French prosodics and phonotactics: an historical typology 9783111328119, 3484530272, 9783484520271

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BEIHEFTE ZUR Z E I T S C H R I F T F Ü R R O M A N I S C H E PHILOLOGIE BEGRÜNDET VON GUSTAV GRÖBER FORTGEFÜHRT VON WALTHER VON WARTBURG HERAUSGEGEBEN VON KURT BALDINGER

124. Heft

JÜRGEN KLAUSENBURGER

French Prosodies and Phonotactics An Historical Typology

MAX N I E M E Y E R VERLAG T Ü B I N G E N 1970

I S B N 3484S20272 © Max Niemeyer Verlag Tübingen 1970 Alle Rechte vorbehalten · Printed in Germany Ohne ausdrückliche Genehmigung des Verlages ist es auch nicht gestattet, diesen Band oder Teile daraus, auf fotomechanischem Wege (Photofcopie, Mikrokopie) zu vervielfältigen. Satz: Allgäuer Zcitungsverlag Kempten Einband von Heinr. Koch Tübingen

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This study was originally offered and accepted as partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Romance Languages and Literatures: Romance Linguistics at the University of Michigan in May, 1969. I am indebted to Professor Ernst Pulgram for his critical guidance and assistance in the development of this study. Also I wish to express my sincere thanks to the other members of my doctoral committee, William H. Bennett, William W. Cressey, Lawrence B. Kiddle, and Raleigh Morgan, Jr., for their interest in the research. I would like to acknowledge gratefully the subsidy awarded to me by the Graduate School Research Fund, University of Washington, for the publication of this work. Jürgen Klausenburger University of Washington Seattle, September 1970.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ABBREVIATIONS TRANSCRIPTION CHAPTER ONE 1.1. 1.2. 1.3. 1.4.

INTRODUCTION

Purpose of this study Previous work Methodology Brief outline

CHAPTER TWO 2.1. 2.2. 2.3. 2.4. 2.5.

Introduction The history of the vowel system Stress development The evolution of LSL nexus The emergence of the oxytonic French cursus

4.1. 4.2. 4.3. 4.4.

j.i. 5.2. 5.3. 5.4. 5.5. 5.6.

29 31 34 39

DlACHRONIC PHONOTACTICS

Introduction Syncope in LSL The glide consonant in OF The role of the prosthetic vowel/e/ Apocope I and the occurrence of the supporting vowel Apocope II and the phonotactic status of e-caduc in MF

CHAPTER SIX

19 20 22 27

THE MODERN FRENCH CURSUS

The French phonological unit A grammatical definition of the minimal cursus Some nominal and verbal cursemes Three-fold cohesion in the minimal cursus

CHAPTER FIVE

5 6 10 12 16

OLD FRENCH PROSODY

Introduction History of French liaison A study of OF versification Comparison of "Future French" and OF

CHAPTER FOUR

ι I ι 4

THE PROSODIC EVOLUTION OF FRENCH

CHAPTER THREE 3.1. 3.2. 3.3. 3.4.

v ix χ

43 44 45 47 49 50

PHONOTACTIC STRUCTURES IN OLD FRENCH

6.1. The OF consonant system

55

VII

6.2. OF consonant clusters 6.3. OF consonant sequences 6.4. History of OF consonant clusters and sequences CHAPTER SEVEN 7.1. 7.2. 7.3. 7.4. 7.5. 7.6.

PHONOTACTIC STRUCTURES IN MODERN FRENCH

The consonant system of MF MF consonant clusters Para-clusters Discussion of para-clusters Quasi-clusters and quasi-para-clusters A comparison of OF and MF

CHAPTER EIGHT

56 58 59

65 66 69 72 74 77

CONCLUSIONS

8.1. Summary 8.2. Results 8.3. Further work

85 85 87

BIBLIOGRAPHY

89

LIST OF CHARTS Chart I. II. III. IV. V. VI. VII. VIII. IX. X. XI. XII. XIII. XIV. XV. XVI.

VIII

Two-member postpausal clusters in OF Two-member prepausal clusters in OF Three-member prepausal clusters in OF Two-member sequences in OF Three-member sequences in OF Two-member postpausal clusters in MF Two-member postpausal para-clusters in MF Two-member postpausal clusters and para-clusters in MF Two-member postpausal quasi-clusters in MF Two-member postpausal quasi-para-clusters in MF Two-member postpausal quasi-clusters and quasi-para-clusters in MF Three-member postpausal clusters in MF Two-member prepausal clusters in MF Two-member prepausal para-clusters in MF Two-member prepausal clusters and para-clusters in MF Three-member prepausal clusters in MF

63 63 63 64 64 79 80 80 81 81 . . . 82 82 83 83 84 84

ABBREVIATIONS

OL CL SL LSL VL ML GR OF MF C

Old Latin Classical Latin Spoken Latin Late Spoken Latin Vulgar Latin Medieval Latin Gallo-Roman Old French Modern French consonant

V WL NL CLa CL-P CL-SS

vowel word language nexus language cursus language cursus language with phonetic stress cursus language with obliteration of segmental and suprasegmental identity of word

IX

TRANSCRIPTION

I... I [... ] /...-.../ // . . . // -n- . . . + * s έ θ c •L c g H ή /E/ /0/ /A/ /E/ /O/

phonemic transcription (word boundary) phonetic transcription phonemic syllable boundary nexus boundary cursus boundary indicates a hypothetical form voiceless palatal sibiknt voiced palatal sibilant voiceless dental fricative voiced dental fricative voiceless dental affricate [ts] voiced dental affricate [dz] voiceless prepalatal affricate [tS] voiced prepalatal affricate [dZ] labio-palatal consonant (as in MF huif) voiced palatal nasal consonant front unrounded mid-vowel (archiphoneme with allophones [e] and [ε]) front rounded mid-vowel (archiphoneme with allophones [0] and [oe]) central low vowel (archiphoneme with allophones [a] and

M)

front nasal vowel (archiphoneme with allophones [ε] and [*]) back rounded mid-vowel (archiphoneme with allophones [o]

W)

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

i.i.

Purpose of this study

The purpose of this study is (i) to trace the evolution of the prosodic structure of French, from LSL over OF to the modern period, in terms of a nexus/cursus typology; and (2) to describe the phonotactic structures of OF and MF, and to outline their diachronic relationship, through an analysis based on a phonotactic definition of the syllable. Although two distinct divisions of this study are intended, the interrelation of prosodic and phonotactic structures is set forth as a necessary working hypothesis, and it will be demonstrated that the establishment of phonological units, made on the basis of a prosodic typology, must precede a phonotactic description.

1.2.

Previous work

Despite the wealth of both historical and synchronic studies on French phonology, neither of the two aspects of the present report has been treated in depth previously. A brief comparison of OF and MF prosodies can be found in Pulgram 196 5 a, while phonotactic details of OF are included in Hall 1946. Various questions of MF phonotactics are discussed in Gougenheim 1935, Hall 1948, Arnold 1956, Valdman 1960, Weinrich 1961, Pulgram 1961 and 1967, Christensen 1964 and 1966. General, but important, contributions to phonotactic descriptions are the articles of Fischer-J0rgensen 1952, O'Connor and Trim 1953, Vogt 1954, and Haugen 1956. In addition, detailed analyses of languages other than French exist, such as the phonotactic studies on English by Yasui 1962, Fu 1963, and Scholes 1966; on Spanish by Saporta and Contreras 1962, and Valencia 1966; on Italian by Kim 1965; on Swedish by Sigurd 1965; on Danish by Vestergaard 1967; and on Russian by Pilch 1967.

1.3.

Methodology

The terms nexus and cursus, which will be used throughout this study, but in particular in the portion dealing with prosodies, are borrowed from Pulgram 1969. Some preliminary definitions are given here for their understanding.

WORD. One may distinguish word from lexeme, "with the second connoting the presence of only morphological, the first the presence of both morphological and phonological traits of identification"1. NEXUS. A nexus h "a sequence of lexemes . .. joined in such a way that the entire series behaves phonologically (segmentally and suprasegmentally) like a word, though of course morphologically it is a single word no more than it is a single lexeme. The suprasegmental configuration of the entire nexus is that of a single word, with those lexemes that are bereft of their suprasegmental identity becoming clitics, which lean upon the suprasegmentally complete lexeme for support"2. CURSUS. A cursus is "a stylistically determined piece of discourse between pauses in which lexeme boundaries are segmentally and suprasegmentally obliterated."3 The essential distinction between a nexus and a cursus may be found in the presence of clitics in the nexus, and the definition of the cursus as a unit bounded by phonemes of pause. In a nexus, one lexeme retains its suprasegmental autonomy by means of accentual prominence, in whatever acoustic form accent is realized. This often implies distinctiveness of the accent, since non-distinctive suprasegmental features tend to be neutralized. The cursus, on the other hand, contains no lexeme that bears an accent, and thus the non-distinctiveness of the accent is implied. The boundaries of the nexus are determined by the number of clitics which are capable of "leaning" on the accented lexeme, while the cursus is solely delimited by pauses at either end. It can be said that the typological distinction into nexus and cursus is made on the basis of function of the accent, distinctive and nondistinctive. Word, nexus, and cursus can be considered morphonological units since they are extracted from discourse by phonological as well as morphological traits of identification. The phonological aspect includes both suprasegmental, or prosodic, features, in terms of which nexus and cursus are differentiated, and segmental, or phonotactic, features. Phonotactically, however, word, nexus, and cursus are equivalent in that (1) inside these three units all internal segmental boundary markers are neutralized, and (2) word-initial and word-final positions can be equated to nexus-initial and nexus-final, as well as to cursus-initial and cursus-final positions, respectively. Due to this equality, word, nexus, and cursus may be subsumed under one term, section, for the purpose of phonotactic descriptions*. In this study, the syllable will be used as the basic frame of reference for the description of consonant groups of OF and MF. These consonant combinations, which constitute the corpus of the phonotactic analyses, are differen1 2 3 4

Pulgtam Pulgram Pulgram Pulgram

1969, 15. 1969, 16. 1969, 20. 1969, 32.

