth proclaims

itself defeated'; qui que . . . s'apele forsatz (G. de Bornelh 42.97) 'whoever may call himself hurt'. The nominative even appears after a prepositional soi darner por 'to proclaim onself (to be)': por boens e rez se clainme (Charrete 1547) 'he proclaims himself fortunate'. The accusative may occasionally appear with these verbs: // se clamoit le Roi des rois (Boron 1808) 'he called himself the king of kings', and it represents the norm when the construction is transitive (non-reflexive): je vos ai fol apele ( Yvain 586) Ί called you mad'; et conpaingnon le clainme (ibid., 6000) 'and he calls him companion'; and Occ. clama sos vezins coartz (P. d'Alvernhe 12.74) 'he calls his neighbors cowards'. When Lunete tells Yvain that troi son t qui traitre me clainment (Yvain 3613) 'there are three who are calling me a traitor', she is using the feminine form; we do not have an instance of a masculine nominative used erroneously for the accusative. The feminine, quite regularly, shows no declensional variation. In the passive voice it is, of course, the nominative that represents the norm: Oridials esteit apelez (Guigemar 31) 'he was called Oridial'; vaillanz horn seull estre clamez (Rose 7975) Ί am usually called a brave man'; and Occ. er' amics clamatz (G. de Bornelh 46.96) 'he was called a friend. 14. Related semantically to the preceding group is the locution aveir nom or aveir a nom 'to be called', which is already encountered in Vulgar Latin, where it displays a fluctuating case syntax, judging from the examples quoted by Nyrop (V § 95,4) and Togeby (§ 41,4). One would logically expect an accusative here, since the name appears as predicate to nom 'name', but cases of this are rare: // uns Arcadie, H altre Honorie out nom (Saint Alexis 307) One was called Arcadius, the other Honorius'; ai a non Morgain (Mort Artu 50.59) 'my name is Morgue'. It is the nominative that represents the syntactical norm, which aligns the locution with the semantic equivalents treated in the preceding paragraph: Aucassins avoit a non li damoisiax (Aucassin 2.10) 'Aucassin was the young lord's name'; Robers de Clan avoit a non (Clari 76.4) 'his name was Robert de Clari'; et s'avez non mes sire Yvains (Yvain 1019) 'and your name is my lord Yvain'. Occitan shows the same fluctuation: ac nom Clodoveu (Sainte Enimie 41) 'his name was Clodovec' vs. al comte qu'a nom n'Ugos (B. de Born 4.42) 'to the count who is called lord Hugo'. 15. The apposition to a nominative, whether to a subject or a predicate, is itself in the nominative case: Eliezir, li filz au roi Felles, bans chevaliers et hardiz, dist qu'il conduira la tierce bataille (Mort Artu 115.24) 'Eliezir, the son of King Pelles, and a brave and daring knight, said that he would lead the third battle'; vos esles Aucassins nos damoisiax (Aucassin 22.11) 'you are Aucassin, our young lord'; and Occ. so es Boumon de Polha, neps al comte Roger (Appel 6.156) 'this is Boumon of Apulia, Count Roger's nephew'. 16. The subject may be a noun governed by a preposition. This feature may be observed with numerals or with other expressions of number and 8

quantity. The logical function of the noun as subject usually takes precedence over prepositional syntax in such locutions; it is as if the subject were the noun alone and not the entire prepositional locution (Tobler I 279; Nyrop V § 95,2; Meyer-Lubke III § 36; Togeby § 41,5): de si qu'a trente chevalier s'ierenl ale esbanier en un vergier (Lanval 221) 'up to thirty knights had gone to enjoy themselves in an orchard'. As to be expected, cases of the accusative are also encountered: lors s'en vont armer par laienz jusqu'a quarante chevaliers (Mart Artu 92.24) 'then up to forty knights go arm themselves in there', and it is the norm if the subject is introduced by the preposition entre 'between': un jor estoient entre le roi et monseigneur Gauvain as fe nest res del pales (ibid., 35.1) One day the king and my lord Gauvain were at the windows of the palace together'; and Occ. si tot m'an donat gran trebalh entre n'Azemar e.n Richart (B. de Born 2.9) 'although both lord Ademar and lord Richard have caused me great torment'. Tobler (I 280-281) cites several examples of the preposition de followed by a noun in the nominative case; this occurs in expressions of quantity with such locutions as molt de 'many' and plus de 'more than', etc.: mont de clerc sont en une escole (cited by Tobler) 'many clerks are in a school'; le jor se pasmerent an Rome mien escianl plus de mil home (ibid.) On that day, in my opinion, more than a thousand people fainted in Rome'; la voiz dont tan t de mal sont avenu (Queste 37.10) 'the voice from which so many evils have come'; plus s'en issent de dis millier de la vile (Montreuil 6326) 'more than ten thousand come out of the city'; and Occ. eran plus de mil e .v.c. (Flamenco 504) 'they were more than one thousand five hundred', in rhyme with eissamen. 