Diachronie de la négation phrastique en français : apports d'une approche sociohistorique

Abstract

AbstractThis article examines the evolution of Old French sentential negation from a sociohistorical perspective. In Old French, simple negation (ne + verb) comes increasingly into competition with the innovative reinforced or bipartite variant (ne + verb + pas/mie/point). Starting from the hypothesis that the distribution of conservative and innovative forms varies by language register, frequencies of each form are analyzed in represented speech and in narrative, two distinct registers within a single text. In some texts, register is shown to influence the distribution of the variants, with higher rates of reinforced negation appearing in represented speech as opposed to narrative passages. Furthermore, some of the data reveal gender variation, with the represented speech of men appearing more innovative than that of women with respect to negation. The results suggest that the form of sentential negation in Old French was influenced by sociostylistic factors.