Читать книгу An Outline of the Phonology and Morphology of Old Provençal - C. H. Grandgent - Страница 7

Table of Contents

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.

VOWELS.
SOUND.	SPELLINGS.	EXAMPLES.
ạ	a	pan
ą	a	car
ai	ai, ay	paire, cays
au	au	autre
ẹ	e	pena
ę	e	cel
ẹi	ei, ey	vei, veyre
ęi	ei, ey	seis, teysser
ẹu	eu	beure
ęu	eu	breu
ị	i, y	amic, ydola
ię	ie, e	quier, velh
ięi	iei, iey, ei	ieis, lieys, leit
ięu	ieu, eu	mieu, deus
ịu	iu	estiu
ọ (or ụ)	o, u	corre, sun
ǫ	o	cors
ọi	oi, oy	conoisser, oyre
ǫi	oi, oy	pois, poyssán
ọu	ou	dous
ǫu	ou	mou
ụ: see ọ, ü
ü (or ụ?)	u	mut
uę, üę	ue, o?	cuec, olh?
uęi, üęi	uei, uey, oi?	cueissa, pueyssas, oit?
uęu, üęu	ueu, ou?	nueu, bou?
üi	ui, uy	cuit, duy
uǫ, üǫ	uo, o	gruoc, folha
uǫi, üǫi	uoi, oi	puoi, noit
uǫu, üǫu	uou, ou	pluou, ou
CONSONANTS.
SOUND.	SPELLING.	EXAMPLES.
b	b, bb	bel, abbat
d	d	don
dz	z, c	plazer, dicén
dž	i, g, tg, gg, ti, tgi, ih	ioc, gen, paratge, viagge, coratie, lotgiar, puihar
ð	d	veder
f	f, ph	fer, phizica
g	g, gu	gras, guan, guerra
h (Gascon)	h, f?	ham, fe?[6]
k	c, qu, k, g	cais, quar, quer, ki, longs[7]
l	l, ll	leu, belleza
l´	lh, ill, ilh, ll, l, il, yl, yll, li	fuelha, meillor, failha, vellar, viel, voil, fiyl, fayllentia, filia
m	m, mm	mes, commanda
n	n, nn	nas, annat
n´	nh, gn, inh, ign, ing, innh, ingn, ngn, nn, n, in, ng, ynh, ni, ny, nyh	cenher, plagner, poinh, seignor, soing, poinnher, fraingner, ongnimen, vinna, franén, soin, sengor, poynh, lenia, senyoria, senyhor
ŋ	n	lonc
p	p, pp, b	prop, opparer, obs[8]
r	r	rire
r´	r	cuer
rr	rr	terra [9]
s	s, ss, c, ç, x	sap, fassa, cenat, ça, locx
š	ss, s, sh, h, hs	faissa, cais, pueysh, Foih, faihs
t	t, tt, d	tot, attenir, nud[8]
ts	c, z, tz, ç, gz, cz, ti	cel, faz, parlatz, ço, fagz, czo, fayllentia[10]
tš	ch, g, ich, ig, h, gz	chan, plag, ueich, faig, lah, gaugz[11]
v	u (printed v)	ven
y	i, y	gabia, preyar
z	s, z, ç	pausa, roza, riçia (＜ ridēbat)
ž	s, z, i	raso, poizo, maio

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:—