17. The nominative is particularly common with fors; fors que 'except', which may perhaps be considered as much an adverb or a conjunction as a preposition: mes tout chil de l'ost ne seurent mie chest consel, fors li plus haut homme (Clari 13.15) 'but all the people in the army did not learn about that decision, except the highest-ranking men'; savoit nus fors vous dui ceste oevre? (Vergi 346) 'did anybody aside from the two of you know about this measure?'; mes desarme estoient tuil, fors que tan t seulemant U huit qui de l'ost repeirie estoient (Cliges 1854) 'but they were all unarmed with the sole exception of the eight who had returned from the army'. The accusative offers some competition, however: car nus fors nos deus ne Γα ve (Mort Artu 11.29) 'for nobody, except the two of us, saw him'; nus (fors le conte qui est ci) de vos n'i a mort desservie (Cliges 2140) 'none of you, except the count who is here, deserves to be killed'. Exceptions may, of course, bear on other sentence elements besides the subject: et si dites a touz vos chevaliers qu'il aillent o vos, fors seulement a Lancelot (ibid., 87.37) 'and tell all your knights, with the sole exception of Lancelot, to go with you', and this may have contributed to the fairly widespread case confusion following fors. Occitan seems to use the nominative more consistently than French: res fors Deus no'm pot pro tener de peiurar

(G. de Bornelh 11.38) 'nobody except God can protect me against decline'. The nominative is encountered in restrictions expressed by means of se non 'except' or Only': onques n'i pot antrer vilains, se dames non et chevalier (Erec 6851) 'never could a humble person enter there, but only ladies and knights'; and Occ. non s'i bainet si rix horn no (Flamenco 1493) Only a rich man took a bath there', as well as in the restrictive locution se n'est 'except', where it assumes the role of predicate of estre: ele ne vialt que nus horn an sa chanbre veingne, . . . se li rois n'est (Cliges 5602) 'she does not want any man to enter her room, except the king'. 18. Generally speaking, it is the nominative that has taken over the role of the Classical Latin vocative case as a direct-address form. There are, however, fairly frequent occurrences of the accusative in this function, even in texts which otherwise respect the declension system. This is particularly common with proper nouns, as these often tend to resist any case variation. We may perhaps conclude from this fluctuating usage that when the vocative fell as a separate case form, it was replaced in a somewhat random fashion by either the nominative or the accusative. Chronologically, the accusative appears to gain ground as a direct-address form after the middle of the twelfth century, specifically with proper nouns (A. Beyer, ZRPh, VII, 1883, 23-44; Togeby § 41,2; Nyrop V § 94,2; Foulet § 15; Moignet, p. 89), but the preference is clearly for the use of the nominative: et dist li emperere:gabez, Naimes li dus (Pelerinage 531) 'and the emperor said: you are jesting, Duke Naimes'; nains, fet ele, lesse m'aler (Erec 167) 'dwarf, she says, let me go'; Aucassins, fait ele, biaus dox amis (Aucassin 26.15) 'Aucassin, she says, my dear friend'; oel, vos m'avez tra'ie (Cliges 469) 'eyes, you have betrayed me' vs. par Deu, Qualogrenant, molt vos voi orpreu et saillant ( Yvain 71) 'by God, Calogrenant, now I see you very brave and active'; seigneurs, fait ele (Pontieu 559) 'lords, she says'; biaufrere Perceval, je me muir (Queste 241.14) 'my dear brother Perceval, I am dying'. Occitan is subject to the same fluctuation: messatgiers, vai e cor (B. de Ventadorn 4.73) 'messenger, run hastily' vs. messatgier, vai (ibid., 20.57) 'go, messenger'. 