tiated into clusters and sequences. A cluster is defined as a combination of two or more consonants which belong to the same syllable, while an ambisyllabic consonant group is termed a sequence5. Syllable-initial clusters are equated with section-initial, or postpausal clusters, while syllable-final clusters are section-final, or prepausal ones. Consonant sequences are dissolvable into occurring syllable-final and syllable-initial consonants and consonant clusters. If a sequence allows more than one phonotactically acceptable division, the Principle of maximal open syllabicity and the Principle of minimal coda and maximal onset are applied8. The following examples illustrate these principles. The sequence /kstr/ in MF extrait admits a syllable boundary after both /k/ and /s/, since /k/ and /ks/ occur prepausally in MF (lac, axe), while both /str/ and /tr/ are occurring postpausal clusters (strict, train). The application of the second principle above decides on the division /k-str/. The first principle given must be used in order to resolve the ambiguity in construction, where four divisions are possible: /kö-stryk-sjö/, /kös-tryk-sjö/, /köst-ryksjö/, and/köstr-yk-sjö/. The first solution is chosen, since it leaves the first syllable open, and since the second syllable starts with an occurring postpausal cluster /str/, as in strict. The rather complex overlapping of prosodic, phonotactic, and morphological levels, involved in the definition of word, nexus, and cursus, can be summarized in a diagram such as the following. Morphonological Phonological Phonotactic (syllable)

section

Morphological

Prosodic word

lexeme

nexus

group of lexemes

cursus

(morpheme)

7

curseme

Explanation of diagr-tm. Word, nexus, and cursus are primarily prosodic units. All three are sections on the phonotactic level, the subunit of the section being the syllable. As prosodic and phonotactic units, word, nexus, and cursus are phonological entities. However, all three exist on the morphological level also, where they may be termed lexeme, group of lexemes, and curseme, respectively. The subunit on the morphological side is the morpheme. Since word, nexus, and cursus are defined by phonological and morphological traits simultaneously, they are morphonological units. * Pulgram 1965^ 76 * For an explanation of these principles and a complete discussion of phonotactic syllabation, see Pulgram 1969, 27-48. 7 Term to be introduced and explained in Chapter Four, 4.2.

ι.Φ

Brief outline

The starting point of this study will be an analysis of the prosodic evolution of French, which will trace the development of the vowel system, stress, and segmental conditions, from LSL to OF to MF (Chapter Two). Then aspects of OF prosody will be discussed, principally through a study of OF versification (Chapter Three). The prosodic half of this dissertation will conclude with an attempt to define the MF phonological unit, the cursus, by grammatical means (Chapter Four). The phonotactic part of the study will begin with a presentation of various features in the history of French which are related to phonotactics (Chapter Five). After this general chapter on phonotactic evolution, the OF consonant combinations will be described as clusters and sequences, and then their development into MF will be outlined (Chapter Six). Finally, the MF consonant structure will be analyzed in terms of clusters, para-clusters, quasi-clusters, and quasi-para-clusters8 (Chapter Seven).

• These terms will be defined in Chapter Seven.

CHAPTER TWO

THE PROSODIC EVOLUTION OF FRENCH

2.1.

Introduction

It is convenient to analyze the history of the prosodic typology of the French language under three chronological divisions: (i) GR (LSL of Gaul, until the end of the 8th century); (2) OF literary period (9th to i6th centuries); (3) MF (i6th century until today). In this chapter, only the principal features of this evolution will be presented, since the second period (OF) constitutes the subject matter of Chapter Three, and the third (MF) that of Chapter Four. One can make a clear-cut and neat typological distinction between stages (i) and (3): GR must have been a NL, with distinctive stress, while MF is quite evidently a CL-SS, with obliteration of both the segmental and suprasegmental identity of lexemes, having non-distinctive, oxytonic, stress. However, the OF literary period represents an apparent transitional stage, which cannot be easily integrated into a nexus / cursus typology9. Of all the Romance areas, the dialects of Northern France, in particular Francien, which became MF, were the only ones to undergo such a typological transformation and evolve from a NL into a CL-SS. The standard dialects of Italy and Spain show no typological change at all: Italian and Spanish are today NL, just like LSL of Italy and Spain, both with the suprasegmental feature of distinctive stress10. In the following analysis of the French prosodic evolution, special emphasis will be placed on the history of the vowel system, the role of stress, and phonotactic developments (syllabic structure). It is, in fact, only through the constant interrelation of these elements that a coherent and plausible explanation may be given11. In most traditional grammars and analyses, there is an implicit, if not explicit, assumption that the Latin language spoken in the Roman empire during its waning days (usually termed VL) must in some way be derivable from the classical, written language, of which we have the most substantial attestations. This implied premise can be demonstrated by the treatment of the evolution of the vowels and the status of the accent in the historical * See, however Chapter Three. Cf. Pulgram 1969, passim, in particular 68-69. 11 Cf. Chapter Five for details of the major diachronic events of French phonotactics. 10

phonological explanations by various Romance scholars. Their approaches, because of this underlying assumption, of necessity always include attempts to show how the CL phonemic quantity system of the vowels was converted into the post-classical phonemic quality system, this vowel conversion having the consequence of phonologizing the accent. Such explanations vary in their degree of ingeniousness12. Instead of holding this CL to VL sequence view, Pulgram suggested already in 1950 that the Latin spoken language has a continuous history, stretching from the OL period, before the flowering of Latin literature, into the Romance dialects of today. CL is presented as an offshoot from the changing spoken language, a branch which was codified for the use of the Roman classical authors and of the upper classes of society13. This view of the continuity of the spoken language will be taken up here in the presentation of the history of the Latin vowel system and the development of stress in the spoken Latin of Gaul.

2.2.

The history of the vowel system

The following were the vowel phonemes of LSL of Gaul: /i/

H /e/

M /ε/

/ο/ /a/

These seven vowels derived from a LSL system often vowels, which, unlike those of CL, were distinguished from one another by quality alone14: /i/

l

/u/ /e/

M

/ο/

Η

/ε/ Ν /α/

There occurred phonemic merger of the two /a/'s (early), and of /I/ and /e/, /U/ and /o/, to /e/ and /o/, respectively, in GR. 12

13 14

One of the most ingenious was suggested by Weinrich 1958. He proposed, in a chapter entitled "Quantit tenkollaps," that the phonological quantity of vowels was lost following a phonologization of consonantal quantity, as the spoken language was rich in geminates. An excellent summary of this and two other main approaches, that of Lausberg 19473 (Oscan substratum theory), and that of Haudricourt and Juilland 1949 (imbalance of the system caused by the monophthongization of the diphthong /ae/) can be found in Spence 1965. The latter also reviews L dtke 1956, who emphasized the role of the phonologized accent, basing himself on the pioneering article by Novdk 1932, which will be discussed in detail below. Details in Pulgram 1950. Cf. Pulgram 1964, 378-379.

One may directly compare the seven member system of LSL of Gaul with the contemporary French vocalism. In MF, it is possible to distinguish a "maximal" system, which is conservative and used by older speakers and in school tradition, and a "minimal" system, which is innovating, belonging to the younger generation of French speakers; this system includes the number of vocalic oppositions which are absolutely necessary in order to communicate effectively15. MF maximal system Oral vowels

ßl hl

/e/ /0/

Nasal vowels /o/

/«//«/

/a//a/

H

H /E//a/

lit

/ö/

MF minimal system16 Oral vowels

ßl hl

/E//0/

/ /

/A/

Nasal vowels

H

/£/

/ /

lit

It is clear immediately from a comparison that in the development from LSL of Gaul into MF there has been a substantial increase in the phonemic vowel inventory, seven to ten in the minimal system, seven to fifteen in the maximal system. It is evident in particular that two new sets of vowels, the front rounded series and the nasal series, have been created in the French vowel evolution17. The importance of this evolution has best been stated by Lausberg: "Der Vokal in einem französischen Wort schließt sozusagen die Distinktionskraft mehrerer lateinischer Phoneme in sich: wo das lateinische Wort Phoneme summiert, kann das Französische durch feinere (phonologisch gültige) Unterscheidungen der Phoneme die Anzahl der Phoneme in der Wortstruktur beschränken."18 In other words, the distinctive potential that lies in the vowels has definitely been augmented by these changes. Of course, only the vowels that carried the stress in the Latin word underwent substantial transformations. In addition, GR differentiated vowels by syllabic structure in the diphthongization of the mid-vowels. It can be assumed that these LSL mid16

18 17 18

For a discussion of maximal and minimal systems of French vowels see Malmberg 1962, 140, and Pulgram 1967, 1635—1638; see also Bourciez 1967, 24-25. /E/, /0/, /O/,/A/, and /£/ symbolize archiphonemes. See Pulgram 1967, 1635-1638. Cf. Geschiere 1963 for an excellent analysis of the nasal vowels. Lausberg 1947^ 311.

vowels were allophonically lengthened in phonotactically open syllables and under stress, then diphthongized19: , . , M >[ej] ^ [e] , , , Ν > [ομ]

, [ε:] > [je] W N [ε]

/C/

rege nepote />«& cor«

LSL [re:ga] [nepo:ta] [ρε: do] [ko:ra]

. [D:] > [„ο]

OF [rej] [nevout] [pie] [kuor]

rot neveu pied coeur

MF [rwd] [navo] [pie] [kcer]

On the other hand, vowels preceding a nasal consonant in the same syllable were nasalized, first also allophonically. Later, owing to a tendency toward open syllabicity, the nasal consonant disappeared, and the nasality of the vowel was phonologized20: LSL vittu ventu campu ponte unu

[vina] [vents] [kampa] [ponta] [Una]

OF [νϊη] [vent] [camp] [pont] [On]

MF vat vent champ pont ««

[ve] [v ] [s ] [po] [oe] ([δ21])

Weinrich has suggested that there may be a connection between the extensive modifications (Differenzierungen) of Latin tonic vowels in GR (diphthongization which, in MF, led to the creation of the front rounded vowels, and nasalization) and the occurrence of syncope and apocope of atonic vowels22. Togeby, in his review of Weinrich's book, agreed, adding that the tonic vowel evolution can be considered compensatory to atonic losses: "La 19

