1

Topic and Focus in Old French V1 and V2

structures

1. Introduction

A growing body of work explores the role of Information Structure

(henceforth IS) on word order variation and change. The

cartographic approach to syntactic structures (e.g. Cinque 2002;

2006; Cinque and Rizzi 2008; Rizzi 1997; 2004), despite its

shortcomings (Craenenbroeck 2009), has shown that specific

positions in the clause appear to be dedicated to topic and focus

constituents (Belletti 2004; Benincà 1999; 2006; Benincà and

Poletto 2004; Benincà and Munaro 2010), and a growing number of

authors argue that changes in word order reflect changes in how a

language expresses these notions (e.g. Benincà 2006; Roland

Hinterhölzl 2009; Hinterhölzl and Petrova 2009; 2010; Laenzlinger

2006; Kroch and Santorini 2009; and the various papers in Batllori

and Hernanz 2011). The present paper centers on Old French (OF)

V1 and V2 structures with the aim of bringing to light the possible

correlations between the informational role of phrases and their

position.

2

Since the end of the 19th c., it has been observed that the Old French

finite verb tends to be found in second position in main clauses

(Thurneysen 1892; Foulet 1928; Skårup 1975).

(1) messe e matines ad li reis escultet

mass and matins has the king heard

‘The king has attended mass and matins’

(1100, Roland 11;139)1

This verb-second, or V2, property is well documented in German

and other Germanic languages. Within the Principles and

Parameters’ approach of the 1990’s, V2 was analyzed as having the

verb under C and some constituent in Spec,CP, this position

corresponding to Skårup (1975)’s place du fondement, or German’s

Vorfeld (Adams 1987; 1988; Platzack 1995; Roberts 1993; Vance

1995). This is represented schematically in (2) (using the

copy+delete representation of move):

(2) [CP messe e matines ad [IP li reis ad escultet messe e

matines]

A number of authors have recently challenged the V2 analysis of

Old French, in part based on the argument that V1 and V3

constructions are more frequent in Old French than in either modern

German (Ferraresi and Goldbach 2002; Kaiser 2000; 2002; Kaiser

and Zimmermann 2011; Rinke and Meisel 2009) or Middle High

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German (1050-1350) (Elsig 2009). Among these, Rinke and Meisel

(2009) claim, on the basis of a study of two early 13th c. texts

(Villehardouin and Les 7 sages de Rome), that in Old French the

preverbal position is a Topic position. In declaratives, the verb

would surface under Tense; the preverbal position (Spec,TP) would

be a Topic position, and the VP would contain the Information

Focus portion of the clause.

(3) [TP XPTop V [VP …...]Foc ]

For the authors, this means that

1) subject-inversion would be “contingent on the topicalisation of

a non-subject constituent” (p. 112)2 , and

2) subjects would move to the preverbal position to avoid their

being interpreted as Information Focus or as part of a thetic

sentence (“An incompatibility of the post-verbal subject with

an interpretation as information focus or as part of a thetic

sentence would cause the subject to move to the pre-verbal

position.”, p.109).

In this perspective, OF contrasts with contemporary German, where

the informational role of the preverbal position is not restricted to

Topics, but may also be occupied by a Focus or an adverb that is

neither Topic nor Focus. On the other hand, OF turns out to be

similar to Old High German if, as argued by Hinterhölzl and

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Petrova (2010; 2011), the OHG verb served to separate the

aboutness Topic from the comment (for these authors, the evolution

to modern German would result from a neutralization of the

information structural specialization of the sentence-initial

position). According to Rinke and Meisel, in being a Topic-initial

language, OF would have a grammar similar to that of

contemporary Romance null subject languages like Italian, Spanish

or Portuguese (but see Remberger 2010 for evidence that Focus

elements may be initial in these languages).

In the research presented here, we study Old French V1 and V2

constructions from the perspective of these information structural

accounts. On the basis of previous research, we expect early 12th c.

texts to allow preverbal Focus constituents (Marchello-Nizia 1995;

2009; Rickard 1962) (this research is discussed below under 5.2).

However it may be that the language passed through a transitional

Topic-initial stage (TVX) before becoming SVO (see Fleischman

1992: 463). The purpose of the present paper is therefore to test the

hypothesis that the Old French grammar passed through a stage

corresponding to Rinke and Meisel’s characterization, in which:

1) The preverbal position is reserved for Topics.