19. It is not uncommon, in a direct address, for a proper noun to be in the accusative, while an accompanying title or any other common noun is in the nominative: mes sire Yvain, movroiz vos enuit on demain? ( Yvain 601) 'my lord Yvain, will you be setting out tonight or tomorrow?'; biax nies Gauvain, je vos an pri (Cliges 4912) 'my dear nephew Gau vain, I beg you'; lors dist Cliges: Jehan amis (ibid., 5571) 'then Cliges said, Jean, my friend'. Moignet (p. 89) notes that, in the Lai de Lanval, Marie de France consistently uses Lanval in vocative function vs. Lanvax elsewhere as a nominative. Where the flexional s is merely an analogical addition as in sires 'lord' < *seior < senior and prestres 'priest' < presbyter, some scholars maintain that a formal difference exists between the nominative sires; prestres and the vocative sire; prestre (Nyrop V § 94,2). Such a dif ferentia10

tion seems difficult to justify, and an extensive data collection is required for settling this problem definitively. The adjective beau 'dear', which is frequently encountered in polite address forms, is subject to some fluctuation: beax sire Dex (Saint Eustace 20.3) 'dear lord God' vs. beau sire dolz (ibid., 6.4) 'dear, sweet lord'. 20. Comparisons of equality are introduced by com, con, come 'like, as', while comparisons of inequality make use of que or de 'than'. If the comparison introduced by com or que involves the subject, the norm is for the use of the nominative, even when the main verb is not taken up again in the comparative clause: bret et crie come tors (Yvain 4222) 'he roars and bellows like a bull'; panduz sera come lerres (Cliges 5838) 'he will be hanged like a thief; si se desfent come lupars (Bel Inconnu 5817) 'and he defends himself like a leopard'; // a plus fait pour moi que nus autres chevaliers (Mort Artu 110.27) 'he has done more for me than any other knight'; el s'an fo'i plus tost c'uns egles (Rose 4230) 'and he fled faster than an eagle'; and Occ. s'era tant blancs cum Enocs (G. Ademar 2.15) 'if I were as grey-haired as Enoch'; plus sui salhens que leupartz (G. de Bornelh 12.7) Ί am wilder than a leopard'. The comparison may also bear on the object, in which case the accusative is used: home qu'an nepuel chast'ier devroit en au mostier Her come desve ( Yvain 629) 'a man one cannot cure, one ought to tie at the church like (one does) a madman'; // rois vos a jusques ci ame plus que nul home (Mori Artu 90.89) 'the king has hitherto loved you more than (he has) any (other) man', or it may comprise both a subject and an object: fie trist ma face et ma coulour, com fait gelee tenre flour (Piramus 158) 'it tarnished my face and my complexion, as frost does the tender flower'; plus le criement li chevalier qu'estornel ne font esprevier (Bel Inconnu 5872) 'the knights fear him more than starlings do the sparrowhawk'; and Occ. cremar me fai com foes carbo (P. Vidal 20.46) 'she makes me burn like fire does coal'. Because of the strong impact of prepositional syntax, the comparative de is always constructed with the accusative case in spite of the fact that it introduces the subject of a non-expressed verb: plus estoit hardiz d'un liepart (Dole 72) 'he was more daring than a leopard'; plus fu enparles des autres (Aucassin 18.12) 'he was more talkative than the others'; pires est de Guenelon (Cliges 1068) 'he is worse than Ganelon'; elmonde n'apluspreu de vostre fil (Auberon 1199) 'in the world there is nobody braver than your son'; and Occ. mais sai de Cato (G. de Bornelh 53.20) Ί know more than Cato'; eu chan melhs de nul autre chantador (B. de Ventadorn 1.1) Ί sing better than any other singer'. 21. The coexistence of these two comparative structures, one requiring the nominative, the other the accusative case, inevitably led to a fair amount of case fluctuation. The early appearance of the accusative in comparisons of equality in texts which otherwise respect the declension system may have resulted from a strong, analogical pressure exerted by the de construction. In other words, com had come to be looked upon as some 11