Cf. Wartburg 1950, 82 and Hall 1955, 405. Cf. Hall 1955,401. 21 Early OF had the nasal vowel [I] which was later lost, being lowered to [ε]; the OF [I], as a consequence, was lowered to [a]. The dating of these (probably simultaneous) changes is difficult to ascertain. Assonances of -ent and -ant cannot be found in the St. Alexis yet, but already in the Chanson de Roland. These may mean that the [e] to [ ] change had taken place by the nth and 12th centuries. Or, it could be simply that, since in OF the nasal consonant was definitely still articulated, the difference between [ε] and [ ] was less distinct than today, where the two nasal vowels exist as phonemes /ε/ and / /, totally free of a following nasal consonant. (For the second hypothesis, see Geschiere 1963, 21; for a complete discussion of the phonetic aspect of nasalization and dating, see Straka 1955, passim, in particular 273-274.) The early OF nasalized vowel [ ] became [y] as soon as [u] changed to [y], probably by the loth century (cf. footnote 27, below); in the development into MF it was lowered to [ce], which also occurs as [ε] in contemporary French colloquial codes (cf. "minimal system", above). ** Weinrich 1958, 189-190. 20

8

differentiation semble etre presque partout la compensation d'une apocope, de la perte d'une voyelle finale atone. Les langues ou a lieu la differentiation sont en effet celles ou le corps des mots a ete le plus reduit: le francais.. ."23 Jungemann interpreted syncope and apocope as eliminations of redundant vowels. He inverted the traditional assumption that an intensive stress (usually attributed to the effects of a Germanic superstratum) somehow caused the unstressed vowels to be reduced and then lost. For him, certain vowels became prominent (stressed) because others had become redundant (syncopated, apocopated). In addition, according to Jungemann, morphological and syntactical innovations replaced the distinctive potential of the vowels lost, e.g. the "analytical" Romance declensional and verbal system24. In theories such as those of Weinrich, T0geby, and Jungemann, it is essential to avoid teleological explanations25, saying that one change (diphthongization) "caused" another event (apocope). Rather, one should consider objectively the interrelationship of the above mentioned changes, pointing out mutual effects26. Thus, important insights can be gained, and a major burden in the present discussion of the evolution of French into a CL-SS will be carried by such an internal explanation. A relative chronology of the vowel developments of GR was given by Richter and Pope27: 23 24 26

2e 27

T0geby 1960, 408. Cf. Martinet 1955, 171. Jungemann 1955, 313-314. Cf. Martinet 1955, 169. Baldinger 1958, 466, reviewing Weinrich 1958, says that Weinrich has a teleological attitude. Cf. Spence 1965, 15. Richter 1934, passim, and Pope 1966, 77-79. The essential and only purpose of this chronology is to list the termination dates of the six vowel developments given, since, in order to describe the OF period as already containing cursus, the first four changes must have been completed by the end of the 8th century. I believe that all of these four evolutions can be safely put into pre-8th century times. Now, the dates of inception and periods of duration of the sound changes listed are not generally agreed upon, and I have given one possible dating only. Some of the problems in connection with these evolutions are: (i) Did the diphthongization of/ε/ occur before that of/D/, and can both, in fact, be put as early as the 3rd and 4th centuries? (Straka 1953, 2J7ff., 1956, passim?) (z) Did the diphthongization of/e/ and /o/ already begin during the 6th century? (Straka 1953, 285 ; 1964, 33.) My dates for these two diphtongizations merely mean to indicate that they were definitely completed by the 6th and 7th centuries, (cf. Romeo 1968, passim.) (3) Syncope occurred during various stages in the evolution of SL into OF. The first important stage was during the Imperial period (cf. below, Chapter 5, 5.2., for a complete analysis of the phonotactics involved.) My terminal date, the 7th century, simply says that all occurrences of syncope in GR were completed by the end of the 7th century, thus a century before apocope. (4) Nasalization of vowels (allophonically) began during the 9th century, approximately, but the eventual culmination, the phonologization of nasal vowels and the concomitant loss of the following nasal consonant, can be put as late as the i6th century (cf. Straka 1964, 47.) (5) The dating of/u/ to /y/ is a much debated problem. Those who believe that a Celtic substratum was responsible for this change (cf. Wartburg 1950, Straka 1964) give it as early a date as the 7th century. However, I agree with Rohlfs and others who put this

(1) Diphthongization of / / and/D/: terminated by the 6th century (2) Diphthongization of/e/ and /o/: terminated by the yth century (3) Syncope of penultimate vowels: terminated by the yth century (4) Apocope of all vowels except /a/, which became /a/: terminated during the yth and 8th centuries (j) Nasalization of vowels: begun during 9th century (6) Fronting of/u/ to /y/: terminated by the roth century This chronology indicates that all major vocalic transformations which contributed to making French the language that it is were terminated very early in its history. As a matter of fact, two essential changes with consequences in the prosodic evolution, syncope and apocope, occurred before the end of the 8th century, before the beginning of attested French records. Consequently, the transformation in prosodic typology from a NL to a CL-SS must be sought at an early date28.

2.3.

Stress development

CL operated with phonemic vowel length and a phonologically irrelevant accent, since its position was predictable from the quantity of the penultimate syllable: if the penult was long, it bore the stress; if it was short, the accent moved to the antepenultimate syllable. But in the SL phonemic vowel quality system, stress was distinctive, falling in the main on the same syllable as in CL29. The place of stress in SL may be explained by borrowings from the classical dialect. CL words entering the spoken language retained their accent, which took on distinctive function in SL. CL did not evolve into SL; rather, the two dialects coexisted30. A few exceptions to the congruence of CL and SL stress placement must be posited because of subsequent Romance reflexes: change from the 8th to the loth centuries. One of the most convincing reasons for this later chronology can be found in the retention of/k/ in front of/y/ (culus > cul, cura > cure) ; one would have expected a palatalized /k/ in front of the palatal /y/ (like /k/ to [ts] in front of/e/ and /i/, i.e. cera > OF cire [tsira]), if there had been an early, yth century, change of/u/ to /y/. (cf. Rohlfs 1968, 54, footnote 102.) M ". . . daß die [changes] aber, die dem Französischen sein eigentliches Gepräge geben, die es von den angrenzenden Sprechweisen unterscheiden, zwischen dem 5. bis 8. Jahrhundert dazukommen . . ." Richter 1934, 14. *· Palmer 1966, 155. The history of the preclassical Latin accent does not belong in this discussion. For a summary of apparently endless and fruitless polemics concerning it, see Lepscky 1962. The position taken here is simply that the Latin spoken language (the only one relevant for Romance developments) had distinctive stress throughout, from the OL period into the Romance dialects. Cf. Pulgram 1954, 224. In this, SL was closely related to other Italic dialects, like Oscan and Umbrian. Cf. Bottiglioni 1952. *° Cf. Pulgram 1965^ 150. 10

(1) CL [ie], [ ], [ ] = SL [jd], [15] CL [parietem] = SL [parieta] > MF paroi [parwd] (2) Type CL [integrum] = SL [int£gra] > MF eniier [ätie] (3) Morphological: shift of stress upon the stem of verb CL [rdnegat] = SL [ren£ga] > MF rente [rani] CL [domorat] = SL [demora] > MF demeure [dsmcbr] CL [retinet] = SL [ret£na] > MF ntient [ratiS]31

A LSL word, then, could be proparoxytonic, paroxytonic, and oxytonic. This movability of the stress on three syllables was dealt a severe blow by the extensive LSL syncope, especially in the LSL of Gaul. Since the syncopated vowel was most frequently a post-tonic penultimate vowel of proparoxytones (viride > vlrde), proparoxytones were totally lost, and GR, by the end of the yth century, possessed only paroxytones and oxytones. Clearly, syncope in GR continued a stress tendency shown throughout the history of SL and by Oscan and Umbrian. A recourse to a Germanic superstratum in order to explain an "intensive stress" which diphthongized tonic vowels and reduced atonic vowels is unnecessary32. At the time of post-tonic syncope, stress must still be analyzed as distinctive, since it could fall on two syllables, the ultima and penultima, neither predictably realized. However, the status of stress changed with the occurrence of apocope of final vowels except /a/, which can be put into the 8th century. As a consequence of this second reduction of the word, stress could now be oxytonic and paroxytonic, but paroxytonic only if the ultima vowel was /3/. Novak analyzed stress after the 8th century as predictable and non-distinctive: "Apres cette syncope (apocope), 1'accent, fixe sur la derniere syllabe des mots ä voyelle non-reduite, fut dephonologise, et, en meme temps, affaibli."33 Novak furthermore suggested that the diphthongization of /e/ and /o/ can be used as a terminus ad quern for distinctive stress in GR. His reasoning was based on the incompatibility of phonemic vowel length and distinctive stress, first outlined by Jakobson. Thus, LSL could not have phonemic vowel length since it had distinctive stress. However, as soon as stress came to be non-distinctive, a tendency toward a phonologization of vowel length could set in, and would have set in, according to Novak, in GR. But before vowel length could be phonologized, diphthongization occurred. In this way, the diphthongization of /e/ and /o/ is construed as intimately related to the loss of distinctive stress34. Kurylowicz, on the other hand, considered stress distinctive in OF, and until the middle of the i6th century, that is, until apocope of/a/. He be81

32

33 34

Stolz and Debrunner 1953,109-110; Kuryiowicz 1958,387; Spence 1963,455; Lüdtke 1956, 134. Cf. Schurr 1954, 123, who agrees with this view. For the stratum explanation in this matter, see Wartburg 1950, 86 and Tageby 1960, 409. Novak 1932, 47. Novak 1932, 47. Cf. Lüdtke 1956, 215. II

Heved that two words such asporte [pirts] andporte [porte] were minimally distinguished in OF by the place of the stress alone. In other words, Kurylowicz set up the phoneme /e/ with a stressed allophone [e] and an unstressed allophone [3]. It follows from such an analysis that the paroxytonic stress was not predictable by the ultima vowel phoneme /a/ (as in Novak's reasoning), but, rather, that the ultima vowel in a paroxytonic word was predictable, i.e., always [a]35. Hall, describing OF of ca. 105o, using the Chanson de Rolando evidence, posited a phoneme of stress, but also the vowel phoneme /3/. This coexistence seems to be in conflict with both preceding analyses. In fact, the minimal pair Hall used for proof of phonemic stress, »set /uzeG/ < LSL /uzata/, and »set /ύζοθ/ < LSL /uzat/, does not really appear to be minimal, since it is distinguished as much by the place of stress as by the vocalic opposition /e/ : /a/36. It is possible to integrate this minimal pair into both Novak's analysis, phoneme /a/ on ultima, therefore predictable paroxytonic stress, or into Kurylowicz's analysis, phoneme /e/ with stressed allophone [e] and unstressed allophone [3], thus distinctive paroxytonic stress with predictable ultima [3]. Basing himself on medieval texts, Wartburg determined that OF had approximately one-third paroxytones (all with final /3/) and two-thirds oxytones37. French became an oxytonic language by the middle of the 16th century, with the loss of final /3/. Stress clearly ceased to be distinctive at that point.