2) Subjects move to the preverbal position in order to avoid being

interpreted as part of the Focus.

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We will provide arguments against both claims. It is important to

realize that the second claim does not necessarily follow from the

first one, since there may be more than one topical constituent in a

clause. Thus, Speyer (2010) showed that, in German, when two or

three of the following types of topical constituents are present in a

clause, (1) Information Topic, (2) Scene-setting Topic, (3) element

standing in a poset relation to some discourse set, the competition

for the vorfeld position is resolved according to the following

ranking: scene-setting >> poset >> I-topic; the other topic(s) are

realized postverbally. A similar competition may occur in a

language where the verb is in second position and the preverbal

position is reserved for a Topic. If the ranking observed in German

for the vorfeld applies to a TVX language, we expect to observe

sentences with a Scene-setting Topic in preverbal position and a

postverbal subject fulfilling the role of Information Topic. In such a

language, 1) would be verified, but not 2). If, however, the Old

French verb marks the boundary between Topic and Focus

constituents, we would expect the verb to appear in third position

whenever there are two topical constituents in the clause, and in

fourth position if three topical constituents are present.

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2. Information structure – Definitions

Notions like Topic and Focus are notoriously complex. In the

present paper, the following operational definitions are adopted :

Information Topic : “The Topic constituent identifies the entity or

set of entities under which the information expressed in the

comment constituent should be stored in the [Common Ground]

content.” (Krifka 2008) As formulated by Krifka, this definition

applies specifically to the entity which is the subject of discourse,

i.e. the Aboutness topic (Reinhart 1982) or Information Topic (I-

Topic). An I-Topic may co-occur in a clause with other types of

topics, like frame-specifying topics, which are generally clause-

external and have different functions (cf. Andréasson 2007;

Nikolaeva 2001). An I-Topic is typically a definite constituent,

referring to an entity given in the discourse or accessible in the

Common Ground (this corresponds to Vallduví 1993’s link).

Information Focus : The Information Focus (I-Focus) is linked to

the pragmatic principle of Progression (e.g. Charolles 1978) which

states that if a sentence is to be informative, it must contain material

that is new in relation to previously known information (the

background). The I-Focus of the sentence is the new information

that should be stored in the Common Ground.

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According to Gundel & Fretheim (2004), these notions of

Information Topic and Information Focus correspond to relationally

given/new information respectively, and are equivalent to the

notions of Theme/Rheme, or Topic/Comment. However, it has been

pointed out that the Comment is not always equivalent to the I-

Focus, since it may contain an informative part (the I-Focus per se)

as well as background (uninformative, relationally given)

information. For example, in (4), from Krifka (2008: 42, ex. 41),

married her in sentence B is background information within the

comment (Büring 2007: 5; Vallduví 1993’s tail).

(4) A: When did [Aristotle Onassis]Topic marry Jacqueline

Kennedy?

B: [He]Topic [married her [in 1968]Focus]]Comment

Thetic sentences are all-focus. This is the case with the second

sentence in a dialog like: What happened? The telephone rang.

Contrastive Focus : A Contrastive Focus (C-Focus) is defined by

Gundel & Fretheim (2004) as being “material which the speaker

calls to the addressee’s attention, thereby often evoking a contrast

with other entities that might fill the same position.” The notion of

contrast is also present in Krifka’s (2008) definition of Focus as

indicating the presence of alternatives. Contrastive Focus may be

marked by prosody or by expressions like even, only, also.

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Contrary to the I-Focus, a C-Focus may be part of a Topic, as in the

following example:

(5) A: What do your siblings do?

B: [My [SIster]Focus]Topic [studies MEDicine]Focus, and

[my [BROther]Focus]Topic is [working on a FREIGHT

ship]Focus.

Krifka (2008: 44) talks of Contrastive Topics in that case (a

Contrastive Topic being defined as an aboutness Topic containing a

Focus). (On the difference between I-Topics and C-Topics, see

Lipták 2010).

With these notions in mind, let us turn to our study.

3. The Corpus

The data are extracted from the MCVF corpus of Old French parsed

texts (Martineau et al. 2010, and Penn supplement). We selected the

19 texts dated between 980 and 1309. From these texts, we

extracted all positive declarative matrix clauses with a full DP

subject. We report here our analysis of V1 and V2 clauses (V3+

clauses were kept for later investigation).

One characteristic of the corpus in its present state is that the 12th c.

texts are all in verse except for the Quatre Livres des Rois (1170).