sort of a preposition (Nyrop V § 95,5), not essentially different from de and therefore readily combined with an accusative: Deus cum ume dormit (Thaün 443) 'God slept like a man';faiz est cume purcel (ibid., 1743) 'it is built like a small pig'; vousis aler teste levee ausi fierement come un lyon (Queste 126.5) 'you wanted to go with your head raised as proudly as a lion'; fu toz blans come noif (ibid., 213.17) 'it (i.e., the branch) was completely white like snow'; and Occ. lo sens cars es blancs cum neu sobre glai (Appel 46.10) 'her body is white like snow on a sword-lily'. 22. While on the surface the locution faire que 'to act like', followed by an adjective or a noun in the nominative case, may seem related to the comparative clause, it actually reflects a condensed sentence structure in which que serves as the object, the noun or adjective as the subject of the appropriate form of a non-repeated faire (Nyrop V §318,1; Togeby § 146,5; Moignet, p. 159; Gamillscheg, p. 599). Faire que fols, which literally means 'to do what a madman (would have done)', basically serves to express manner and may thus be rendered more freely by 'to act in a foolish manner, to act foolishly'. It is a very common locution in Medieval Gallo-Romance: que fols fist H reis Hugue (Pelerinage 530) 'King Hugo acted foolishly'; molt avezfet que her (Nimes 1245) 'you acted very nobly'; lai le gue, sie feras que sages (Charrete 749) 'you will be wise to leave the ford'; qui pres des murs voudroit venir, ilporoit bien fere que nices (Rose 3843) 'whoever would want to get close to the walls, might very well be acting stupidly; and Occ. fas que fols (P. Cardenal 55.162) 'you are acting like a fool'; amors . . . fai que corteza (Peirol 7.55) 'love acts in a courtly manner'. Dire and parier both 'to talk' often take the place of faire in this locution: or as que bris parle (Ntmes 895) 'you just talked very stupidly'; or n'aijepas dit que senez ( Vair Palefroi 845) did not talk wisely just now'. The locution is subject to grammatical agreement: ele dist mult que fole (Pelerinage 819) 'she spoke very foolishly', and it is not too uncommon to find the accusative used, presumably because the exact nature of the locution had been obliterated: quar trop avoit fait que desloial et que cruel (Troie 134.12) 'for he had acted in too unfaithful and cruel a manner'; Poincet amis, fai tu que sage (Renart 2988) 'my friend Poincet, do act wisely'. There are very rare occurrences in the South of the replacement of que by a comparative com: e fay com pros (K. Bartsch: Denkmäler 122.37) 'and act wisely'. 23. The demonstrative particle ez, es 'behold' (= Fr. void) is occasionally constructed with the nominative case: ais H devant uns chevalers (Roland 3818) 'then a knight appears before him'; alant as vos Guenes e Blanchandrins! (ibid., 413) 'now Ganelon and Blancandrin appear!', but the norm is the accusative. The nominative is extremely rare in the South: vet vos Jhesus davan Pilatz (H. Suchier 23.795) 'here now Jesus appears before Pilate', and this particular passage is perhaps better interpreted as containing a case of proper-noun invariability. 12

The Accusative 24. The accusative case serves principally as the direct object of transitive verbs: mon chevalprist ( Yvain 544) 'he took my horse'; mes sire Yvain οϊ les criz et le duel (ibid., 1173) 'my lord Yvain heard the cries and the mourning', and as the complement of a preposition: monies sor un ceval (Aucassin 20.20) 'get on a horse'; despastoriax separt tost (ibid., 23.4) 'he quickly departs from the shepherds'; Aucassins fu el castel de Torelore (ibid., 34.1) 'Aucassin was in the castle of Torelore'; and similarly for Occitan: dos cavalhs ai (Guillaume IX 1.7) Ί have two horses'; ab la dolchor del temps novel (ibid., 10.1) 'with the sweetness of the new season'. The apposition to an accusative is itself in the accusative case: sor Alion est montez, son destrier (Couronnement 2617) 'he mounted Alion, his steed'; si avoit illuec un chevalier, un sien frere (Clari 76.3) 'and there was a knight there, a brother of his'; connissies vos Aucassin, le fil le conte Garin de Biaucaire? (Aucassin 18.14) 'do you know Aucassin, the son of Count Garin de Beaucaire?'; and Occ. ab Joan so cozi (Appel 6.19) 'with John, his cousin'. 