Academic literature on the topic 'Occitan (langue) – Syntaxe'

This article aims to compare some traits that characterise the syntax of the noun phrase in the Occitan/Ligurian amphizone (i.e., contact area) that lies at the border between southern France and northwestern Italy. The dialects spoken in this area differ in several syntactic traits that emerged in a situation of contact between dialects of different subgroups (Ligurian and Occitan), two roofing languages (Italian and French), and regional contact languages such as Genoese. In particular, I will elaborate on the syntax of mass and indefinite plural nouns, on the co-occurrence of determiners and possessives, and on the syntax of kinship terms. From an I-language perspective, the fine variation observed at the Occitan/Ligurian border raises two types of research questions: (a) which comparative concepts best capture the observed variation; (b) whether intraclade contact (i.e., contact between languages of the same branch) can contribute relevant evidence and arguments to the debate concerning the biological endowment of the language faculty.

This paper reports an empirical study of the discourse-pragmatic functions of subject left dislocation (LD) in Old Occitan. Data come from the complete troubadour biographies, in which the most common manifestation of subject LD is a nominal subject + sentence adverb si + verb, as in “Bertrans de Born si fo uns castellans” [Bertran de Born was a nobleman]. Whereas previous accounts fail to integrate syntax with discourse-pragmatic function, these results reveal the importance of both in explaining the occurrence of subject LD. Using recent approaches to the clausal left periphery (e.g., Benincà 2006), I distinguish LD subjects from conventional (i.e., non-dislocated) pre-verbal subjects. Next, following Fleischman’s (1991) analysis of si in Old French, I illustrate how subject LD structures the flow of information in discourse. In particular, subject LD marks a constituent as a discourse topic and can also introduce a new referent into the discourse and thereby mark it as topical.

Cette thèse est née d'un triple intérêt : intérêt pour la linguistique et la dialectologie romanes : on y propose de ramener la fragmentation dont l'occitan a fait l'objet à la Renaissance à un abandon - graduel si l'on considère l'Occitanie du Nord au Sud - de l'enclise ; intérêt pour la psychanalyse : dans la structure et la morphologie des impératives, dans le fait qu'une forme verbale non marquée est nécessairement rapportée à un allocutaire et que sa valeur descriptive dépend de ce rapport, on voit la preuve que le langage a un fonctionnement tout autant indiciel que symbolique (et l'on donne un sens particulier au Principe de Projection Etendu de Chomsky) ; intérêt pour les faits intonatifs : dans la possibilité d'asserter de manière conjointe la juxtaposition ils se sont levés, il était six heures, de lui donner la signification " quand ils se sont levés, il était six heures " ou au contraire " ils se sont levés, puisqu'il était six heures " en y focalisant - respectivement - la seconde ou la première proposition, on reconnaît une dimension discursive - temporelle - à l'énoncé. Selon la première éventualité évoquée, c'est son contexte réel - son point d'insertion dans une chaîne événementielle particulière - qui se trouve représenté au sein de la proposition assertée (cf. , pour un rapport de contigui͏̈té stricte plutôt que de superposition dans la suite narrative, ils se sont levés, personne n'a réagi). Dans le second cas, la proposition adjointe, terme subséquent, ne se confond pas avec le contexte immédiat : son lien avec la principale est présupposé de manière absolue, relève de la causalité. Une analyse poussée de la structuration prosodique des énoncés - une analyse totalement indépendante de la ponctuation - témoigne aussi de leur inscription dans le temps. Les limitations opposées au détachement des compléments temporels montrent que ceux-ci portent sur des séquences globales plutôt que sur des constituants. La dislocation enjoint d'ailleurs de définir, en parallèle, deux modes d'identification des référents ordinaires : l'un, ensembliste, lié à la rection (et variant minimalement de langue à langue, en fonction de l'enclise notamment), l'autre, binaire, oppositif, caractérisant les partitifs, voire les pronoms personnels, les vocatifs. Toutes vues offrant un cadre, au final, à une description des relatives
This thesis is born of a triple interest : - an interest in Romance linguistics and dialectology : I propose to ascribe the fragmentation of Occitan in the Renaissance to an abandonment, appearing gradual when considering Occitania from North to South, of enclisis. - An interest in psychoanalysis : in the structure and morphology of imperatives, in the fact that an unmarked verbal form is necessarily related to an address and that its descriptive value depends on that relation, I see evidence that language functions in an indicial as well as in a symbolic way (and I give a particular meaning to Chomsky's Extended Projection Principle). - An interest in intonation facts : in the possibility of asserting the juxtaposition they got up, it was six conjointly, of giving it the meaning " when they got up, it was six " or on the contrary " they got up, since it was six " by focusing the second and the first clause - respectively, I recognize a discursive - temporal - dimension to sentences. According to the first eventuality, its real context - its point of insertion within a particular chain of events - is being represented in the asserted clause (cf. , for a relation of strict contiguity rather than superposition in the narrative sequence, they got up, no one reacted). In the second case, the adjunct clause, as a subsequent term, cannot coincide with the immediate context : its link with the main clause is presupposed in an absolute way, is representative of causality. A thorough analysis of the prosodic structuring of sentences - an analysis totally independent of punctuation - bears testimony as well to their inscription in time. The constraints known by the dislocation of temporal complements show that these latter are related to global sequences rather than to constituents. Dislocation also leads to the parallel definition of two ways of identifying ordinary references : one, corresponding to the logic of sets, bound to government (and varying minimally across tongues, according to enclisis in particular), the other, binary, oppositional, characterizing partitives, or even personal pronouns and vocatives. All these views offering a frame, eventually, for a description of relative clauses

This chapter offers a reappraisal of the place of Medieval Romance languages within the V2 typology based on novel corpus data. A review of the available primary and secondary evidence provides compelling evidence that the Medieval Romance languages considered (French, Occitan, Sicilian, Venetian, and Spanish) were V2 languages, with V-to-C movement and XP-merger in the left periphery. The second half of the chapter focuses in detail on Old Sicilian and Old French, arguing that although both show certain commonalities, the height of the V2 bottleneck is distinct with thirteenth-century French showing a stricter V2 syntax than Old Sicilian. This is linked to the former’s status as a high V2 language with a locus for V2 on Force, as opposed to Fin where the constraint is operative in Sicilian.