TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE: There are many diacritical marks in this book. Some devices and browsers may not render these correctly.

Heath’s Modern Language Series

AN OUTLINE
OF THE
PHONOLOGY AND MORPHOLOGY
OF
OLD PROVENÇAL

BY
C. H. GRANDGENT
Professor of Romance Languages in Harvard University

Revised Edition

BOSTON, U. S. A.
D. C. HEATH & CO., PUBLISHERS
1909

Copyright, 1905,
BY D. C. Heath & Co.

PREFACE.

This book, which is intended as a guide to students of Romance Philology, represents the result of desultory labors extending through a period of twenty years. My first introduction to the scientific pursuit of Provençal linguistics was a course given by Paul Meyer at the École des Chartes in the winter of 1884-85. Since then I have been collecting material both from my own examination of texts and from the works of those philologists who have dealt with the subject. Besides the large Grammars of the Romance Languages by Diez and by Meyer-Lübke, I have utilized H. Suchier’s Die französische und provenzalische Sprache (in Gröber’s Grundriss der romanischen Philologie, I, 561), the Introduzione grammaticale in V. Crescini’s Manualetto provenzale, the Abriss der Formenlehre in C. Appel’s Provenzalische Chrestomathie, and many special treatises to which reference will be made in the appropriate places. Conscious of many imperfections in my work, I shall be grateful for corrections.

I have confined myself to the old literary language, believing that to be of the greatest importance to a student of Romance Philology or of Comparative Literature, and fearing lest an enumeration of modern forms, in addition to the ancient, might prove too bewildering. I should add that neither my own knowledge nor the material at my disposal is adequate to a satisfactory presentation of the living idioms of southern France. These dialects have, however, been investigated for the light they throw on the geographical distribution of phonetic variations; my chief source of information has been F. Mistral’s monumental Dictionnaire provençal-français. Catalan and Franco-Provençal have been considered only incidentally. I have not dealt with word-formation, because one of my students is preparing a treatise on that subject.

Readers desiring a brief description of Provençal literature are referred to H. Suchier and A. Birch-Hirschfeld, Geschichte der französischen Literatur, pp. 56-96; A. Stimming, in Gröber’s Grundriss der romanischen Philologie, II, ii, pp. 1-69; and A. Restori, Letteratura provenzale. For a more extended account of the poets they should consult Die Poesie der Troubadours and the Leben und Werke der Troubadours by F. Diez; and The Troubadours at Home by J. H. Smith. The poetic ideals are discussed by G. Paris in Romania, XII, pp. 516-34; and with great fulness by L. F. Mott in The System of Courtly Love. The beginnings of the literature are treated by A. Jeanroy in his Origines de la poésie lyrique en France au moyen âge, reviewed by G. Paris in a series of important articles in the Journal des Savants (November and December, 1891, and March and July, 1892) reprinted separately in 1892 under the same title as Jeanroy’s book. Contributions by A. Restori to several volumes of the Rivista musicale italiana deal with Provençal music; some tunes in modern notation are to be found in J. H. Smith’s Troubadours at Home, and in the Archiv für das Studium der neueren Sprachen, CX (New Series X), 110 (E. Bohn).[1] Aside from the editions of individual poets, the best collections of verses are those of C. Appel, Provenzalische Chrestomathie; V. Crescini, Manualetto provenzale; and K. Bartsch, Chrestomathie provençale. Earlier and larger anthologies are M. Raynouard’s Choix des poésies originales des troubadours, and C. A. F. Mahn’s Werke der Troubadours and Gedichte der Troubadours. The only dictionary of importance for the old language is the Lexique roman (six volumes) of M. Raynouard, augmented by the Supplement-Wörterbuch of E. Levy (now appearing in instalments). The poetic language of the present day can be studied to advantage in E. Koschwitz’s Grammaire historique de la langue des Félibres.

C. H. GRANDGENT.

Cambridge, Mass., November, 1904.

ABBREVIATIONS AND TECHNICAL TERMS.