25. The accusative is used exclusively with the impersonal a 'there is, there are': eel jor i ot bien vint et sis abez, et si i ot quatre reis coronez (Couronnement 45) On that day there were truly twenty-six abbots there, and there were four crowned kings there'; a trois jors qu'il m'avint une grande malavanture (Aucassin 24.50) 'three days ago a great misfortune befell me'; n'a en cest mon t home ne fame (Yvain 6598) 'there is in this world neither man nor woman'; and Occ. el mon non a cavalier (P. Vidal 35.35) 'there is not a knight in the world'; set ans a e mais (Peirol 25.48) 'it is over seven years ago'. The nominative is quite exceptional and probably analogical from the synonymous // est 'there is': ou nen i out uns d'eus tot sous (Beroul 137) 'where there was not a single one of them'. The accusative is also the norm with the «meteorological» faire: biau tens faisoit (Eneas 4598) 'the weather was nice'; and Occ. can trop fa greu temps (K. Bartsch: Lesebuch 83.2) 'when the weather is very bad'. The South may also make use of esser and the nominative in descriptions of weather conditions: can bans temps es (Peirol 26.27) 'when the weather is beautiful'. The accusative may serve as complement in the impersonal construction: de ceste terre quar vos preigne pi tie (Nimes 567) 'may you show pity on this land'. 26. It is normally the accusative that is used following the demonstrative particle ez, es 'behold' ( = Fr. void) which, most often, is linked to an ethical dative vos, lit. 'voici pour vous': atant es vus Carlun (Pelerinage 333) 'here now comes Charles'; a tant es vos un mesagier (Bel Inconnu 71) 'here now comes a messenger'; ez vos un cerfplus bei e plus grant que tuit li autre (Saint Eustace 2.9) 'behold a stag more beautiful and bigger than all the others'; es .i. vallet qui le vin aporta (Auberon 744) 'then came a page 13

who brought the wine'. There are rare occurrences of the nominative case, as seen in § 23, perhaps in continuation of conditions in Latin, where a fluctuating case use is noted for ecce (Nyrop V §95,6; Togeby § 186,1; Moignet, p. 90). The demonstrative particle may have been taken to be some sort of an active verb form, which accounts for the use of the accusative, or it may have been considered an interjection, in which case one may expect a nominative in vocative function. The accusative is the norm after voi ci, veez (vos) ci, lit. 'you see here' and the equivalent of Fr. void, since the noun functions as the direct object of the verb: veschi le rot (Clari 34.27) 'here is the king'; vez ci I'escu (Mori Artu 27.9) 'here is the shield'; veez vos ci tot lie et joiant vostre ami (Erec 4523) 'here now is your friend, all happy and joyous'; veez vos ci mon boen osle (ibid., 6541) 'here is my good host'. The corresponding demonstrative particles of Occitan are similarly constructed with the accusative case: ecvos e Roma I'emperador Teiric (Boeci: Appel 105.44) 'here now in Rome is the emperor Terric'; vevos aisi lo vostr' ami (Appel 5.242) 'here now is your friend'. The use of the accusative in exclamations likewise follows from a demonstrative value: Dex, quelvasal (ibid., 1249)'God, what a(brave) knight.' «Imperative» accusatives, appearing in incomplete sentences, may be perceived as the object of a verb left unexpressed: ca, mes armes et mon cheval! (Yvain 4139) 'bring me my weapons and my horse!'. On the other hand, the context clearly calls for a nominative in this passage: Or ca, trestuit a moil (Charrete 1176) 'quickly, move against me, all of you!' Double Accusatives 27. A sentence structure involving two direct objects is not uncommon in the old language; to the first object, which may be a noun or a pronoun, a noun or an adjective is added in a predicative role: toz ses barons a asenblez, cals que il sot les plus senez (Eneas 2230) 'he assembled all his barons, those whom he knew to be the most discreet'; toz les barons de cest pa'is avez vos fait voz enemis (ibid., 1357) 'you have turned all the barons of this country into your enemies'; apries morn veskes Evrars, s'ont veske Estievenop level (AFW V 366) 'later bishop Evrar died, and they elevated Estievenop to bishop'. Double accusatives are encountered in Latin syntax as well: habere aliquem collegam 'to have somebody as a colleague'; aliqnem uxorem ducere / dare 'to take or to give away somebody as wife', but there is a definite trend in Vulgar Latin toward expressing such predicative complements by means of a prepositional construction (Väänänen §§ 357-359). A similar tendency is noted for Old French and Occitan, where double accusatives abound in archaic texts, while they continue to be on the decrease in later periods. 28. Many verbs are commonly constructed with two accusatives, specifically when the accusative serving in a predicative role is an adjective or a 14