This is due to the lack of 12th c. prose texts, all surviving texts of

9

some length being in verse. Conversely, all of the 13th c. texts in the

corpus are in prose, with the unfortunate consequence that there is

(near) conflation of the text genre and time variables. In the figures

to be presented, both the date and the text genre will be indicated.

4. V1 clauses

If the OF verb marks the boundary between Topic and Focus

constituents, we would expect the post-verbal subjects in V1

clauses to correspond to the I-Focus. In order to verify this

prediction, we selected strict V1 clauses (i.e. not introduced by a

coordinator, since coordinated V1 declaratives may have their own

characteristics, Labelle and Hirschbuhler 2005).

Let us first consider sentences other than those where the verb

introduces direct discourse. Taking the context into account, we

coded the subjects in all these sentences as being I-Topics, I-Focus,

or Unclear (see Cook and Bildhauer 2011 for a discussion of the

difficulties facing the coding of information structure). The results

are displayed in Table 1. While there is a dominance of I-Focus

(rhematic) subjects, the fact that over a third of the postverbal

subjects were coded as I-Topics confirms Rouveret (2004: 196)’s

comment that “It does not seem that the postverbal position in [OF]

V1 sentences is pragmatically specialized.”

10

I-Focus I-Topic Unclear Total

51 35 17 103

49.5% 34% 16.5%

Table 1 - Informational role of postverbal subjects in V1 declaratives

The following examples illustrate subjects that were coded as being

Topics:

(6) Curecerent s’ en les princes des Philistiens

got-angry REFL GEN the princes of-the Philistians

‘The princes of the Philistians got angry at this.’

(1170; QLR1-2;1332)

(7) Cunuit Brandans a l’ air pluius

knew Brendan from the air rainy

Que li tens ert mult annüus.

that the weather was very worrysome

‘Brendan knew from the wet wind that the weather was

worrysome’

(1120; Brendan, 56;675)

Figure 1 illustrates the evolution of V1 declaratives over time (the

numbers indicated at the bottom of the graph correspond to the total

number of relevant examples in the texts). In Roland (1100), the

11

large majority of postverbal subjects were coded as being Focus,

but in Brendan (1120) and the Quatre livres des Rois (1170), they

were more often Topics. The construction dropped out of the

language at the beginning of the 13th c. when the language became

more strictly V2. This is why there are few examples after 1170;

three texts of the corpus dated between 1205 and 1267 do not

appear in the figure because they contain no V1 declarative. After

1267, V1 declaratives re-appear. They contain no clear Topic

subject, but there are only 7 examples.

Figure 1

Let us now turn to verbs introducing direct discourse. Here V1

declaratives alternate with V2 declaratives, some of type SV(X),

and some of type XVS. The three constructions are illustrated

schematically in (8-10). We did not consider parentheticals and

cases where the verb of saying follows the direct discourse, since

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there is no word order variation in these cases (the subject is always

postverbal).

(8) Dit Roland: « ... » = VS

‘Says Roland: ….’

(9) Roland dit: « ... » = SV

‘Roland says: ….’

(10) a. Ço dit Roland: « ... » = cataphoric object VS

‘This says Roland : ….’

b. Donc dit Roland: « ... » = adverb VS

‘Thus says Roland : ….’

As far as we could see, the subject has the same informational

function in the three constructions: it signals a new speaker or a

change of speaker. In the three constructions, the subject is almost

always definite (there are 7 indefinite subjects out of 580 V1

declaratives, distributed across the 3 constructions). With the

disappearance of VS declaratives at the beginning of the 13th c., we

may ask the following question: by which construction are VS

declaratives replaced? If the postverbal position of the subject in VS

declaratives was due to its informational role, we would expect VS

sentences to be replaced by XVS sentences. However, Figure 2

shows that between 1177 and 1225, VS sentences, which drop to

13

zero percent, are replaced by SV(X) sentences more often than by

XVS sentences.

Figure 2

This suggests that the VS order in declaratives resulted from a

desire to place the verb first, and not from a desire to place the

subject in postverbal position. When speakers started to avoid

placing emphasis on the verb in declaratives, a V2 construction was

used instead, and subjects were largely preferred over either objects

or adverbs to fill the preverbal position (cf. Labelle and

Hirschbuhler 2005 for an analysis).