2.4.

The evolution of LSL nexus

In the preceding two sub-chapters, the history of tonic vowels and stress has been discussed as they effected the phonological unit of the word. However, LSL was not a WL but a NL, as was stated at the outset. If LSL can be described as a NL, it must have had nexus, that is, sequences of lexemes joined in such a way that the entire series behaved phonologically, suprasegmentally and segmentally, like a word, with those lexemes that did not have suprasegmental identity becoming clitics. In addition, such a sequence of lexemes ought to have undergone the same phonological changes as any single word, since it must be considered one phonological unit, with one stress and no segmental boundaries whatsoever. Excellent examples for nexus formation in LSL are phonological units which contain unstressed object pronouns38. The development of these Latin un36

Kurylowicz 1958, 387. Hall 1946, 579 and 584. " Wartburg 1962, 184. 38 For exhaustive studies on unstressed object pronouns in the Romance languages, see Melander 1928 and Ramsden 1963. 38

12

stressed object pronouns into the Romance languages furnishes one of the best proofs of the nexus nature of LSL. It can be shown that such nexus must be treated, in fact, like single words in their diachronic status39. Their stressed vowel (syllable) underwent the same changes as the tonic vowel of a single word; they suffered the same losses (reductions) of atonic vowels (syncope and apocope). In the consonant clusters and sequences due to syncope in nexus, the same phonotactic rules hold as for single words40. In addition, the transformations in nexus can be put into the same chronology as was done for words. Thus, a LSL nexus qui me vide(t) //kwi-me-vide// must be treated exactly like a word bonitate(m) /bo-ni-ta-te/. Both show paroxytonic stress and four syllables; both underwent syncope of the pretonic antepenultimate vowel: //kwim-vi-de// and /bon-ta-te/. They result in OF as quim (kim)veit //kim-vei// and bonte /bon-te/, and in MF as qui me volt -D-kim-vwa-d- and bonte /bo-te/41. From the evidence of OF texts, one can group the unstressed object pronouns into two sets with these environments42: (1) The object pronoun is a proclitic, in pretonic position, in a sequence such as: A

B

Subject pronoun Relative pronoun Interrogative pronoun Particle (all unstressed)

C

Object pronoun (unstressed, undergoes pretonic syncope)

Verb (carries the stress)

(2) The object pronoun is an enclitic, in post-tonic position, in a sequence such as: A

B

Verb Noun Adverb Pronoun (all carry stress)

Object pronoun (unstressed, undergoes post-tonic syncope or apocope)

Examples43 The unstressed object pronouns which underwent reduction in the development into OF are: me, te, se, lo (le), les. 8

* Melander 1928, 67. "Ces combinaisons forment, au point de vue de 1'accentuation, des unites phonetiques qu'on peut comparer aux bases simples." 40 Cf. 5.2. for phonotactics of syncope. 41 MF -frkim-vwa-H- is derived from -H-ki-ma-vwd-H-, not directly from OF //kim-v6}//. The OF spelling reflected more faithfully the pronunciation than MF orthography. Cf. Kukenheim 1967 for OF contractions such as item, sim,jam,jem. (34) *a All of the following examples have been taken from Melander 1928. 43 The textual evidence along with the references are taken from Melander 1928, 23-28 and 90. 13

Pronoun

Textual evidence

(1) me

Nemfesis mal (Roland 2029) jot vi (Alexis 92) cil kis deivent cumbatre (Roland 3854) tul m'as demande (Guillaume 1652) Sejos en crett 6 (Alexis 41) qui semprem vols aver (Ldger 94) par queit poriat ta medrt (Alexis 27) leve sus de la tere (Der anglon. Boeve 636) en terrel mettent (Alexis 1 1 8) a gladies percutan (Leger 134)

tt se le (lo) lei (2) me te se le (lo) les

Nexus

//ty/mas//

//porkei/// //levasor// //ent£ra/// //aglddiai//

Besides the unstressed pronoun evolution, other instances of LSL nexus can be listed, proven by Romance reflexes ; for example, the formation of the Romance future tense. If we have MF chanterai, we can posit the following changes : LSL cantare babeo //kantarabjo// OF //cäntorej// > //catare// MF chanterai //satte//

Clearly, the transformation from cantare babeo to chanterai indicates that the sequence cantare habeo acted like one phonological word, with one stress, undergoing the changes of a single word44. The evolution of Romance unstressed pronouns and future tense illustrates the suprasegmental obliteration in the LSL phonological structure, one of the essential features of a NL. Weinrich attempted to show the segmental obliteration in nexus formations of LSL in his theory of Variation: "Variation ist die Veränderung eines Konsonanten unter satzphonetischer Bedingung, derart daß er in eine 'starke' und eine 'schwache' (kombinatorische) Variante aufgespalten wird"45. Variation can best be demonstrated by the intervocalic voicing of /p/, /t/, 44 45

14

Cf. Pulgram 1963, passim. Weinrich 1958, 49. Weinrich, of course, did not employ the term nexus; but it is evident that his "satzphonetische Labilität der lateinischen Wortgrenze" refers to what is here called segmental obliteration in a nexus.

and /k/ in Western Romance. Treating single words and nexus alike, Weinrich set up these examples, before and after voicing occurred: Before: sitim /sltlm/ ilia terra //Illat&ra// terra /t£rra/ illas terras //Illast£rras// horttis /ortU/ After: /sode/ //lad&ra// /ιέπ»/ //last£rras// /5rtU/4e

Weinrich's "strong" (starke) variant is the voiceless allophone of /t/, /p/, and /k/ which in LSL occurred (i) nexus- and word-initially, or postpausally (terra), and (2) nexus- and word-medially, or postconsonantally (illas terras, horttis); Weinrich's weak allophone could be found nexus- and wordmedially, in intervocalic position. Now, Weinrich reasoned, at the stage immediately after voicing, the following situation held: the occurring realization [d] (likewise [b] and [g]) could function as (i) the intervocalic allophone of the phoneme /t/, and (2) the postpausal and postconsonantal allophone of /d/. But this merger of phonemes was prevented by restoring analogically the allophone of /t/ as [t] word-initially, even in nexus-medial, intervocalic position, that is, //lad£rra// > //latlrra// (by analogy to /ΐέιτα/). As a consequence, the Western Romance languages today show intervocalic voicing (Spanish and Portuguese) and fricativization, and subsequent disappearance (French), only word-medially. However, in Weinrich's theory, this is but a remnant of a former, more wide-spread, condition in which "die Sonorisierung in der westlichen Romania urspr nglich satzphonetisch gewesen ist und auch die wortanlautenden Konsonanten nach Vokal erfa t hat."47 Figge took up Weinrich's Variation in his analysis of Romance word-initial voicing. In the standard Romance dialects, word-initial voicing is only a sporadic phenomenon (MF gonfler, gras < LSL conflare, crassus); however, as Figge's many pages of examples show, this sonorization is reflected extensively in many non-standard Romance dialects. Figge believed, therefore, that word-initial voicing can be used to support Weinrich's theory of nexus-medial intervocalic voicing, as it must have been, at one time, a panRomance phenomenon. Before using Weinrich's Variation hypothesis, Figge gave two additional indications of segmental obliteration in Latin nexus48: 48 47

48

Weinrich 1958, 73-77. Weinrich 1958, 63. Hall 1964, 552, agreed entirely with Weinrich's theory and went on to connect it with the Italian syntactic doubling. Figge, like Weinrich, did not use the term nexus. 15

( ) The avoidance of marking word boundaries in contemporary Romance: (a) French lezard, les arts both [lezar] (b) Spanish lavanda, la banda both [laßdnda] (c) Italian affatto, bafatto both [affatto]

This Romance characteristic which, according to Figge, is unlike German, for example, which marks word boundaries, ". . . begünstigt die Vermutung, daß im Lateinischen die Wortgrenzen ebenfalls vernachlässigt wurden."49. (2) Direct evidence for sandhi in SL are inscriptional examples such as IM PAGE, IM FRONTE, QUAN NUNC, which show regressive assimilation of the nasal archiphoneme in nexus formations50. Figge integrated his word-initial voicing into Weinrich's Variation thus: at the point in the process of intervocalic voicing when the "weak" allophones of Ip/, /t/, and /k/, namely [b], [d], and [g], respectively, collided with the "strong" allophones of /b/, /d/, and/g/, the restoration of [p], [t], and [k] to word-initial position was not immediate. During a certain period before such a restoration, confusions between /p/, /t/, and /k/, and /b/, /d/, and /g/, must have occurred intervocalically in the nexus. The examples of wordinitial voicing in the Romania today are, therefore, "mistakes" committed during the analogical re-establishment of [p], [t], and [k] word-initially (nexus-medially, intervocalically)51.

2.5.

The emergence of the oxytonic French cursus

The above title indicates that the analysis of the origin of the MF prosodic typology comprises two distinct parts: (i) to demonstrate the development of the oxytonic character of the French phonological unit, and (2) to establish how the LSL nexus became the French cursus. For it is evident that what makes MF a typological extreme, phonologically, in comparison with LSL and modern Romance languages like Italian and Spanish, is both oxytony, which is opposed to the movability of stress in the other Romance languages, and the cursus typology, as compared with the nexus typology of Italian and Spanish. In what follows, I shall propose a theory of the emergence of the MF phonological unit, usually called the breath group, here termed cursus. I shall base myself on the evidence already presented in this chapter; it is essential, at this point, to tie together apparently disparate details into a coherent theory. 49 60 81

16

Figge 1966, 345. Figge 1966, 346. Figge 1966, 468.

