Introduction

Abstract

Old French has been the subject of scholarly research beginning with the Neogrammarians in the nineteenth century. It has been a fruitful ground, given the fact that it is so well-documented, principally from the twelfth century onwards, a solidly attested transition between Latin and Modern French. The present volume contributes to this tradition. This is the first edited volume focusing entirely on the various linguistic facets of Old French. There are several traditional grammars of Old French which are still in print (inter alia Buridant 2000; Jensen 1990; Foulet 1982; De Lage 1975; Einhorn 1975; Togeby 1974). There are also scholarly volumes that consider one grammatical aspect of Old French, such as Marchello-Nizia (1985), who traces the evolution of the adverb si ‘so’ from Old French to Modern French. Another such work is that of Pearce (1990), who discusses Old French infinitival complements from a diachronic perspective. Additional volumes which present a narrow study of one or more linguistic features of Old French include Roberts (1993) and Vance (1997); these two scholars address Old French word order, the distribution of null subjects, and the evolution thereof.