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Grammar

41 Indefinite Elements

There are a number of indefinite elements in Old French, nouns, pronominal elements, adjectival elements.

· Indefinite nouns. Among indefinite nouns, chose (cose) and rien (ren) are the most important and most common. Chose traces back to Latin causam 'cause, business', whereas rien originated in Latin rem 'thing, business'. In Old French, both chose and rien mean 'thing, something, (some) business, person'. The difference between the two elements resides in the occurrence of rien in negated contexts, meaning 'nothing'; cf.:

		ne rien veer 'to see nothing'

It is this negated use that rien preserved into the modern period, cf.:

		il ne mange rien 'he does not eat anything'

· Pronominal and adjectival elements. There is a group of quantifying (quant, tant) and qualifying (tel) elements. As nominal elements, they have declensional paradigms.

Declension of quant, '(how)ever many, (how)ever much'

		Masculine		Feminine
Nom. Sg.		quanz		quante
Obl. Sg.		quant		quante
Nom. Pl.		quant		quantes
Obl. Pl.		quanz		quantes

The student will have noticed that the declension of this element follows the patterns of Class I and Class II adjectives. The group includes tant 'so much, so many' and alquant (auquant) 'certain ones, several', which appear only in the plural.

Declension of tel 'such, such one'

		Masculine		Feminine
Nom. Sg.		tels, teus		tel
Obl. Sg.		tel		tel
Nom. Pl.		tel		tels, teus
Obl. Pl.		tels		tels, teus

· Various lexical qualifiers. In addition there is a series of indefinites that qualify nouns, adjectives, verbs or adverbs: molt 'many, much', poi (pou, peu) 'a little, little', tot 'all, entirely'; cf.:

		Mult grant eschech en unt si chevaler (CdR 99, Lesson 1)
		'his knights had a very large booty'

42 Adverbs

In Lesson 6 adverbs of manner were already discussed. In fact manner adverbs are the most "regular" among the adverbs in Old French. The other adverbs have a variety of etymological backgrounds. Some trace back to preposition, others to particles, and so forth.

· Adverbs of time. Time reference in Old French is conveyed by a group of adverbs, cf.:

		Present
		ore, ores, or		'now'
		maintenant		'now'
		(h)ui		'today'
		encui		'today'
		oan		'this year'
		endementres		'during'
		anuit		'tonight'

		Future
		main		'tomorrow'
		demain		'tomorrow'
		a piece		'in a moment'
		tantost		'shortly'
		tost		'soon'
		désormais		'from now on'
		encore, encor, uncor		'yet again'
		adès		'soon'
		todis		'always'

		Past
		lors		'then'
		(h)ier		'yesterday'
		l'autrier		'the day before yesterday'
		ja, jadis		'in the past'
		antan		'last year'
		onques		'never'
		pieça		'long ago'

Pieça is a fossilized form of the temporal expression piece a:

		piece		a
		segment of time		have-3sg. pres.
		'there has been some time'

· Adverbs of place. Location in space is referred to with a variety of adverbs, among them:

		Here
		ici, ci		'here'
		ça		'here, hither'
		In here
		ceanz		'in here'
		There
		la		'there'
		ça		'there'
		i		'there, thither'
		Place where
		ou		'where'
		Place from which
		dont		'from which, whence'
		en		'thence, away'
		Inside
		leanz		'inside, within'
		enz		'inside'
		dedenz		'inside, within'
		Outside
		hors		'outside'
		fors		'out, outside'
		Above
		sus		'up, above'
		Under
		suz, soz		'under, beneath'
		Down
		jus		'down'

43 Prepositions

Prepositions in Old French trace back to a variety of elements: prepositions in Latin, adverbs, participle, and nouns.

· Latin origin. Prepositions going back to Latin prepositions may be either compound forms or non-compound forms:

		a		< Lat. ad		'at, in, ...'
		sans		< Lat. sine + s		'without'
		tres		< Lat. trans		'through'
		de		< Lat. de		'from'
		contre		< Lat. contra		'against'
		en		< Lat. in		'in'

In spoken Latin many prepositions were combined to form new prepositions, several of which subsequently surivive in (Old) French; see, for example:

		avan		< La. ab + ante		'before'
		devant		< La. de + ab + ante		'in front of'
		envers		< La. in + versus		'in the direction of'

· Adverbs. Several prepositions trace back to adverbs, such as:

		hors		'out of'
		dans		'in'

· Nouns. The prepositions chez 'at' and lez 'beside' originally were nouns. Chez traces back to Latin casa 'hous', whereas lez originates in La. latus 'side'.