In order to arrive at my first objective, the description of the evolution of the oxytonic character, I shall proceed from a demonstration of the oxytony of the word to the oxytony of the cursus. Here is a summary of the evolution of French word structure: Stage A. LSL words were paroxytones (approximately 75%) and proparoxytones (oxytones only in monosyllables). The extensive occurrence of syncope, especially in the LSL of Gaul, reduced proparoxytones to paroxytones. Then there occurred apocope (loss of the final vowel of a word, regardless of whether the vowel was the final phoneme in the word) of all vowels except /a/, which became /a/. Stage B. During the OF literary period (8th to the i6th century), French was, consequently, a language with oxytones and paroxytones, but words were par oxytonic only if the final vowel was /a/. There was already a majority of oxytones. Finally, in the middle of the i6th century, final/9/ disappeared, reducing all paroxytones to oxytones. Stage C. MF has, therefore, only oxytones52. Without proposing a teleological or cause-and-effect explanation, I agree with Lausberg und Weinrich in considering the extensive modifications of tonic vowels (diphthongization, front rounded series, nasality phonologized) as compensatory developments to the reduction of word structure, caused by syncope and apocope. But I am not saying that tonic vowel modifications had to occur because atonic vowels were lost (no diphthongization or nasalization, little syncope, but apocope, did happen in Proven5al) since compensatory changes can take various shapes (it is possible, for instance, that distinctive stress in Provencal could function as such); nor am I explaining the why of any of these transformations, a question which it is impossible, or very difficult at best, to answer about any language change. Rather, I believe that the relationship of various phonological changes must be considered objectively, and I see the tonic vowel evolution and the atonic reduction in the history of French as interacting events in creating, nonteleologically, the oxytony of the French word. I have shown that LSL was indeed a NL, proven by the clitic development into OF and the segmental amalgamation in the nexus. Now, it can be assumed that a pause group in LSL consisted of both nexus and words. In such a speech group, words and nexus underwent the phonological changes just outlined for the single word. Stress, therefore, was distinctive, paroxytonic and oxytonic, in both nexus and words in GR. I accept Novak's analysis in positing that word stress ceased to be distinctive following apocope of all vowels except /a/, during the 8th century. After this point, 62

Cf. Lüdtke 1956, 212.

17

during the OF literary period, stress occurred predictably in a nexus and in a word, determined by the final vowel: if the final vowel was /9/, it was paroxytonic stress, if not, the ultima was accented. As soon as a suprasegmental feature such as stress ceased to be distinctive, this stress was gradually neutralized in the pause group; functionally, only one stress is now necessary on the penult or ultima of the pause group, predicted by the final vowel of the pause group alone. But as soon as a unit defined by pauses, no longer held together by distinctive stress, appeared, this unit was, by definition, a cursus. Thus, the cursus typOlogy already emerged during the OF literary period; however, the oxytonic character of the French cursus came into being only with the loss of final /3/. This apocope caused the oxytony of the word and, as a consequence, the oxytony of the cursus.

18

CHAPTER THREE

OLD FRENCH PROSODY

3.1.

Introduction

Pope gave this description of OF: "In the earlier period, when the tonic stress was intense, words remained, broadly speaking, the unit of the phrase but, in later Old and Middle French, words closely connected in thought . . . were more and more run together and thus the phrase or locution became the sentence-unit instead of the word."53 Ewert added the following: "But a fundamental difference between Modern French and Old French lies in the progressive elimination of the tonic accent (the stress falling on a particular syllable of the word) in favor of the group-accent.B4" Both scholars saw the essential difference between OF and MF in that in OF the individual word had phonetic identity due to a strong stress. However, one cannot interpret their statements as meaning that OF was a WL, i. e., contained only words, each of which always carried the stress. This conclusion would be illogical since it has been shown that LSL was a NL, which had both nexus and words. I understand Pope's and Ewert's descriptions in this fashion: in OF, unlike MF, words could still have segmental and suprasegmental autonomy. But there also occurred syntactical groups containing clitics. Such groups with clitics and one stress, paroxytonic or oxytonic depending on the final /a/, cannot be termed nexus, as in LSL, since they came to be solely defined by pauses as soon as stress had become non-distinctive during the 8th century. Therefore, OF was not a NL. Nor was it a CL-SS since it did not operate exclusively with cursus, that is, since not every speech-group consisted entirely of a cursus. A speech-group in OF could contain both cursus and words, whereby is indicated a transition stage from a NL, which had both nexus and words, to a CL-SS, which has only cursus: LSL OF MF 63 64

NL (nexus and words) ? (cursus and words) CL-SS (cursus only)

Pope 1966, 82. Ewert 1964, 47.

The nexus of LSL became cursus in OF due to the loss of distinctive stress. But words could still maintain identity, suprasegmentally because of a strong stress, segmentally because of the absence of sandhi conditions. I propose to call the OF prosodic typology a CL-P, a cursus language with phonetic stress on stressable words. To present evidence for the prosodic structure of a language which is no longer spoken is, at best, difficult, and produces only inconclusive proof. This is clearly the predicament one encounters for OF. Still I shall attempt to make the above theoretical view concerning OF reasonably plausible by studying (i) segmental conditions in the OF speech-group, and (2) OF versification, in order to arrive at the suprasegmental status of words, since it is hoped that metrics can provide some information on the prosodies of a language, especially of a dead language65.

3.2.

History of French liaison

In a recent analysis of sandhi phenomena in MF, Schane proposed to treat the occurring linking conditions, traditionally termed liaison and elision, as one phonological process. Elision, which is the loss of lexeme-final vowels preceding a lexeme-initial vowel, *te ami > /'ami, may be equated to the loss of a lexeme-final consonant before a lexeme-initial consonant or prepausally, les peres [leper]. Thus, "elision for vowels and ebsence of liaison for consonants can be considered as the same process: deletion of a segment in word-final position"56. It can be seen that liaison, the maintenance of a lexeme-final consonant, occurs prevocalically. Truncation applies in the phonotactically equivalent positions, preconsonantal and prepausal57. The whole phenomenon of liaison is based on the distinction between prevocalic position on the one hand, and preconsonantal and prepausal positions on the other. I intend to show that in OF this differentiation did not obtain and that, therefore, we cannot speak of liaison in OF. I exclude here those syntactical groups in OF containing clitics which under no circumstances could bear a stress. These always must have shown obliteration of segmental and suprasegmental boundary signals, thus liaison conditions, as they derived from nexus in LSL58. As clear evidence for non-deletion of consonants preconsonantally, thus proof of non-liaison, one may offer the lexeme-final devoicing of voiced M 68

57 58

20

Cf. Pulgram 19653, 140. Schane 1968, 2. He went on to use the term truncation for both elision and absence of liaison. The distinction between lexeme and word was explained in Chapter One, above. Cf. Weinrich 1961. Cf. Pope 1966, 218-219.

consonants. In late GR and OF, all voiced stops and fricatives brought into final position by apocope of unstressed /e/, /i/, /o/, and /u/ became voiceless69: LSL

OF

/orbu/ /grande/ /lUngu/ /servu/ /rizu/ /nudu/ > /nu u/

/Dip/

/grant/ /lonk/ /serf/ /ris/ /ηγθ/

/P/ /t/ /k/ /f/ /s/ /Θ/

OF, during the nth century, had these prepausal consonants: /p/, /t/, /k/, /f/, /s/, /Θ/; /!/, /λ/, /r/, /m/, /n/60. Thus, for the consonantal pairs /p/: /b/, /t/ : /d/, /k/ : /g/, /f/ : /ν/, /θ/ : /δ/, and /s/ : /z/, the voiceless member functioned as archiphoneme prepausally. The other five consonant phonemes, /!/, /λ/, /r/, /m/, and /n/, which were not opposed by a voiceless counterpart, remained voiced also finally. In addition to single final consonants, prepausal consonant clusters which resulted from apocope of all vowels except /a/ in late GR must have served as word boundaries, thus producing equivalence of the phonological word with the lexical word81. MF orthography reflects the OF system of devoiced final consonants and prepausal consonant clusters. Modern pronunciation has retained some remnants of OF: A. neuf (1) Intervocalic position (2) Preconsonantal position (3) Prepausal position

(a) netif bommes (b) neuf heures neuf livres nous sommes neuf

[nofom] [nevcer] [noflivre] [nusamncef ]

six bommes six livres nous sommes sx

[sizDtn] [silivr] [nusamsis]

B. six

(1) Intervocalic position (2) Preconsonantal position (3) Prepausal position

C. trois (1) Intervocalic position (2) Preconsonantal position (3) Prepausal position

trois bommes [trwazom] trois livres [trwalivr] nous sommes trois [nusomtrwa]

In group A (i) (a), the numeral neuf keeps its final /f/ even intervocalically within the cursus; however, A (i) (b) shows voicing of/f/ between vowels in the expression neuf heures: this is an exception, as neuf is otherwise always " Pope 1966, 98. •° Fouche 1966, 661. Cf. Chapter Six for an inventory of prepausal consonant clusters in OF.

61

21

pronounced [noef], B illustrates intervocalic voicing of /s/ to /z/ and preconsonantal loss of /s/. Group C indicates voicing between vowels, and preconsonantal and prepausal deletion of/5/. One can say that A (i) (a) reflects the OF pronunciation, while C illustrates the MF character of lexeme amalgamation: retention and voicing of a consonant prevocalically, truncation in both preconsonantal and prepausal positions. The examples above suggest this chronology: (1) Lexeme-final consonant retained always: A (i) (a) (2) Intervocalic voicing: A (i) (b) (3) Deletion of consonant preconsonantally: B (2) (4) Deletion of consonant prepausally: C (3) Fouche suggested that the longer retention of prepausal consonants, at least in the standard speech, may have been due to the efforts of grammarians. He cited the i6th century grammarians Palsgrave, Du Wos, and Sylvius, who prescribed pronunciation of final consonants before a pause, but not before a consonant62. Modern pronunciation retains lexeme-final consonants in monosyllables with final /p/, /k/, /f/, /!/, and /r/: cap, lac, chef, mal, eher; there is deletion of final /t/ and /s/: chat, bras63. For Schane, MF orthography is morphophonemic, since it makes discernible morphological relations and phonological structure64. Liaison in particular illustrates this function of today's spelling, with its rules dating from the zyth century65.