• Abl.: ablative.
• Acc.: accusative.
• Cl.L.: Classic Latin.
• Cond.: conditional.
• Cons.: consonant.
• Einf.: W. Meyer-Lübke, Einführung in das Studium der romanischen Sprachwissenschaft, 1901.
• F.: feminine.
• Fr.: French.
• Free (of vowels): not in position.
• Fut.: future.
• Gram.: W. Meyer-Lübke, Grammaire des langues romanes, 3 vols., 1890-1900.
• Grundriss: G. Gröber, Grundriss der romanischen Philologie, 2 vols., 1888-1902.
• Imp.: imperfect.
• Imper.: imperative.
• Intertonic (of vowels): following the secondary and preceding the primary accent.
• Intervocalic (of consonants): standing between two vowels.
• It.: Italian.
• Körting: G. Körting, Lateinisch-romanisches Wörterbuch, 2d ed., 1901.
• Lat.: Latin.
• Levy: E. Levy, Provenzalisches Supplement-Wörterbuch, 1894-.
• Ltblt.: Literaturblatt für germanische und romanische Philologie, monthly, Leipzig.
• M.: masculine.
• Nom.: nominative.
• Obj.: objective (case).
• Part.: participle.
• Perf.: perfect.
• Pers.: person.
• Phon.: P. Marchot, Petite phonétique du français prélittéraire, 1901.
• Pl.: plural.
• Pr.: Provençal.
• Pres.: present.
• Pret.: preterit.
• Raynouard: M. Raynouard, Lexique roman, 6 vols., 1836-44.
• Rom.: Romania, quarterly, Paris.
• Sg.: singular.
• V.L.: Vulgar Latin.
• Voc.: H. Schuchardt, Vocalismus des Vulgärlateins, 3 vols., 1866-68.
• Voiced (of consonants): sonant, pronounced with vibration of the glottis.
• Voiceless (of consonants): surd, pronounced without glottal vibration.
• Vow.: vowel.
• Zs.: Zeitschrift für romanische Philologie, 4 to 6 nos. a year, Halle.

SIGNS AND PHONETIC SYMBOLS.

N. B.—Phonetic characters not entered in this list are to be pronounced as in Italian. Whenever it is essential to distinguish spelling from pronunciation, italic type is used for the former, Roman for the latter.

• · (under a vowel): close quality.
• ¸ (under a vowel): open quality.
• ¯ (over a vowel): long quantity.
• ̆ (over a vowel): short quantity.
• ̑ (under a letter): semivowel, not syllabic.
• ´ (over a letter): stress.
• ´ (after a consonant): palatal pronunciation.
• ✱ (before a word): conjectural, not found.
• ＞ (between words or letters): derivation, the source standing at the open end.
• +: followed by.
• ạ: French â in pâte.
• ą: French a in patte.
• β: bilabial v, as in Spanish.
• c: see k.
• c´: palatal k, as in English key.
• ð: English th in this.
• ẹ: French é in thé.
• ę: French ê in fête.
• g: English g in go.
• g´: palatal g, as in English geese.
• h: English h in hat.
• ị: French i in si.
• į: English ĭ in pit.
• k: English k in maker.
• k´: see c´.
• l´: palatal l, as in Italian figlio.
• n´: palatal n, as in Italian ogni.
• ŋ: English ng in sing.
• ọ: German ō, as in sohn.
• ǫ: German ŏ, as in sonne.
• r´: palatal r.
• š: English sh in ship.
• þ: English th in thin.
• ụ: German ū, as in gut.
• ų: German ŭ, as in butter.
• ü: French u in pur.
• w: English w in woo.
• χ: German ch in ach.
• y: English y in ye.
• z: English z in crazy.
• ž: French j in jour.

TABLE OF CONTENTS.

AN OUTLINE OF THE PHONOLOGY AND MORPHOLOGY OF OLD PROVENÇAL.

I. INTRODUCTION.

1. The language here studied is, in the main, that used by the poets of Southern France during the 12th and 13th centuries. The few works that we have earlier than the 12th century must, of course, be utilized for such information as they afford concerning the process of linguistic change; and lacking words or forms must occasionally be sought in writings later than the 13th. Prose literature, moreover, should not be neglected, as it greatly enlarges our vocabulary and throws much light on local divergences. The modern dialects need be cited only to determine the geographical distribution of variations.

