Relative heads

In the data, it was distinguished between several types of relative heads. Cases of coordinated relative structures as in (8) were annotated separately.

(8) ledit suppliant, qui […], et qui, au commencement de karesme derrain passé, acheta d’un Anglois nommé Jehan Langhin, capitaine de Chambray, certain nombre de caques de harenc

the said supplicant, who […], and who, at the beginning of last Lent bought from an Englishman named Jehan Langhin, captain of Chambray, a certain number of barrels of herring (1424,49)

Since there was not any significant effect on the investigated phenomenon, they were finally included into the following according to the type of the relative head they belonged to.⁶⁷ The following types of relative heads were distinguished:

67 There were 22 occurrences of coordinated structures in the first period versus 18 in the second.

(9) Definite noun phrases

ou cas ou il eust creu le conseil de ses diz cirurgiens in.the case RCI he had believed the advice of his said surgeons (1358,80)

(10) Indefinite noun phrases

un nommé Robin le Fevre, lequel se assist avec eulx pour boire a named Robin le Fevre who REFL sat with them to drink (1424,25)

(11) Demonstrative pronouns

de ce qu’il ont levé et despensé […] du subside dessusdit, of that RCI.they have taken and spent of.the subsidy above-said il rendent bon et leal compte

they give good and loyal report (1357, 25) (12) Personal pronouns

eulx qui les avoient departiz

they who them have separated (1431, 201)

Definite noun phrases, as in (9), constitute the majority of relative heads (61,5% vs. 64,5%). To state precisely my conception of relative clauses and of definite noun phrases as relative heads, compare the following example (13) to (9):

(13) jusques a la saint Michiel derrain passée ou environ, que un petit enfant until to the last feast of St. Michael or round about that a little child […] l’a revélé

it.has revealed

‘Until the last feast of St. Michael or by then when a little child has revealed it.’ (1424, 70)

At first sight, la saint Michiel derrain passée ou environ could perfectly constitute a relative head relativized by que. Nonetheless, bear in mind that there is no specific relative clause item

in French that relativizes temporal structures. In Modern French, où is the relative clause item used by default.⁶⁸ Consider then the definition of Grosu (2002: 145) given in (14).

(14) a. A relative clause is subordinated.

b. A relative clause includes, at some level of semantic representation, a variable that ultimately gets bound in some way by an element of the matrix.

Along these lines, the argument is that cases as (13) are not canonical cases of relative clauses and should be taken as temporal adverbial clauses. In cases of subordinated clauses implying fronting, they are analysed as ‘other’.⁶⁹

The second largest group of relative heads are indefinite noun phrases, as (10), ranging up to 26,1% and 23,9% for the first and second period, respectively. Constructions composed of a demonstrative as relative head, as in (11), represent roughly one-tenth of all cases (9,7% vs.

11,1%). They were only coded as relative clauses, if the subordinating item clearly bears a relative function, i.e. a syntactic function other than subordinator within the subordinated clause.⁷⁰ Moreover, occurrences with a clear interrogative reading of ce que were not taken into account.⁷¹ There are only few instances of personal pronouns used as relative heads as in (12) (5 vs. 1).

Grouped as ‘other’, for the first period, there are 3 instances of là and accordingly one combination of a DP with là, always combined with the relative clause item où. The function

68 In this data, there is a single occurrence exhibiting this usage.

i. Lequel suppliant, soy voiant ainsi trouvé avec iceulz brigans où il leur avoit livré lesdites aguillectes et autres menues choses

This supplicant seeing himself found in that way with those brigands ^RCI he had delivered to them the said and other minor things (1424, 29)

69 Even though, neither the relative nor the temporal interpretation of où is ambiguous (On the semantics of où see next section). Hence, one could likewise argue that que assumes this role here, cf. Muller (1996: 68f.).

70 Compare Muller (1996: 34f.) on the different uses of ce que as a complementizer and a neutral relative clause item. See also the discussion on (13) above. Therefore, constructions such as i. were coded as ‘other’.

i. jusques a ce que nagueres il lui fut enchargié par ung confesseur until ^COMP recently proexpl him was infliged by a confessor (1425, 91) If the relative function was unclear such as in ii., they were coded as other, too.

ii. Pour ce que par le rapport des mires a esté rapporté aus chevaliers.

For ^COMP/^RCI by the report of doctors has been reported to the knights (1357, 1) Consider also the discussion of ce que dit est for (3) and (4) above.

71 Think for instance of occurrences such as i.

i. Il me demandait ce que je faisais là.

He asked me what I was doing there.

Clear interrogative reading was understood to be a [+interrogative] feature introduced by the main clause verb.

of là has not been discussed in the literature to this point.⁷² According to Gapany (2004: 142), French relative clauses introduced by où realize an amalgam of the “démarcatif” and a pronominal NP with the same semantic information as là, which cannot be bound. Since Gapany (2004) works on contemporary French, one might argue along these lines that là où in former variants of French was still possible. Since no instances of là as a single relative clause item were found, it was coded as a head taking the single instance of a DP combined with là as an over-specification. One could also argue that the combination of là où corresponds to a relative clause item⁷³ and consequently would count 3 more instances of headless relative clauses and one more instance of a DP head.⁷⁴

For the second period, only the case of (15) was grouped as ‘other’.

(15) le xiij e jour de juillet derrenierement passé, jour de dimenche, icelui Guillaume la Chose avoit disné en l'ostel de la femme qui fu Jehan Chambre, jadis escuier the 13th day of last July, Sunday, this Guillaume la Chose has had lunch in the house of the wife who was Jehan Chambre, formerly equerry (1432, 220) Here the reference element for the relative clause is not clear. It is implausible to take the head la femme as head of the relative clause, since the name is clearly masculine.

The following table is a summary. The absolute number of cases was put in relation to the instances containing fronted elements.

1357-1360 1423-1433

overall fronting overall fronting

DP 203 (61,5%) 36 (59,0%) 302 (64,5%) 51 (72,9%)

indefinites 86 (26,1%) 15 (24,6%) 112 (23,9%) 9 (12,9%) demonstrative pronouns 32 (9,7%) 7 (11,5%) 52 (11,1%) 10 (14,3%)

personal pronouns 5 (1,5%) 3 (4,9%) 1 (0,2%) 0

72 Neither Kleiber (1987) nor Godard (1988) work on relative où. Furthermore, there are no diachronic studies on là où to be found so far.

73 See the next section for the definition of relative clause item.

74 Since there is no instance containing stylistic fronting among those occurrences, this question was left open.

For the second part of the corpus there are no occurrences of là ou.

other 4 (1,2%) 0 1 (0,2%) 0

total 330 69 468 70

Table 3. Relative heads

Deviation between the absolute percentages and the percentages including fronting are existent, but, as mentioned in chapter 2, the statistical tests that were run showed no significance of any category on fronting.