5. V2 clauses

Let us now turn to V2 clauses. Two questions are adressed in this

section: Firstly, do postverbal subjects belong to the comment or are

the I-Focus of the clause? Secondly, what is the informational role

of preverbal constituents?

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5.1 Subjects

Since definite subjects tend to be topics while indefinite subjects

make bad topics & are often found in thetic sentences, we may ask

ourselves whether there is a marked tendency to find definite

subjects preverbally and indefinite subjects postverbally. We

therefore coded the nature of subjects in non-coordinated V2

sentences. Figures 3a and 3b show that both preverbally and

postverbally, subjects are overwhelmingly definite.

Figure 3

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If we concentrate our attention on the 192 indefinite subjects, we

find a small tendency to place indefinite subjects postverbally, but

clearly no exclusion of indefinite subjects from the preverbal

position: 44.7% of indefinite subjects are found preverbally in verse

texts (12th c.) and 43% in prose texts (1170 and 13th c.). The

following examples show that these indefinite preverbal subjects

may be I-Focus.

(11) (Une forest aveit entur, Trente liwes ot de lungur.)

(There was a forest about, It was thirty leagues long)

Un seinz hermites i maneit

A saint hermit LOC lived

‘A saint hermit lived there’

(1180; Marie de France, Eliduc 182;3715)

(12) Une musteile vint curant,

A weasel came running

‘A weasel came running’

(1180; Marie de France, Eliduc 187;3815)

(13) Doi gentil homme du paÿs,

two gentlemen of-the country,

qui pas ne l’ amoient,

who not NEG him liked

saillirent hors a un trespas,

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jumped out at a passage

‘Two gentlemen of the country, who didn’t like him, jumped

out at a passage’

(1267; Cassidorus, 643;4056)

Considering only texts containing more than ten indefinite subjects,

we observe a small decrease in the tendency to place indefinite

subjects in preverbal position (Figure 4), but the percentage of

preverbal indefinite subjects at the end of the period is still 35%.

Therefore, it does not appear that there is a constraint against

rhematic (I-Focus) subjects in preverbal position.

Figure 4

To summarize, the distribution of definite vs indefinite subjects in

the corpus does not support the hypothesis that preverbal subjects

are always Topics or that postverbal subjects always part of the

comment or Information Focus of the clause. The following

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sections will provide examples of overt postverbal subjects which

are I-Topics.

5.2 Preverbalconstituentsdistinctfromasubject

Recall that Rinke & Meisel claim that, while in German the

constituent in the prefield may be a Topic, an Informational Focus,

a Constrastive Focus or an adverb that is neither topic nor focus, in

Old French the preverbal constituent would always be a Topic or an

adverb linking with the preceding discourse, which Rinke & Meisel

consider as a type of Topic. In the present section, we consider

XVS sentences with the aim of determining whether the preverbal

position is a Topic position, and whether the postverbal subject is

always interpreted as being part of the information Focus portion of

the clause.

Contrastive Focus. Let us first observe that a contrastive focus

may occupy the preverbal position.

(14) Meïsmes a l' empereour sont les lermes venues

even to the emperor are the tears come-PRT

aus yex,

to-the eyes

‘even to the emperor, the tears came to the eyes’

(1267; Cassidorus, 664;4447)

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Rickard (1962, 19) provides many other examples of clause-initial

C-Focus constituents in Old French texts, like the following, where

vaincu in the second clause contrasts with mort in the previous

clause:3

(15) Vous m’ avez mort sans recouvrier,

You me have dead without recourse,

mais vaincu ne m’ avez vous mie.

but defeated NEG me have you not

‘You killed me without recourse,

but you have not defeated me.’

(Merlin in prose, ii. p. 52)

In addition, if we are correct in considering that, in (16)-(18), the

information conveyed by the preverbal subject is the new

information conveyed by the sentences (here of type SV(X)) , these

examples provide further confirmation that a preverbal constituent

may be a contrastive focus.

(16) Meïsmes la pucele y fu

even the girl LOC was

‘even the girl was there’

(1267; Cassidorus, 149;1211)

(17) Sul David é Jonathas le sourent.

only David and Jonathas it knew

19

‘only David and Jonathan knew it’

(1170; QLR1-2;757)

(18) Nes li oisel s’ an istront fors;

even the birds REFL GEN go-FUT away

‘even the birds will leave’

(1177; Yvain, 13;394)

Preverbal objects. Marchello-Nizia (1995) studied the role of

preverbal direct objects in two texts: Roland (1100) and La Queste

del Saint Graal (1225). In Roland, Marchello-Nizia did not notice

any restriction on the informational role of preverbal objects.