2. The extent of the Provençal territory is sufficiently indicated by the map on p. viii. The upper black line separates Provençal on the northwest and north from French, on the northeast from Franco-Provençal; on the east are the Gallo-Italic dialects. The lower black line divides Provençal on the southwest from Basque, on the south from Spanish, on the southeast from Catalan. The boundary line between French and Provençal must be determined somewhat arbitrarily, as there is no distinct natural division; the several linguistic characteristics of each idiom do not end at the same point, and thus one language gradually shades into the other. The line shown on the map is based on the development of free accented Latin a, which remains a in Provençal, but is changed to e in French. The limits of other phonetic phenomena may be found in Suchier’s maps at the back of Vol. I of Gröber’s Grundriss. There may be seen also a large map showing the place of Provençal among the Romance languages. Consult, furthermore, P. Meyer in Romania, XXIV, 529.

3. The Spanish and Gallo-Italic frontiers are more clearly defined, and Basque is entirely distinct. Franco-Provençal and Catalan, on the other hand, are closely related to Provençal and not always easy to divide from it. Catalan, in fact, is often classed as a Provençal dialect; but it is sufficiently different to be studied separately.[2] Franco-Provençal, rated by some philologists as an independent language, has certain characteristics of Provençal and certain features of French, but more of the latter; in some respects it is at variance with both. The Gascon, or southwest, dialects of Provençal differ in many ways from any of the others and present not a few similarities to Spanish[3]; they will, however, be included in our study.

4. The Provençal domain embraces, then, the following old provinces: Provence, Languedoc, Foix, part of Béarn, Gascony, Guyenne, Limousin, most of Marche, Auvergne, the southwestern half of Lyonnais and the southern half of Dauphiné. The native speech in this region varies considerably from place to place, and the local dialects are, for convenience, roughly grouped under the names of the provinces; it should be remembered, however, that the political and the linguistic boundaries rarely coincide. For some of the principal dialect differences, see §§ 8 and 10-13.

5. The language of the poets was sometimes called lemosí; and, in fact, the foundation of their literary idiom is the speech of the province of Limousin and the adjacent territory on the north, west, and southwest.[4] The supremacy of this dialect group is apparently due to the fact that it was generally used for composition earlier than any of the others: popular song, in all probability, had its home in the borderland of Marche[5]; religious literature in the vulgar tongue developed in the monasteries of this region; the artistic lyric was cultivated, we know, at the court of Ventadour, and it must have found favor at others. Furthermore, many of the leading troubadours belonged by birth or residence to the Limousin district.

6. The troubadours’ verses, as we have them, seldom represent any one dialect in its purity. The poet himself was doubtless influenced both by literary tradition and by his particular local usage, as well as by considerations of rhyme and metre. Moreover, his work, before reaching us, passed through the hands of various intermediaries, who left upon it traces of their own pronunciation. It should be said, also, that the Limousin was not a single dialect, but a group of more or less divergent types of speech. For these reasons we must not expect to find in Provençal a uniform linguistic standard.

7. Neither was there a generally accepted system of orthography. When the vulgar tongue was first written, the Roman letters were used with approximately the same values that they had in Latin, as it was then pronounced. As the Provençal sounds changed, there was a conflict between the spellings first established and new notations based on contemporary speech. Furthermore, many Provençal vowels and consonants had no equivalents in Latin; for these we find a great variety of representations. The signs are very often ambiguous: for instance, c before e or i (as in cen, cinc) generally stands in the first texts for ts, in the more recent ones for s, the pronunciation having changed; z between vowels in early times usually means dz (plazer), but later z (roza); i between vowels (maiór) indicates either y or dž (English j), according to the dialect; a g may signify “hard” g (gerra), dž (“soft” g: ges), or tš (English ch: mieg). It is probable that for a couple of centuries diphthongs were oftenest written as simple vowels.