3.3.

A study of OF versification

I shall divide this examination into two parts: (i) a sketch of the history of OF verse, and (2) a detailed analysis of OF poetic texts. Both parts will contribute evidence for the phonetic autonomy of the word in OF prosody. Most critics seem to agree that medieval Romance versification, including that of OF, derived from, or imitated, ML verse66. SL prosody was incorporated into ML versification in the distinctiveness of word stress: ML poetry was accentual, unlike CL poetry, which was based on the prosody of syllable length. It can be assumed that the rhythm of ML verse was created by word stresses: by implication, the basis of rhythm in such a versification is the respect for the individuality of the word67. There was a fixed stress at the caesura, if one occurred, and at the end of the verse line; other stresses, which varied in number, were movable within the two hemistichs. Thus the 62 83 94 65 ββ 67

22

Fouche 1966, 665. Fouche 1966, 676-679. Schane 1968, 16-17. Ewert 1964, loo. Elwert 1965, 18; Burger 1957, 160; Norberg 157, 190; Suchier 1950, 554. Dragonetti 1960, 468; Norberg 1957, 106; Nicolau 1930, 66; Kurytowicz 1962,166.

CL verse Christe servorum regimen tuorum, with its metrical ictus —w — —w w — ^ — ^,, has this equivalent in the ML accentual meter: x x x x x x x x X X X68.

ML was also written in rhythmical prose, called cursus. There is agreement as to the origin of the medieval cursus: CLclausulae, of which the best known are Cicero's, and which were metrical structures at the end of a passage of prose, based their rhythm, like CL poetry, on the quantity of the syllables. The medieval cursus evolved directly out of these clausulae, the major difference being that their rhythm was based on word stresses89. Norberg gave these three types of clausulae with their cursus equivalents70: Examples ducii ad vitam victa deserviat litteris indicare

CL meter — w —- w — ^ —- w — ~w^~ w~w

ML cursus χχχχχ (cursus planus) χχχχχχ (cursus tardus) χ χ χ χ χ χ χ (cursus velox)

One can see, thus, that both metrical structures in medieval prose and poetry available as models for Romance versification depended on word stress for their rhythmical expression. There is no doubt that in the medieval cursus ". . . der Akzent die Individualit t des Wortes sch rfer zum Vorschein brachte"71. A versification based on word stress could easily be taken over by Spanish and Italian poets, since their languages have distinctive stress72. In French, however, as was shown in the preceding chapter, word stress ceased to be distinctive very early in its evolution. It was, therefore, feasible to write poetry where the metrical ictus would not necessarily coincide with the word stress. According to Elwert, this "unstable" property of the rhythm in OF poetry led to making the end of a verse prominent by assonance73. Some students of metrics have gone so far as to deny actual rhythm to OF poetry, saying that is was simply syllable-counting. Lote, for instance, described OF verse thus: "II ignore les cretes toniques que nous appelons aujourd'hui rythmiques, et il ne comporte que deux points d'appui, toujours les memes, la cesure et la rime, qui soutiennent les autres syllabes, celles-ci possedant toutes la meme valeur atone."74 When one analyzes OF poetry in order to discover details of the prosodic structure of the every-day language, one must bear in mind that (i) meter is a system, parallel to and actualized by, but not to be confused with, the linguistic system; and (2) there is an essential difference between perform88 88 70 71 72 73 74

Elwert 1965, 19. Nicolau 1930, 7 and 10; Norberg 1968, 86-87; Elwert 1965, 8. Norberg 1968, 87-88. Lindholm 1963, 34-35. Elwert 1965, 20; Suchier 1950, 554. Elwert 1965, 23. Lote 1949, 346.

ance, or recitation, and the abstract meter75. What we possess of OF, in fact, is only the abstract meter as shown in the manuscript. We have the right to assume that this metric pattern had a rhythmic quality, since we know that the poem was recited and sung. This rhythm alone constitutes a linguistic event, and it has to be uncovered to make possible a reasonable statement about the OF prosodic structure76. Chatman pointed to an additional problem in structural metrics: "The meter of a poem is not some fixed and unequivocal characteristic, but rather a structure or matrix of possibilities which may emerge in different ways as different vocal renditions."77 Hence, we have to determine not only one performance of the abstract meter, but also to choose from various potential versions of reciting the poem. All this adds up to speculation, and no finality or absolute accuracy may be claimed. On the other hand, if one does desire to learn something about the prosody of a dead language, versification seems to offer the only tool one can use78. The meter of French poetry, from medieval times on, has always been syllable-counting. But how were and are poems performed? Suchier outlined four ways of reciting French poetry: (1) With alternating rhythm. This recitation produces a falling (trochaic) rhythm in a verse containing an odd number of syllables, and a rising (iambic) rhythm in lines with an even number of syllables. (2) "Even" recitation. (Ausgleichender Vortrag) Here, no accentual relief is given to syllables; pauses occur at the caesura and at the end of the verse line. Rhythm, if one can call it that, is created by whole hemistichs. (3) Free rhythmical recitation. In this mode, word stresses additional to the fixed stresses at the caesura and at the end of the verse occur. Rhythm is created by the isochrony of the various verse segments which are defined by the potential word stresses. (4) Prose-like recitation. One can barely speak of rhythm in this type since, as in French prose, a cursus may be of optional, stylistically determined length79. Suchier assumed the first type to have been in use in OF poetic recitation. The most plausible proof for his claim may be found in statistical evidence, which shows a high percentage of coincidence of an ictus based on alternating rhythm with an ictus based on word stresses. Suchier analyzed the first one-hundred lines of Aucassin et Nicolette. In this poem made up of lines of seven syllables, Suchier found trochaic rhythm with 68% coincidence of word stresses with an alternating ictus. In the first one-hundred lines of Chretien de Troyes' Yvain, which is octosyllabic and has iambic 76

Chatman 1965, 96; Halle and Keyset 1966, 206; Beaver 1968, 319. « Scheel 1967, 48. 77 Chatman 1965, 103. 78 Cf. Levy 1961, 179. 79 Suchier 1963, 15-27. 7

rhythm, Suchier noted 74% coincidence of word stresses with an alternating ictus80. For him, these percentages were sufficient to justify that the underlying (hindurchschimmernder) rhythm of OF poetry was created by the alternating ictus. I have myself analyzed the St. Alexis poem of the ι ith century in detail, in a manner very similar to that of Suchier. Here are my results: A. Metrical statistics Stanzas, or laisses, determined by assonance: 125 Verses per stanza: 5 Total verses: 625 Syllables per verse: 10 Caesura after the fourth syllable B. Recitations (1) Word stress recitation Stresses per verse: 4 Fixed stresses: on the fourth and tenth syllables Accentual patterns found: (a) (b) (c) (d)

xxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxx

2-2-2-4 4—2-2-2 2-2-4-2 2—2—3-3

(2) Alternating recitation Stresses per verse: 5 Accentual pattern : x x x x x x x x x x 2-2-2-2-2 (3) Alternating scheme superimposed on word accentual pattern. Percentage of coincidence: Pattern Pattern Pattern Pattern

(1) (a) (1) (b) (1) (c) (1) (d)

with with with with

alternating pattern: 80% alternating pattern: 80% alternating pattern: 80% alternating pattern: 60%

Average percentage of coincidence of word stress recitation with alternating ictus: 75 % As an illustration for my statistics of the Alexis, I quote the first stanza of the poem, as it can be found in Rohlfs' edition, along with my reading: Bons fut li secies al tens anclenur Quer feit i ert e justise et amur S'i ert creance dunt or n'i at nul prut Tut est miiez perdut ad sa colur Ja mais n'iert tel cum fut as anceisurs 80

Suchier 1914, 222. 25

Word accentual recitation: x x x x x x x x x x 2-2-2-4 x x x x x x x x x x 2-2-3-3 x x x x x x x x x x 2-2-2-4 x x x x x x x x x x 2-2-2-4 x x x x x x x x x x 2-2-2-4

In this first stanza, nineteen of the twenty-five alternating stresses coincide with word stresses, indicating a 76% coincidence rate; I noted 75% coincidence in the poem as a whole. Explanation of data. The preceding statistics may be interpreted in the following way. The Alexis poem has ten syllables per verse. We have two foundations on which to build one or more meaningful scansions: (i) there are four stresses to each verse, and (2) two of these stresses are always located on the fourth and tenth syllables. The placing of the other two stresses is optional. A reading based on word stresses yields the four accentual patterns given above. In these patterns, rhythm was expressed by isochronous segments, whose length was determined by the stress placement. There were from one to three unstressed syllables between stresses81. However, an alternating rhythm is suggested by the repetition of 2-2 in each pattern. One may assume that the alternating scheme is the underlying one, the only regular rhythm for all verses of the Alexis. But the metric structure marks this underlying rhythm in only 75% of the syllables by means of word stresses, as I have shown in the superimposition of recitations (i) and (2). The advantage of assuming recitation (i) is that one does not have to speculate about an underlying rhythm; its disadvantage lies in the assumption of isochrony of one to three unstressed syllables in a syllable-counting meter. The advantage of supposing recitation (2) is that it shows a definite, strict, syllable-counting, and doubtlessly isochronous rhythm; but its weakness may be seen in that this proposed rhythm is marked only 75% of the time. I tend to agree with Suchier in accepting the alternating rhythm for OF. The 75% marking is sufficient since we are dealing with a language with non-distinctive word stress82. Although nondistinctive, this stress was the only means of creating the rhythm of the poem. Phonetic stress, which signaled the identity of the word, did not have to approach the near 100% coincidence with the ictus as in languages like German and English, where stress is distinctive. In addition to the Alexis poem, I have scanned the first one-hundred lines of the Chanson de Roland by the same process, noting 69% coincidence of the alternating ictus with word stresses. Jenkins, whose edition of the 81

M

26

Dragonetti 1960, 488-489, arrived at very similar schemes for the courtois poetry he analyzed. Suchier 1956, 31-40, compared French versification to that of Finnish, Estonian, and Hungarian, in which he also found that ictus and word stress did not necessarily coincide, since these languages have non-distinctive stress.