However, she observed that they tend to be more often rhematic (I-

Focus) than thematic (I-Topic) (pp. 99-100). By contrast, the OV(S)

order is more restricted in the Queste, where it serves mainly to

thematize the object; when the object is rhematic, the OVS order is

marked and is found mainly in idioms of type mander saluz (send

greetings) (19), or when O is either strongly focused or

cataphorically linked to the discourse.4

(19) Saluz vos mande li bons chevaliers

Greetings you send the good knight

‘The good knight sends you his greetings’

(Queste, p. 30, in Marchello-Nizia, 1999: 44)

20

The change in the informational role of the preverbal object is

confirmed in our corpus. Taking into account the context, we coded

all preverbal objects in V2 sentences as being Topic, Focus or

Unclear. As shown in Figure 5, a preverbal object tends to be the I-

Focus of the clause before 1205 but the I-Topic after 1225. It is

important to realize, though, that OVS with a preverbal Focus

object is grammatical until the end of the period studied; at the end

of the period this construction still makes up twenty to forty percent

of preverbal objects.

Figure 5

In the present corpus, when the preverbal object is an I-Focus, the

postverbal subject is generally interpreted as the Topic. This

situation is illustrated in (20)-(23).

(20) .XX. escheles ad li reis anumbrees.

twenty columns has the king counted

‘the king has counted twenty columns’

(1100; Roland, 112;1459)

21

(21) et divers chanz chantoit chascuns;

and various songs sang each-one’

‘and they all sang various songs’

(1177; Yvain, 15;453)

(22) La main destre leva adonques la dame,

The hand right raised then the lady

‘Then the lady raised the right hand’

(1177; Yvain,202;7065)

(23) La maniere comment il pristrent la cité de Baudas

The manner how they took the city of Baudas

et le calife nous conterent les marcheans;

and the caliph us told the merchants

‘The merchants told us how they took the city of Baudas and

the caliph’

(1309; Joinville,289;3370)

(this example is also discussed in Rickard 1962: 29)

This means that the particular analysis of Rinke and Meisel

according to which the subject moves to the preverbal position to

escape being interpreted as part of the information Focus is

incorrect. In Old French, a postverbal subject may be the I-Topic

while the preverbal position is occupied by an I-Focus. In other

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words, the verb does not mark the boundary between Topics and

Focus constituents.

Preverbal predicates and quantifiers. Let us now turn to other

types of preverbal constituents. The preverbal field may contain

constituents that are not candidates to topichood and that must be

interpreted as being part of the comment. These include quantifiers,

non-finite verbs, adjectives and other predicates. Examples are

given in (24-27); the postverbal subject was coded as being the I-

Topic of the clause.

(24) Mut est Lanval en grant esfreie! =QP

much is Lanval in great fright

‘Lanval is greatly afraid’

(1180; Marie de France, Lanval, 196; 78.1592)

(25) Trenchet li ad li quens le destre poign, = NF-V

cut-PRT him has the count the right hand

‘The count has cut his right hand’

(1100; Roland, 142;1926)

(26) Malade ot geü longuemant la pucele, = Adj

sick has laid a-long-time the girl

‘The girl had been sick for a long time’

(1177; Yvain, 177;6235)

(27) Male chose est murmure, =Pred. NP

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bad thing is whisper

‘Whispering is a bad thing’

(1279; Somme Royal, 1,64;1758)

Such constituents were always rare in preverbal position compared

to adverbials and PP’s. Table 2 shows that their percentage is higher

in verse texts (12th c.) than in prose texts (mainly 13th c.). This

might suggest that the preverbal position is indeed more frequently

rhematic in 12th c. texts than in 13th c. texts.

Adjective Non Fin. Verb Pred.NP

Verse 2.7% 2.0% 0.6%

Prose 0.6% 0.3% 0.2%

Table 2 - Distribution of adjectives predicative NP’s and non finite verbs in

preverbal position

Adverbials and PPs. We coded the informational status of

subjects in V2 sentences introduced by an adverbial (in which we

included temporal DP’s like le lendemain (the next day), le jeudi

(on Thursday)). Figure 6 presents the results of this analysis. It can

be shown that the postverbal subject is generally a Topic, and that

no observable change is apparent within the period considered.