8. Some features of the mediæval pronunciation are still obscure. The close ọ was transformed, either during or soon after the literary epoch, into ụ (the sound of French ou); hence, when we meet in a late text such a word as flor, we cannot be certain whether it is to be sounded flọr or flụr. We do not know at what time Latin ū in southern France took the sound ü (French u): some suppose that it was during or shortly before the literary period; if this be true, the letter u (as in tu, mur) may represent in some texts ụ, in others ü. In diphthongs and triphthongs whose first element is written u (cuer, fuolha, nueu, buou), this letter came to be pronounced in most of the dialects like French u in huit, while in others it retained the sound of French ou in oui; we cannot tell exactly when or where, in ancient times, this development occurred. In the diphthongs ue, uo (luec, fuoc), opinions disagree as to which vowel originally bore the stress; subsequent changes seem to indicate that in the 12th and 13th centuries the practice varied in the different dialects. Old Provençal must have had in some words a peculiar type of r, which was sufficiently palatal in its articulation to call for an i-glide before it (esclairar); we do not know precisely how it was formed; in most regions it probably was assimilated to the more usual r as early as the 12th century. The š and ž (palatal s and z) apparently ranged, in the several dialects, between the sounds of French ch and j on the one hand, and those of German ch (in ich) and j (in ja) on the other; the former types were largely assimilated, doubtless by the 13th century, to s and z (pois, maisó), the latter were not (poih, maió).

9. The following table comprises the Old Provençal sounds with their usual spellings, the latter being arranged, as nearly as may be, in the order of their frequency. Diphthongs and triphthongs are included in the vowel list, compound consonants in the consonant table. For an explanation of the phonetic symbols, see p. vii. The variant pronunciations are discussed in § 8.

10. The Gascon group presents certain striking divergences from the other dialects: (1) it shows a b corresponding to Provençal v, as in be = ve ＜ vĕnit, abetz = avetz ＜ habētis; (2) it substitutes r for l between vowels, as in bera = bela ＜ bĕlla; (3) it changes initial f to h, as in he = fe ＜ fĭdem. Other Gascon peculiarities are less ancient, less general, or less important.

11. Some distinctions may be pointed out between the speech of the north and that of the south:—

12. Several Latin consonants, when combined with a following ḙ or i̭, give results that are widely different in various localities, but the geographical distribution of the respective forms is complicated and not always clear: pŏdium ＞ puech poi; basiare ＞ baisar basar baiiar baiar; bassiare ＞ baissar baichar bachar; potiōnem ＞ poizon pozon poio. The same thing may be said of intervocalic y (Latin j): major ＞ mager maier. Also of intervocalic c, sc, g, ŋg, followed by e or i: placēre ＞ plazer plaizer plager, nascere ＞ naisser nasser naicher nacher, lēgem ＞ lei leg, ŭngere ＞ onher onger.

13. In the development of unstressed vowels there are very numerous local variations, which will be discussed later. Even among accented vowels there are some divergences:—

II. PHONOLOGY.

14. Inasmuch as Provençal, like the other Romance languages, grew out of the Latin commonly spoken under the Roman Empire, we must take this latter language as our starting-point. The transformation was so gradual and continuous that we cannot assign any date at which speech ceases to be Latin and begins to be Provençal; since, however, the various Latin dialects—destined to become later the various Romance languages—began to diverge widely in the 6th and 7th centuries, we may, for the sake of convenience, say that the Latin period ends at about this time. Before this, certain changes (which affected all the Romance tongues) had occurred in the popular language, differentiating it considerably from the classic Latin of the Augustan writers. Although the most important of these alterations have to do with inflections rather than with pronunciation, the sound-changes in Vulgar Latin are by no means insignificant.

15. It is essential at the outset to distinguish “popular” from “learned” words. The former, having always been a part of the spoken vocabulary, have been subject to the operation of all the phonetic laws that have governed the development of the language. The latter class, consisting of words borrowed by clerks, at various periods, from Latin books and from the Latin of the Church, is naturally exempt from sound-changes that occurred in the vulgar tongue before the time of their adoption. The form of learned words depends, in the first place, on the clerical pronunciation of Latin at the date of their borrowing; then, if they came into general use, their form was subject to the influence of any phonetic laws that were subsequently in force. The fate of borrowed terms differs, therefore, according to the time of their introduction and the degree of popularity which they afterwards attained.

1. ACCENT.

16. The place of the primary accent, which in Classic Latin was determined by quantity, remained unchanged in Vulgar Latin even after quantitative distinctions were lost. A short vowel before a mute followed by a liquid may, in Classic Latin, be stressed or unstressed; in Vulgar Latin it is usually stressed: cathédra, tenébræ.[14]

There are some exceptions to the rule of the persistence of the accent in Vulgar Latin:—