Roland I used, described the rhythm of the poem as "varying from line to line", depending on the placement of the non-fixed stresses. This description is in agreement with my scansion (i) and with Dragonetti's83. I have also examined the Canfilene de St. Eulalie**. Of the twenty-eight verses in this poem, sixteen have ten syllables, five have eleven, four have twelve, and three have as many as thirteen. Here the principle of isosyllabism is not present and, according to Suchier, St. Eulaiie is an example of word accentual meter85. Rhythm is created by four stresses irregularly placed in each verse, with the unstressed number of syllables varying from one to three. No alternating rhythm can be assumed as underlying here. The only reason why the isochrony of segments of unequal length is more likely here than in the Alexis and Roland is the evident importance of the number of syllables per line (always ten) in the latter two. Since St. Eulaiie does not show a syllable-counting meter, a word-accentual one may be assumed. But St. Eulaiie, the oldest French poem, dating from around 880, is the only poem which is not isosyllabic. The goal of the preceding analysis of OF poetry was to present some evidence on the role of the individual word in the prosodic structure of OF. On the assumption that there must have been some kind of rhythm in this poetry, I have shown that the phonetic word stress, attesting to the phonetic identity of the word, functioned in signalling this rhythm 75% of the time in the Alexis, and 69% of the time in the Roland. My results were very close to those of Suchier on Aucassin et Nicolette and Yvain. In the St. Eulaiie, 100% word stress function in the rhythm may be assumed, but this poem is the only known example of word-accentual meter in OF86.

3.4.

Comparison of "Future French" and OF

In two recent articles on MF prosody, Pulgram described two trends in contemporary French which could contribute to a change in its phonological typology: (i) the increasing number of prepausal clusters due to the loss of e-caduc; and (2) a tendency to avoid liaison, especially in colloquial subcodes. Pulgram summarized the consequences of these two trends by saying that, if both became the rule, "French would no longer have the breath group 83

Jenkins 1924, cxxxix. Ewert 1964, 353-354· 85 Suchier 1963, 41. Lote 1949, 125, on the other hand, in accord with his theory of nonrhythmical syllabism, refused to accept the word-accentual character of St. Eulaiie. *' Stempel 1964, 40 and 87-88, in a detailed discussion of OF syntax, noted the stylistic reason for the choice between hypotaxis and parataxis, attributing hypotactic structure in the main to courtly literature, and paratactic syntax to the epic. One may speculate about the effect of this syntactial choice on the phonological structure: the paratactic nature of OF epic poetry may have contributed to making the individual word the basis of the rhythm. 84

27

as its minimal phonological unit"87. This would occur because both points above certainly suggest a trend toward a language which marks lexeme boundaries segmentally. But since a potential suprasegmental marker already exists in contemporary French, namely, the phonetic stress on the final syllable of the lexeme, realized only if the lexeme occurs cursus-finally, this stress, too, would then function in creating the phonological identity of the word88. Pulgram compared this potential new typology to that of English, and suggested also that it could be a return to the OF stage of the language. Judging by the preceding description of OF, it would seem that a "Future French" typology can be likened to the OF prosodic structure, that is, to a CL-P. Not to English, however, since English is a NL, and since it is difficult to imagine that word stress will be distinctive in the future development of French. The phonetic stress would play the same role in "Future French" as it did in OF. Liaison, as the current trends indicate, would be limited to combinations of one stressed lexeme and clitics. Such a state was also assumed for OF.

87 88

28

Pulgram 19653, 143. Pulgram 1967, 1641.

CHAPTER FOUR

THE MODERN FRENCH CURSUS

In the preceding two chapters, the prosodic development of LSL to OF to MF has been described as an evolution from a NL to a CL-P to a CL-SS. The most essential features and some of the difficulties of analysis of contemporary French in terms of a cursus typology will be discussed now.

4.1.

The French phonological unit

It is generally agreed that French discourse is divided into motsphonologiques, or breath groups. Such units, called cursus here, are bounded by pauses and carry non-distinctive oxytonic stress. They may be of variable length. Demain. Les hommes. Vous tournez le coin de la rue. Pourquoi est-ce que vous ne les y avezpas mis ? all qualify as cursus. A cursus may contain from one to many lexemes. It does not have to be a structure with a predicate, as the first two examples demonstrate. Every French cursus, whatever its length, must be considered as one phonological word with (i) obliteration of all lexeme stresses except the last, which is found on the last syllable of the cursus, and (2) obliteration of all lexeme boundaries, which is exemplified by the well-known sandhi phenomena subsumed under liaison, enchainetnent, and elision. There exists no more striking proof for the lexeme stress obliteration than the means of expressing the individual lexeme stress, illustrated in the following examples: (a) Je vois ly enfant. (b) C'est enfant que je vois. (c) Mot, je vois enfant. (d) C'est moi qui vois I'enfant.

-H-iavwaläfä-H-tt-seläfä-H- -H-kaisvwafr -H-mwa-H- -H-iavwalafa-tt-s-semwa+ -H-kivwaläfä-«-

In the English equivalent of the original sentence, I see the child, both the subject 7 and the object the child may receive a stress, if one is desired: / (as opposed to John, etc.) see the child; I see the child (as opposed to the dog, etc.). MF has no way of stressing a lexeme within the cursus89. If a particular lexeme is to be stressed, it has to be rearranged in order to occur cursusfinally. My transcription in (b) shows that /läfä/ is found at the end of the first cursus, as is /mwa/ in (c) and (d). In order to stress the object, French *' French can stress by means of the accent d'insistance.

uses the structure C'est . . ., in order to give emphasis to the subject, the stressed pronoun alone, or the stressed pronoun in conjunction with C'est. . .90 Let us now return to the variability of cursus limits and look more closely at the definition of the French phonological unit. It was said that a cursus is bounded by pauses. But how does a speaker decide when to set a pause, how does he determine when to end a cursus and when to begin another ? Garde has stated that the French breath group cannot be defined grammatically: "L'accent affecte en fait non pas des unites dont on puisse donner une definition grammaticale permanente, mais des unites dont les limites varient d'un enonce ä l'autre"91. It is usually said that a cursus is to be considered a semantic unit, and the term sense group does also exist. Pulgram summarized the problem of defining this elusive unit thus: "A precise, objective description of the placement of breath group boundaries is yet to be written, and it is questionable whether it can be performed on purely formal or distributional grounds since it involves matters not only of grammar but also of style, including aesthetic considerations, a domain that linguists so far have found notoriously unamenable to objective analysis."92 Despite the apparent impossibility of an exhaustive definition of the cursus, since it would include non-linguistic factors, a partial solution can and should be attempted. I shall begin such a solution with the assumption that a speaker of French has built into his language constraints which would prevent him, under normal circumstances, from setting pauses at certain points. In other words, although it seems to be an impossible task to define where and why French speakers make the cursus boundaries they do make, it ought to be much less of aproblem to observe and indicate where pauses may not be placed. In this way, minimal cursus could be discovered, every one of which may be, but does not have to be, an occurring one93. Here is an illustration: IIy avait une fois un vieux roi qui rf avait pas (Tenfants. This sentence can be divided into five minimal cursus in the following way: (a) (b) (c) (d) (e) 10

91 92 93

30

II'y avait une fois un vieux roi qui H'avait pas d'enfants

-it-iljave-tt-H-ynfwa-H-H-SvjorwaHf -H-kinavepa+ -H-däfä-H-

Cf. Pulgram 19653, 133-134. It is interesting to note that even though in the original sentence enfant is found at the end of the cursus, it cannot be "stressed." The oxytonic stress occurs automatically on enfant, and it therefore cannot serve any distinctive function. It is only through the circumscription C'est I'enfant . .. that the French equivalent of lexeme stress may be obtained. Garde 1968, 94. Pulgram 19653, 129. Cf. Garde 1968, 93, whose "unitd accentuelle virtuelle" would be equivalent to the minimal cursus.

Besides the division into five minimal units, the sentence may also be read in one, two, three, and four cursus94: (1) -n-iljaveynfwa§vj0rwakinavepadäfä+ (2) (a) -Mljaveynfwagvjorwa-H(b) -lt-kinavepadäfä-lf (3) (a) -H-iljaveynfwa-tt(b) -H-§vj0rwa-H(c) -It-kinavepadäfä-ll·(4) (a) -Hljaveynfwa-H(b) -ti-lvj0rwa-tl·(c) -frkinavepa-H(d) -H-däfä-H-

Although one may add that recitation (i) is unlikely and that (3) is most probable, our sample sentence with its five possible readings illustrates well the complexity of the cursus definition. In particular, the choices given show the insufficiency of semantic criteria. For it is certainly valid to call both +kinavepa-n- and +kinavepadäfä-H- semantic units. Since the reading with five cursus contains observable minimal units, it seems fruitful to analyze these five constituents and attempt to find characteristics in them which can be generalized beyond the sample sentence.

4.2.