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Preverbal adverbials may be locative or temporal. In that case, they

are generally frame setting (Hanging Topics or Scene Setting

Topics in Benincà and Poletto (2004)’s terms). In that function,

they are topical, but do not constitute the I-Topic of the clause, i.e.

the “entity or set of entities under which the information expressed

in the comment constituent should be stored in the [Common

Ground] content.” Indeed, when the preverbal field is filled by a

Scene Setting Topic and the clause contains a postverbal full DP

subject, this subject is generally the I-Topic of the clause, as in the

following examples, which illustrate the type of situation described

by Speyer (2007) for German.

(28) La fist Cassidorus plus d’ armes

There made Cassidorus more (feats) of arms

que onques Achilles ne fist devant Troies.

than ever Achilles NEG made in-front-of Troy

‘There, Cassidorus made more feats of arms than Achilles

ever made in front of Troy’

Figure 6

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(1267;Cassidorus,26;627)

(29) Le jour de la saint Marc me dit le roy

The day of the Saint Marc me told the king

que a celi jour il avoit esté né;

that at that day he had been born

‘On Saint Marc’s day, the king told me that he was born that

day’

(1309; Joinville,305;3574)

In the majority of cases where the postverbal subject is coded as I-

Topic, the preverbal adverb is lors, puis, après, donc, adont, a

temporal adverbial which links with the previous discourse without

being clearly scene-setting or topical. The particle si may also

occupy the preverbal position:

(30) Dont sot Ydoines vraiement que Diex l’ amoit,

Then knew Ydoine truly that God her loved

‘Then Ydoine truly knew that God loved her.’

(1267; Cassidorus,351;3031)

(31) Apres assegia Karles Cordis.

After assieged Karl Cordis

‘After that, Karl assieged Cordis’

(1220; Pseudoturpin-2,285;422)

(32) Si demora laienz Perceval avec s’ antain.

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thus stayed therein Perceval with his aunt

‘Thus, Perceval stayed there with his aunt’

(1225; Queste, 107;2806)

As for PP’s, when they are preverbal, they generally link with the

previous discourse without constituting the I-Topic of the clause. In

the following examples, the postverbal subjects constitute the

I-Topics.

(33) Por ce panse mes sire Yvains qu’ il l’ ocirra

For this thinks my lord Yvain that he him kill-FUT

premieremant;

first

‘For that reason, my lord Yvain thinks that he will kill him

first’

(1177; Yvain,102;3563)

(34) Del colp chancelad li gluz

At-the blow faltered the giant

‘The giant faltered at the blow’

(1170; QLR1-2,.470)

In rare cases, the preverbal PP clearly provides new information (is

I-Focus). This is illustrated below. In these examples, the postverbal

subject again constitutes the I-Topic.

(35) Au geu de la verté l’ a prise Lunete,

27

At-the game of the truth her has taken Lunete

molt cortoisemant.

very curteously

‘Lunete has led her into the game of truth, very curteously’

(1170; Yvain,201;7046)

(36) En grant effrei erent amdui.

In great fright were both

‘Both of them were greatly afraid’

(1180; Marie de France, Guigemar, 476;359)

(37) E en sa maín destra tient l’ imagre una clef

and in its hand right holds the statue a key

que nus ne li puet tolír.

that no-one NEG it-DAT can take

‘and the statue holds a key in its right hand, that nobody can

steal from it’

(1220; Pseudoturpin-1,269;151)

To summarize, in sentences of type XVS, the postverbal subject

may be the I-Topic of the clause; the preverbal constituent may be

topical, or it may be (part of) the I-Focus of the clause. We

conclude that throughout the 12th and 13th c.,

1) the verb does not delimit the boundary between Topic

constituents to its left and Focus constituents to its right;

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2) the preverbal constituent may be an I-Focus, contrary to the

hypothesis that the language became TVX during the period;

3) there is no rule that forces subjects to raise to preverbal position

in order to avoid being interpreted as part of the Focus.

6. Comparison with other Germanic languages

Before concluding, let us compare the distribution of preverbal

constituents in Old French and in Germanic languages.

Bohnacker and Rosén (2007, 34 & 36) compare the prefields in

German and Swedish, and they arrive at the figures in Table 3.