noun appearing in adjectival function. Among such verbs are aveir 'to have'; veoir 'to see'; trover 'to find'; lenir 'to hold (to be), to regard, to consider'; conoistre 'to know'; saveir 'to know'; apeler 'to call'; darner 'to call': de ceo ot ele grant pour qu'hume le vit e pus ostur ( Yonec 278) 'she was very much afraid because she saw him as a man and then as a hawk'; trueve ansele son cheval (Erec 5646) 'he finds his horse saddled'; preudome et leal vos truis (ibid., 5600) Ί find you to be a worthy and loyal man'; celui lienent li fol boen conseillier ki son seignour dist (on ki li puet plaire (Chansons sat. 1.11) 'foolish people consider him a good counselor who tells his lord what can please him'; trai'tor le conte apelent (Cliges 1914) 'they call the count a traitor'; et doit me ele ami darner? ( Yvain 1458) 'and should she call me a friend?'; and Occ. el troba sos vassals trai'dors (A. de Peguilhan 52.36) 'he finds his vassals treacherous'; clama sos vezins coartz (P. d'Alvernhe 12.74) 'he calls his neighbors cowards'; car me conois plus fin (G. de Montanhagol 9.30) 'for he knows that I am more faithful'. With aveir this syntax is particularly common in descriptions of the body: cars o t gent (Dole 716) 'she had a graceful body'; de sane ot covert le muse! (Renart 681) 'it had its snout covered with blood'; et les torchait de ses chevous que biaus avoit (Boron 246) 'and she dried them (i.e., the feet) with her hair, which was beautiful'; and Occ. lo pel ac blon (Flamenco 1583) 'she had blond hair'. 29. The predicative accusative is often replaced by a prepositional construction involving the preposition a, less frequently por, the latter reflecting Lat. pro in habere / ducere pro 'to consider to be'. With the reflexive tenir 'to hold (to be), to consider, to regard', this represents the norm: a mort se tient et a trahi (Vergi 189) 'he considers himself dead and betrayed'; por fol me ting (Yvain 578) Ί considered myself foolish'. Com, come 'as' may serve as the equivalent of a or por (Gamillscheg, p. 606): lo saludent cum sennior (Passion 251) 'they greet him as lord'; o est Rollant le catanie ki me jurat cume sa per a prendre? (Roland 3710) 'where is Roland, the leader, who swore to take me for his wife?'. It is very generally true of the verbs mentioned in § 28 that they may replace the predicative accusative by a construction with a. Originally marking the direction of the action, a has come to serve merely to circumscribe the predicate (Gamillscheg, p. 605): je la conois a la plus vaillanl dame del monde (Mort Artit 71.12)'! know her to be the worthiest lady in the world'; celui quege sai au meilleur chevalier del monde et au plus cortois (ibid., 165.16) 'the person whom I know to be the best and the courtliest knight in the world'; ge vos ^oif bien a mes compaignons (ibid., 56.15) Ί gladly accept you as my companions'; se cestuiprenez a seignor (Eneas 1374) 'if you accept him as your lord'; je vos recevrai a fame (Erec 4665) Ί will take you as my wife'. The preposition may also be used with an adjectival predicate: j'avoie un compaignon que je savoie a mout loial (Rose 3092) Ί had a companion whom I knew to be very loyal'; tant les quenuisje a malves ( Yvain 1861) 'so much do I know them to be evil'. 15

30. A double accusative is commonly found with faire when meaning 'to make, to transform, to turn or change into': Agamenon, que ilorentfait prince (Troie 76.7) 'Agamemnon, whom they had made a prince'; vos fetes Fortune deesse (Rose 5884) 'you turn Fortune into a goddess'; au matin fist le vaslet chevalier (Queste 40.4) 'in the morning he made the page a knight'; par granment doner les fist tuz ses amis (Beckel 3812) 'by giving generously he made them all his friends'. It is often an adjective that appears in this construction: poez feire malade sein (Saint Gilles 442) 'you can make a sick person healthy'; quar il en fait les uns dolens et les autres lies (Troie 189.9) 'for it (i.e., love) makes some sad and the others happy'. The verbs laissier 'to leave' and rendre 'to make, to render' may be similarly constructed: leissa molt la dame iriee que ilavoit molt feite liee (Yvain 3322) 'he left the lady very sad, the lady whom he had made very happy'; la meie mort me rent si anguissus (Roland 2198) 'my death makes me so filled with anguish'; a I'aide de Deu, sain et sauf le rendrons (R. Alix. 35.21) 'with God's help we will make him regain his health'; and Occ. qel vil fai car el nesci gen parlan, e I'escars larc, e leial lo truan (A. de