· Participles. In the later stages of Old French, participles came to be used as prepositions as well; mostly present participles, cf.:

Present participles:

		suivant		'following'
		moyennant		'through'
		durant		'during'
		pendant		'during'

Perfective participles:

		hormis		'with the exception of'
		excepté		'with the exception of'

44 Subordinate Conjunction, que

The conjunction que in Old French has a very rich use. It may simply connect a subordinate clause to the main clause, it may also express intensity ('so that'), intention ('so that'), cause, reason, or concession ('because', 'although'), and simply 'and'. Examples:

· Connecting element, cf.:

		Ço sent Rollant que la mort le tresprent (CdR, 2355, Lesson 2)
		'Roland feels that death overcomes him completely'

· Intention, cf.:

		Congié ... li requiert ... d'aler tornoier
		que l'an ne l'apialt recreant. (Yv. 2563, Lesson 6 )
		'he asks permission to fight in tornaments'
		'so that they do not call him a coward'
		Pur ço l'ad fait que il voelt veirement (CdR 2361, Lesson 2)
		'for this reason he has done this that he really wants'

· Cause, reason, concession, cf.:

		La dame tantost li otroie,
		qu'el ne set qu'il vialt demander (Yv., 2556)
		'the lady immediately grants it to him,
		'although she does not know what he wants to ask'

45 Facts: Numbers, Distances, Measures, Time

· Numbers. In Old French texts, numbers are either spelled out in full or are rendered by Roman numbers. When Roman numbers are used, the number is preceded and followed by a dot.

· Numerals. Numerals in Old French are decimal, continuing a long tradition in Indo-European. During the Middle Ages, vigesimals emerge in various languages in Western Europe, among them Old French. They are also attested in other Medieval Romance languages as well as Germanic and Celtic languages. They are used specifically in combination with elements that typically are counted: agricultural products, coins, measures, and so forth. From the 16th and 17th centuries vigesimals became less frequent again. Numerals like quatre-vingts in modern French therefore are residues of a much wider use (see Grammar Point 48 in Lesson 10 for references).

· Time. As pointed out in Lesson 3, the calendar of the Church determined life in the Middle Ages to a great extent. The year, for example, is organized around important Christian holidays or around important days in the liturgy of the Church. These special days are used in reference to time, cf.:

		pansez de tost venir arriere
		a tot le moins jusqu'a un an
		huit jorz aprés la Saint Johan (Yv., 2574-2576, Lesson 6)
		'at the very least within one year
		'make sure to come back in time
		'eight days after the feast of St. John'

Reference is systematic as is the structure of the Church calendar. Epiphany, for example, is set on the Twelfth Night following Christmas (i.e. on January 6); Easter is set on the first Sunday following the first full moon after March 21; Lent is set during the forty days preceding Easter; Pentecost (cf. Gk. pentekostos 'fiftieth') is celebrated on the 50th day after Easter and is preceded ten days before by Ascension.

Hour indication in Medieval texts is quite relative, and follows Roman habits. The 24-hour day itself is divided into two important parts, the daylight part and the night part, each of twelve hours. The twelve hours divide each of these segments. Consequently, the length of the individual hours varies according to season. An hour at night in summer, for example, is much shorter than an hour at day in summer or an hour at night in winter. In addition, Old French had several adverbs indicating moments of the day; several of them are related to prayer habits in monasteries, cf.:

		vespres		'early evening', 'sunset', when it gets dark
				[early evening prayers]
		complie		'evening', around 9 PM
				[prayers of thanks for the completed day]
		laudes		between 3 AM and dawn
				[laudative songs at dawn]
		matins		'early morning'
				first canonical hour, between midnight and dawn
				[first prayers in the morninng]

The hours are referred to with ordinal numbers, e.g.:

		prime		'sunrise', around 6 AM
		terce		'mid morning, around 9 AM
		midi		'midday'
		none		'nineth hour', 'mid afternoon', around 3 PM

· Distance/length. Distance and length are measured in a way not found in a metrical system: the measuring unit varies with the type of length and the object, and there is no consistent correlation between the individual units (as there is between a centiment, a decimeter, a meter, a kilometer, and so forth). The safest strategy for the student/reader is to check the individual instances of distance indication that are encountered. A few measures are relatively frequent:

		pié		'a foot', a measure used in Antiquity; approx. 30 cm.
		pouz		'a thumb', approx. 2.7 cm. (there are twelve pouz in one pié)
		lieue		'a Gallic mile', approx. 4-5 km. (roughly three sea miles)

		Granz 'XXX' liwes ... (CdR, 1756, Lesson 2)
		'a long thirty miles away'

The absolute value of these measures often varies with the region.

· Monetary system. The monetary system, which during the Middle Ages reaches isolated parts of the countryside as well, has strong local characteristics. While the official monetary system based on pounds (Fr. livres) becomes increasingly important for commercial and tax reasons, local systems continues to be used as well. The pound includes 20 shillings, each of twelve pennies, and goes back to Charlemagne's reform of the monetary system.

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