Commenting on these figures, the authors observe that both

Swedish and German tend to start declaratives with a subject, to let

the subject coincide with the theme and topic, and to place the

theme before the rheme. But Swedish has a stronger tendency to

place the rheme after the verb, to start with an element of low

informational value and with a phonologically light element (e.g.

expletive, det, så), and to use few fronted objects. Although the

constructions with a heavy rhematic object found in German are

considered grammatical in Swedish, they are dispreferred. Swedish

typically fronts objects that are themes. This explains the difference

in the percentages of fronted objects in German (about 7%) and in

Swedish (about 3%).

29

Subjects Objects Adverbials Others

German

newspapers

54% 6.6% 36.8% 2.5%

Germaninformal 50% 7% 42% 1%

Swedishnewsp. 64% 2.3% 30.8% 3%

Swedishinformal 73% 3% 23% 2%

Table 3 - Constituents in the prefield in German and Swedish (from

Bohnacker & Rosen 2003)

The corresponding figures in our data are given in Table 4. It can be

seen that the percentages of the various types of preverbal

constituents in the two Tables are of the same order of magnitude.

The comparison reinforces the conclusion that during the 12th and

13th c., OF was a V2 language of the Germanic type.

Subjects Objects Adv.&

PP’s

Others

OFVerse 58% 7% 29% 10%

OFProse 64% 3% 33% 2%

Table 4 – Constituents in the prefield in Old French

30

Considering the percentage of preverbal objects, it is similar in

verse texts (12th c.) to what is found in German, while the

corresponding percentage in prose texts (mainly 13th c.) is similar to

what is found in Swedish. This observation, compounded with the

fact that, as we saw, (1) fronted preverbal objects tend to be

rhematic in verse texts and are more often thematic in prose texts,

(2) the percentage of “other” constituents like predicates and non

finite verbs is lower in prose texts, and (3) there is a small decrease

in the tendency to find indefinite subjects preverbally, suggests that

the use of the prefield in OF V2 sentences may have evolved from a

use more typical of that of contemporary German to one more

typical of that of contemporary Swedish. These changes might

indicate a change towards a preference for keeping focal

constituents in postverbal position. It is clear, however, that Topics

are not restricted to the preverbal position during the period

considered.

7. Conclusion

The present research leads to the conclusion that, from an

information structure viewpoint, OF is very similar to a V2

language of the Germanic type until the end of the 13th c. As in

German, the preverbal position of an Old French sentence could be

filled by an I-Focus, by a C-Focus, by an I-Topic, by a distinct type

31

of topic, like a scene-setting topic, or by an adverb that was neither

topic nor focus. Clearly, Old French was not strictly Topic initial at

any point during the period considered, even though, just as in

Germanic languages, the preverbal position tended to be filled by a

topical constituent. In addition, nothing prevented postverbal

subjects from being interpreted as the Topic of discourse.

However, a change is observed in the use of the left periphery. The

12th c. grammar is statistically closer to German and the 13th c.

grammar, closer to Swedish. This change might indicate a change in

progress towards a grammar where focal constituents remain in

postverbal position.

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List of Old French texts

Code Approx.

Date

Reference

LEGER 980 Saint Léger. Étude de la langue du manuscrit de Clermont-Ferrand suivie

d’une édition critique du texte avec commentaire et glossaire, éd. par

Joseph LINSKILL, Paris : Droz, 1937, viii + 193 p. Penn Supplement to

MCVF.

ALEXIS 1090 La vie de saint Alexis, éd. par Christopher STOREY, Genève : Droz (TLF,

no 148), 1968, 157 p. Penn Supplement to MCVF.

41

ROLAND 1100 La Chanson de Roland, éd. par Gérard MOIGNET, texte établi d’après le

manuscrit d’Oxford ; traduction, notes et commentaires, 3e édition revue et

corrigée, Paris : Bordas (Bibliothèque Bordas), 1969, 320 p. MCVF.

BRENDAN 1120 The Anglo-Norman Voyage of St. Brendan, éd. par Ian SHORT et Brian

MERRILEES, Manchester : Manchester University Press (Anglo-Norman

Text Society), 1979, vii + 136 p. [BENEDEIT, Le voyage de saint

Brendan]. MCVF.

WILLELME 1150

Lois de Guillaume le conquérant en français et en latin, éd. par John E.

MATZKE, textes et étude critique, préface historique par Gh. Bémont,

Paris : Picard et fils, 1899, 33 p. [Les Leis Willelme] (dates betw. 1150 &

1170). MCVF.