Peguilhan 15.18) 'for it (i.e., love) makes the wretched man friendly and the stupid man eloquent and the miser generous, and trustworthy the rogue'; e layssec so filh heretier (G. de la Barre 5) 'and he left his son as heir'. While by and large the adjectival construction has survived, a competing syntax involving the preposition de often replaces the double accusative structure: pur vusfisl de noit le jur (Saint Gilles 2892) 'for you he turned night into day'; bien fet Amors d'un sage fol (Cliges 1621) 'Love truly makes a wise man foolish'; de son escu a fet anclume (ibid., 4808) 'he turned his shield into an anvil'; de vos ferai contesse (Erec 4666) will make you a countess'; qui d'Amors veut fere son mestre (Rose TIM) 'he who wants to make Love his master'; lur seignur firent d'Yönec (Yonec 553) 'they made Yonec their lord'; and Occ. e fesetz de l'aiga vin (P. d'Alvernhe 18.50) 'and you turned water into wine'; e« qualguiza cujas far d'avol valen ni de gonella camiza? (Marcabru 11.65) 'in what way do you think you can turn a coward into a brave man and a coat into a shirt?'. 31. In some cases where a double accusative is used, the verb forms a close-knit unit with the first complement, while the second serves as object of the entire locution as in prendre moillier 'to take as one's wife, to marry'; doner baron 'to give somebody as a husband': prendrai je la moillier? (Couronnemenl 1367) 'shall I take her as my wife?'; baron li vourenl doner un roi de paiiens (Aucassin 38.9) 'they wanted to give her a pagan king as husband'; sisperes li duna barun, un mut riche humme (Milun 124) 'her father married her off to a very rich man'. The words for 'husband' and 'wife' may also enter into a double accusative combination involving the verb aveir: femme aveit une dame de haut parage (Guigemar 210) 'he had for a wife a lady of noble birth'; femme espuse ot li seneschals dunt puis vint el pai's granz mals (Equitan 29) 'the seneschal had for a wife a 16

woman through whom, later, a great evil befell the country'; seignor avroiz le plus gentil. . . qui onques fust ( Yvain 1814) 'you will have as your husband the noblest man there ever was'. A construction with a is not uncommon: // vavasors avoit a fame une bien afeitiee dame (Charrete 2045) 'the nobleman had as his wife a well-bred lady'; la fille al roi prandras a fenne (Eneas 2187) 'you will marry the king's daughter'. In Occitan, wire or penre marit is similarly found alternating with lolre a /per marit 'to take somebody for one's husband, to marry somebody': si tolc marit un gentil baron (Vidas 87.B.58) 'she married a noble baron' vs. e tolc a marit un chavalier de Catalogna (Ussel, p. 102) 'and she married a knight from Catalonia'. 32. In the South, a double accusative is encountered in the locution traire autor alcu 'to take somebody to witness': puesc ne traire'l vers auctor (Guillaume IX 6.6) Ί can take the poem to witness'. A prepositional construction is also commonly found: lo vers en trac ad autor (var. reading of the above passage) Ί take the poem to witness', and this is the only syntax documented for Old French: si en puis bien traire a garant un auctor qui ot non Macrobes (Rose 6) 'and I can very well take as witness to this an author whose name is Macrobius'; si an trai a garant Macrobe (Erec 6676) Ί take Macrobius as witness to this'. 33. The locution ferir colp 'to deal a blow' may be constructed with a direct object, most often a pronoun, designating the person, animal or thing that receives the blow (AFW III 1735-36): cascun le fieri .iiii. colps de sun puign (Roland 1824) 'each one deals him four blows with his fist'; desor I'escu grant cop lo fieri (Eneas 5866) 'he deals him a heavy blow on the shield'; et le fieri de son branc grant cop (Troie 174.26) 'and he deals him a heavy blow with his sword'. Nouns are also encountered in this structure, and the use of le in the above passages makes it clear that we are dealing with a direct object and not an absolute dative: li eveske de Lundres aveit le reifem eine cops (Becket 6026) 'the bishop of London had dealt the king five blows'; et si tenoit une corgiee don la mule feroit grant cos (Charrete 2785) 'and she was holding a whip with which she was dealing the mule heavy blows'. The precise nature of the ferir colp construction has been variously explained. F rster (Aiol, note to v. 443) suggests that one accusative