A grammatical definition of the minimal cursus

I propose to analyze the five minimal cursus of my sample sentence in grammatical terms. A minimal cursus may be considered a phonological unit consisting of a minimal syntagm ("minimal" defined under (a)-(e) below) bounded by pauses. If we call the syntactic unit a curseme, then this equation can be set up: pause -j- curseme + pause = minimal cursus This is a distinction which parallels the one that can be made between lexeme and word: "It is convenient to distinguish word from lexeme, though the two are often coextensive; but the second shall connote the presence of only morphological, the first the presence of both morphological and phonological traits of identification95. We would be able, therefore, to establish this relation: lexeme : curseme = word : minimal cursus ·* I am giving only one example for each of these readings. Other combinations are possible. A reading with three cursus, for instance, could be: (a) -H-iljaveynfwa-tt(b) Ht-gvjorwakinavepa-H(c) -n-däfä-H*5 Pulgram 1969, 15. 31

with the understanding that lexemes are made up of morphemes and cursemes of lexemes96. Let us then look at the five divisions of the sample sentence as cursemes; we can describe their constituents this way: (a) IIy avait: verbal phrase, consisting of the unstressed pronouns il and y, and the finite verb avait. (b) unefois: nominal phrase, consisting of a preposed determiner une plus the noun/0/r. (c) un vieux rot: nominal phrase, consisting of the preposed determiner un, the preposed adjective vieux, and the noun roi. (d) qiti rfavait pas: nominal phrase, consisting of a relative pronoun qui and the negated finite verb tf avait pas. (e) d'enfants: nominal phrase, consisting of the preposed determiner a' plus the noun enfants. Each curseme above, moreover, may be considered a unit which contains a lexeme that serves as center, or head, to which are added other lexemes in certain combinations. The head in (a) is the lexeme avait, in (b) fois, in (c) roi, in (d) qui, and in (e) enfants. Thus, nouns and finite verbs may function as head lexemes. Other lexemes, which cluster around the center, can be termed bound. II, y, une, un etc. would qualify as bound lexemes. It must be added that in order to qualify as a head lexeme, a lexeme has to function as a noun or a verb in the particular context; it does not have to be a noun or a verb always. Consequently, the adjective vieux acts as a lexeme bound to roi in the above curseme. However, in the curseme le vieux, vieux would have to be considered the head. Therefore, the class of lexemes called adjectives can be grouped under both bound and head lexemes. Each curseme of the sample sentence can be given the same general description: a combination of one head and one or more bound lexemes. This suffices for the sample sentence. But two more possibilities of curseme constituents exist in French. Consider the sentence Hier, ily avait fete au village. Out of it, three cursemes can be extracted: (a) Hier (b) ily avait fete (c) au village While (b) and (c) fit into the above description, that is, they are combinations of one head and one or more bound lexemes, (a) does not. It consists of only one lexeme. Since bier certainly does constitute an observable curseme, thus a minimal cursus, a second description of the curseme has been discovered: a curseme may consist of one single lexeme; let us call it a. free lexeme. 89

Martinet 1964, 104, defined an "autonomous syntagm" as a "combination of two or more monemes the function of which does not depend on the position in the utterance." This comes close, but is not equivalent to, the notion of the curseme.

Or let us look at an utterance like Les a-t-on vus ? This question constitutes a minimal cursus as a whole. It contains no head lexeme, no free lexeme, only bound lexemes. A third description of the curseme is: a combination of two or more bound lexemes. It may be well to summarize at this point. For the purpose of curseme analysis, I have made this classification of lexemes: (1) Free lexeme: any lexeme which can constitute a curseme by itself. Examples are adverbs like hier, demain, aujourd'hui etc. (2) Head lexeme: any lexeme which is capable of functioning as a noun or a finite verb. Any noun, adjective, finite verb from, and stressed pronoun would qualify. (3) Bound lexeme: any lexeme which can never function as a free or as a head lexeme. One would include in this category articles, unstressed subject and object pronouns, conjunctions, prepositions, and some adverbs. I have proposed three general compositions of the curseme: (1) it may be a free lexeme; (2) it may be a combination of one head and one or more bound lexemes; (3) it may be a combination of two or more bound lexemes. An important addition must be made to this description of cursemes. Compositions (i) -(3) above suppose the existence of a minimal syntactic unit within a given utterance and describe its constituents. They do not indicate which lexemes are combined, how many, and in what order; they are therefore in no way meant to serve as rules that generate occurring cursemes. It is possible, nevertheless, to channel the descriptive statements on the curseme into a discovery procedure. All they presuppose is the existence of a grammatical French utterance between pauses, and not necessarily the existence of curseme limits. The latter are set in the following way. First one determines which lexemes in a given utterance function as nouns. These automatically can be considered centers of cursemes. Therefore, no curseme may ever contain more than one lexeme which functions as a noun. Second, one looks for finite verb forms. These are considered heads of cursemes only if unstressed subject pronouns precede them; otherwise, a finite verb form would be a lexeme bound to the noun acting as its subject. Thus, in the cursemeIIme voit, iwtis the head; but in the curseme Les enfants dorment, enfants is the head, both les and dorment acting as bound lexemes97. Of course, my discovery procedure only establishes the number of cursemes in a given utterance. It does not necessarily determine the boundaries of each minimal syntactic unit. This would not be a problem in curseme definitions (i) and (2), since (i) contains only one lexeme by definition, and 97

Finite verb forms, therefore, like adjectives, also belong to both the head and bound classes of lexemes, in determining curseme boundaries within a larger utterance. 33

(z) is composed of a head lexeme to which bound lexemes belong by grammatical cohesion. But a problem does arise in connection with cursemes made up of bound lexemes alone. For instance, in the sentence Le directeur de la banque a dicte une lettre, the first two cursemes, le directeur and de la banque, are easily extracted by considering directeur and banque head lexemes, with le and de la as unquestionable respective bound lexemes. However, should a dicte be considered a curseme of type (3), one made up of two bound lexemes, or should a dicte be added to une as lexemes bound to lettre ? In the illustrations that follow an attempt will be made to solve at least some of these difficulties.

4.3.

Some nominal and verbal cursemes

According to the discovery procedure just outlined, the occurrence of a finite verb form as the head of a curseme is obligatorily determined by an unstressed subject pronoun that precedes the verb. Due to this limitation, I am operating, in my curseme analysis, with units which cannot be equated to the usual noun phrase and verb phrase98. The essential difference may be illustrated by a sentence like Vousfaites vos devoirs. An analysis into noun phrase and verb phrase would result in Vous andfaites vos devoir sy respectively. The verb phrase could then be split into the verb _/«//«· and a second noun phrase vos devoirs. A curseme division, on the other hand, would yield these two units: (a) Vous fait es (b) vos devoirs Since there is no coincidence of either of these two cursemes with the noun phrase and verb phrase above, it is best to use special terms for them. I shall call curseme (a) a verbal curseme, since a verb functions as its head, and (b) a nominal curseme^ because devoirs functions as its head. Vous faites and vos devoirs are examples of the basic verbal and nominal cursemes, each consisting of the minimally needed two lexemes. It is possible to state how and to what length basic verbal and nominal cursemes are expandable. Such an expansion may be described in terms of pre-position and post-position of bound lexemes to the noun or to the finite verb form. An outline of the most common preposed and postposed bound lexemes for each curseme type will now be given.

98

34

Cf. Dubois 1967,17-19.

I. The nominal curseme A. Preposed bound lexemes. These are conveniently summarized by the following table, which also indicates the order in which they occur". qtul prep.

tout

ce le mef»e poss. adj.

cardinal numerals

Class 1

Adjectives Class Class 2 5

Class 4

un aucun

chaque

quelque

plusieurs

Most common adjectives: Class ι: autre, and ordinal numbers. Class 2: nouveau,jeune, vieux, vrai. Class 3: mauvals, faux, bo», beau,joli. Class 4: grand, petit. Of course, all nine preposed lexemes are only theoretically possible; in practice, no more than six lexemes may be bound to the head in a nominal curseme. I shall illustrate this maximal expansion: (a) les voitures (b) les autres voitures (c) les autres nouvelles voitures (d) les autres nouvelles grandes voitures (e) toutes les autres nouvelles grandes voitures (f) dans toutes les autres nouvelles grandes voitures Preposed bound lexemes in the nominal curseme occur in the fixed order given in the chart. However, as is well known, the majority of French adjectives may be placed both before and after the noun. Statistically, there are more adjectives that almost always follow the noun (type f ranfais), than those which usually precede the noun (type bon)wo. B. Postposed bound lexemes. One or more adjectives may occur as postposed bound lexemes in a nominal curseme: (a) les voitures (b) les voitures americaines (c) les voitures americaines rapides It is possible, although not frequent, to meet a nominal curseme which combines both preposed and postposed bound lexemes: dans toutes les autres nouvelles grandes voitures americaines rapides. *β Adapted from Valdman 1965, 30. Weinrich 1966, 82, analyzed the distributional possibilities of French adjectives and concluded that preposed adjectives are almost "grammaticalized", while only postposed adjectives retain their full semantic value.

100

3J

The consideration of postposed bound lexemes of a nominal curseme raises a problem of analysis. Because of my stipulation that a curseme may never contain more than one lexeme which functions as a noun, I am apparently forced to divide utterances like la maison de mes parents and Γ enfant qui dort into two cursemes each: (a) la maison (b) de mes parents

(a) Γ enfant (b) qui dort

This division seems to be illogical, however, as de mes parents and qui dort would usually be considered intimately tied to la maison and Fenfant, respectively. A solution can be found by saying that any prepositional phrase or relative clause which, although it contains a noun or a stressed pronoun, functions adjectivally, can be considered as bound to the preceding head lexeme. Thus my sample utterances may be analyzed as two nominal cursemes, since the adjectival qualification holds. It is easier to see this adjectival nature of nouns in fixed expressions like un chien de cbasse, un couteau de cuisine, la salle de bain etc. Clearly, none of these compounds could ever be analyzed as more than one curseme. II. The verbal curseme Unlike the constituents of the nominal curseme, whose analysis was complicated by the place of French adjectives, the bound lexemes of the verbal curseme can be listed in their entirety and every possible combination can be shown. A. Preposed bound lexemes. The sequence in which these appear is outlined in this fashion: (i) je tu il tile on nous vous Us tiles

(2) ne

(3) me ie se nous vous

(4) le la les

(5) lui leur y

(6) en

(7) Finite verb

There are restrictions in the occurrence of lexemes of slots (3) to (6). Only two of these may be found in a given curseme, in combinations such as: (?) + (4) (3) (3) (4) (4) (5)

36

+ -f + + +

(?) (6) (5) (6) (6)

H me le M-

Je m'y rendrai. Us s'en vont. Vous le lui donnez. Nous Ten ferons sortir. Tu leur en enverras.

No verbal curseme can every contain more than four preposed bound lexemes; but each verbal curseme must have the lexeme (pronoun subject) of slot (i): (a) II park. (b) // ne park pas. (c) // ne lui park pas. (d) // ne lui en park pas.

All possible combinations of preposed bound lexemes in the verbal curseme are demonstrated in the chart that follows101.

Subject pronoun -ne ous

Cte

ivous

\se

Λ lui

A/