QLR 1170 Li Quatre Livre des Reis, éd. par Ernst Robert CURTIUS, Dresde/, Halle :

Max Niemeyer (Gesellschaft für Romanische Litteratur, no 9), 1911, xcv +

244 p. Supplement to MCVF.

YVAIN 1177 Chrétien de Troyes, Le Chevalier au lion (Yvain), éd. par Mario ROQUES,

Paris : Champion (CFMA, no 89), 1960, xxx + 266 p. MCVF.

LAIS 1180 MARIE DE FRANCE, Les Lais, éd. par Jean RYCHNER, Paris : Honoré

Champion (CFMA, no 93), 1981 [1971] , xlv + 317 p. MCVF.

CHIEVRES 1194 Maurice-Aurélien ARNOULD, « Le plus ancien acte en langue d’oïl : la

charte-loi de Chièvres (1194) [Rasse VIII de Gavre et Nicolas IV de

Rumigny] », dans Hommage au professeur Paul Bonenfant (1899-1965).

Études d’histoire médiévale dédiées à sa mémoire... Bruxelles. 1965,

p. 85-118. MCVF.

AUCASSIN 1200 Aucassin et Nicolette : chantefable du XIIIe siècle, éd. par Mario

ROQUES, Paris : É. Champion, 1936, 105 p. MCVF.

CLARI 1205 Robert DE CLARI, La Conquête de Constantinople, éd. par Philippe

LAUER, Paris : Champion (CFMA), 1924, 130 p. MCVF.

PSEUDO-

TURPIN

1220 Theodor M. AURACHER « Der Sogenannte poitevinische Übersetzung

des Pseudo-Turpin », dans Zeitschrift für romanische Philologie

(Tübingen; éditeur : Gustav Gröber), t. I, 1877, p. 259-336. MCVF.

QUESTE 1225 La Queste del Saint Graal, roman en prose du XIIIe siècle, éd. par Albert

42

PAUPHILET, Paris : Champion (CFMA, no 33), 1923, 301 p. MCVF.

AGNES 1226 Anonyme. Sermon anonyme sur Sainte Agnès, texte du 13 siècle. ed.

Robert Taylor. Strasbourg : Centre de philologie et de littérature romanes,

1969. MCVF.

CASSIDORUS 1267 Livre de Cassidorus empereur de Constantinoble. Le roman de Cassidorus,

publié par Joseph Palermo, Paris, Picard (Société des anciens textes

français). Supplement to MCVF

SOMME 1279 FRERE LAURENT, La Somme le roi, éd. par Édith BRAYER et Anne-

Françoise LABIE-LEURQUIN, Paris/Abbeville : Société des anciens

textes français / Paillart, 2008, 596 p. et un cahier d’illustrations en

couleurs. Penn Supplement to MCVF.

ROISIN 1283 Le Livre Roisin : coutumier lillois de la fin du 13e siècle, publié avec une

introduction et un glossaire par Raymond MONIER, préface d’Alexandre

de Saint-Léger, Paris : Domat-Montchrestien (Documents et Travaux

publiés par la Société d’Histoire du Droit des pays flamands, picard et

wallons, no 2), 1932, xxxv + 175 p. MCVF.

JOINVILLE 1309 JOINVILLE, Jean sire de, Vie de saint Louis, éd. bilingue par Jacques

MONFRIN, Paris : Dunod (Classiques Garnier), 1995, cxxxixi + 485 p.,

MCVF.

1 References to OF examples contain first the approximate date of

the text, then the abbreviated name of the text, followed by a page,

verse, or section number (according to the text), followed by the

phrase structure number in the corpus.

43

2 In the present paper, as in Rinke and Meisel (2009), postverbal

subjects include subjects described as of the Germanic as well as of

the Romance inversion type.

3 The focal nature of the preverbal contrastive constituent comes out

clearly in (1), a sentence with a null subject:

(1) Del tranchant, non mie del plat, le fiert ...

with-the cuting not a-bit with-the flat, him hits

‘with the cutting edge, not with the flat side, (he) hits him’

(1177 ; Yvain, 128.4433)

4 Zaring (2010) studied the OV order with (non-initial) non-finite

verbs, in two different texts (Le Roman de Perceval ou le Conte du

Graal by Chrétien de Troyes (c. 1185) and La Conqueste de

Constantinople by Geoffroy de Villehardouin (c. 1205)), and found

the same evolution. It thus seems that what changes is not the nature

of the clause-initial position but more generally what allows an

object to precede the verb.