expresses the goal in a global manner while the other indicates the result of the action. Tobler (I 92, n. 1) accepts this explanation in principle, whereas Nyrop (V § 182,3) distinguishes between a regime de personne and a regime de chose, both in the accusative case as in Lat. aliquem aliquid docere 'to teach somebody something'. Nyrop seems inclined to believe that only weak pronouns can serve as regime de personne, but this is contradicted by the last two passages quoted above. O. Schultz (ZRPh, XIV, 1890, 475) interprets colp as an inner object, and Moignet (p. 97) likewise distinguishes between an internal (colp) and an external object (le\ while Gamillscheg (p. 348) identifies colp as an accusative of di17

mension or measure. What is important in expressions such as ferir colp and prendre moillier is the fact that we are dealing with semantic units consisting of a verb and a direct object which, taken together, are the equivalent of a transitive verb: ferir colp = balre 'to strike, to hit' and prendre moillier = esposer 'to marry', hence the possibility of adding a second accusative serving as the direct object of the entire locution. The locution ferir colp is also encountered in Occitan: tan grans colps los ferrem nos drut (B. de Born 1.30) 'we shall deal them so many heavy blows'; va amb I'espaza ferir la peira del marme tres cops (Pseudo-Turpin 504.20) 'with his sword he goes to strike three blows on the marble stone'. If doner 'to give' or the equivalent replaces ferir 'to strike' in this locution, an indirect object is used for the regime de personne in accordance with the syntax of the verbs of giving: et U done tel cop qu'il le fet tout embronchier (Queste 192.30) 'and he deals him such a heavy blow that he knocks him over'; and Occ. e donee li tal colp (Croisade Albigeoise 203.55) 'and he gave it such a heavy blow'. 34. The double accusative structure found with ferir colp may spread analogically to locutions involving a part of the body or an item of clothing (Nyrop V § 182,3; Gamillscheg, p. 348), but examples of this expansion are rare: cilia baise le vis (cited by Nyrop) 'he kisses her face'; set feiz le beise de randun, les oh, la buche e le mentun (Saint Gilles 2633) 'seven times he passionately kisses his eyes, his mouth and his chin'; etpuis se le revesti on lepalle (Clari 96.47) 'and then they dressed him in the mantle again'; and Occ. e fer lo, si qe tot lo fen la testa (Jaufre 5388) 'and he hits him in such a way that he completely splits his head in two'. It is surprising to find two direct objects in this passage: et le fieri son escu (Troie 165.13) 'and he hits his shield'. While this could be analogical from the ferir colp syntax, I rather suspect a faulty reading here, since the following line has: et le feri desous son escu 'and he hit him beneath his shield'. 35. A direct object may be combined with an accusative denoting price or measure: (rente deniers le vendi (Boron 1842) 'he sold him for thirty deniers'; il m'acata mil besans (Eracle 680) 'he bought me for a thousand bezants'; and Occ. e va lo vendre finchamen .c. sols (Pseudo-Turpin 482.39) 'and he goes to sell it fraudulently for a hundred sous'. A double accusative syntax is also found with the absurdly low values expressed in certain negative formulas of a popular cast: je ne pris pas plain poing de cendre fa menace (Charretle 798) Ί do not esteem your threat worth a fistful of ashes'; tot ce neprisoit tin ail (Dole 4794) 'he did not esteem all that worth a bulb of garlic'. The Accusative in Genitive Function 36. With proper nouns of persons a possessive relationship may be expressed through the simple juxtaposition of two nouns without the use of 18

any preposition. The noun denoting the possessor is usually placed last, and it is always in the accusative, while the noun referring to the person or thing possessed may be either in the nominative or the accusative case depending on its syntactical role in the sentence. The same syntax is encountered in Occitan. Historically, this use of the accusative goes back to the dative syntax of Latin (Nyrop V § 96,4; Gamillscheg, p. 16). The juxtaposition genitive serves to express family relationships and social links, but also possession in a broad sense: Cupido, li filz Venus (Rose 1586) 'Cupid, the son of Venus'; puis le tens Paris de Troie (Dole 1605) 'since the time of Paris of Troy'; y'w.y