Abstract. The aim of the article is to describe the system of pronouns in the linguistic concept of Abel Matthieu (1520? - 1572?), a French humanist, legal adviser and author of the treatise "Devis de la langue francoyse" (1559, 1560, 1572). Using the methodology of the “system-norm-usage” complex study by E.N. Mikhailova (2000), we determine how A. Matthieu represents the status, boundaries, nomenclature and functions of the French pronoun, and to what extent his representation differs from the postulates of the Greek-Latin canon. It is found that the pronoun system in the author’s concept is reflected incompletely, and its grammatical paradigm is mobile and significantly blurred. On the one hand, this fragmentation of the pronoun description can be explained by the unfinished process of its system formation during the Renaissance period. On the other hand, it can be caused by the fact that A. Matthieu deprives the pronoun of the independent part of speech status. Finally, we establish a connection between the fragmental reflexion of the pronoun system in A. Matthieu’s linguistic concept and the author’s usual approach to the grammatical description.

Keywords: French Renaissance linguistic tradition; greco-latin canon of grammatical description; Abel Matthieu; pronoun; usage

How to cite:Sirotenko A.D. (2019). Pronoun in Abel Matthieu’s linguistic concept(1520? - 1572?). Research Result. Theoretical and Applied Linguistics, 5 (2), , DOI:

Introduction

Historical and linguistic studies of recent years indicate a significantly increased attention to the study of so-called «turning points» in the history of European linguistics, when one scientific paradigm was replaced by another. The most important of these periods, of course, is the Renaissance. Modern scholars call the process of mass grammatization of national languages ​​as the main phenomenon of the Renaissance knowledge of language, and the emergence of qualitatively new approaches to describing vernaculars as its main achievement (Auroux, 1992; Stepanova, 2000; Mikhailova, 2000; Raevskaya, 2006; Kosarik, 2013).

Of all the national linguistic traditions, whose development falls on the Renaissance, the French national tradition is of particular interest. First, the corpus of French grammars published during the 16th century is one of the most extensive. According to the most well-known bibliographic reviews, it has more than three hundred names (Steingel, 1890; Chevalier, 1968; Colombat, 2011). Secondly, French Renaissance grammars in the best way demonstrate how the new object of grammatical description for the European tradition was interpreted based on the Greek-Latin canon.

As is known, the Renaissance descriptions of national languages, including French, relied on a long previous tradition, both ancient and medieval. The grammars of Donat (IV cent.) and Pristian (beginning of VI cent.), representing the Late Antique canon, enjoyed the greatest prestige. Methodological difficulties of developing their own model of grammatical descriptions prompted many humanists to produce on their basis a direct transfer of the Latin model, including the principles of word division into parts of speech and other categories (Amirova, 2005: 103; Raevskaya, 2006: 29; Kosarik, 2013: 8).

However, in the systematization process of the native language facts, the authors of the first French grammars were faced with the fact that it was not always possible to mechanically assign the provisions of the ancient canon to it. In particular, this concerned those grammatical phenomena that were absent in the traditional scheme of ancient grammars or continued to actively develop, not fitting into the framework of this scheme. Similar inconsistencies between the realities of French usage and the Greek-Latin canon led some humanists to the path of developing other principles of grammatical description, which were based on the usual aspect, not the systemic one.

One of the clearest examples of how the postulates of the Late Antique canon were revised in relation to the French language is the class of pronouns. The main difficulties in its description were dictated by several reasons. First, the very nature of a pronoun, the characteristic features of which are the blurring of boundaries within its lexico-semantic categories, as well as the diversity of meanings and syntactic functions. Secondly, as noted by J. Picoche and C. Marchello-Nizia, to the beginning of the XVIth century the system of the French pronoun found much more complexity and specificity of the organization than the Latin pronoun system (Picoche, Marchello-Nizia, 1998: 225). Finally, the paradigm of the French pronoun, however, like most other classes of words, continued to be then in the evolutionary stage.

The complexity of the structure and the incompleteness of the formation process of the French pronoun by the time the first grammars were published led to the development of truly original solutions to the problem of this class of words. One of these decisions belongs to Abel Matthieu, French humanist, author of three editions of the treatise “Devis de la langue francoyse” (1559, 1560, 1572). The treatise received the reflection of the entire spectrum relevant to the XVI century linguistic problems, such as the origin of the native language, ways of its enrichment, as well as questions of spelling, translation and poetics. Actually, grammatical reasoning A.  Matthieu made up the main content of the second book “Devis” (1560), which will become the object of our attention.

Let us consider how the problem of the French pronoun is solved within the framework of the linguistic concept of A. Matthieu. At the same time, we will focus on the degree of influence of the Greek-Latin canon on the principle of describing a pronoun, how its status, nomenclature, functions, and also its place in the system of grammatical description are determined.

Research Results and Discussion

According to the canon, the first place in the grammatical description of any part of speech is assigned to its definition. At the same time, it should include two mandatory elements: a general definition of the status of the class of words in question and its meaning (Lenoble, Swiggers, Wouters, 1999: 4]. Without departing from the tradition, A. Matthieu begins the description of the French pronoun also with the definition. He's writing: «… [il existe] un autre indice qui [se met] au lieu et fait service aux noms et termes de masle ou femme» (Matthieu, 1560: 17). As we can see, the definition of the pronoun by the author is obviously ostensive in nature and is less formal and detailed than the authors of the most famous French grammars of the XVIth century, often including additional information in it, such as a list of grammatical categories or missing values ​​(L. Megret, R. Estienne, J. Garnier). However, in general, it does not go beyond the late antique canon. Like Donat and Pristian, A. Matthieu characterizes the pronoun through its replacement function.

To a much lesser degree, the author of “Devis” follows the canonical model of the Latin grammar with regard to the list and composition of parts of speech. In this, the main source of his thoughts is not Donat, but the third treatise book of the famous Italian humanist Pietro Bembo “Prose della volgar lingua” (1525). According to A.  Jacquetin-Gaudet, the third book of “Prose” is a complete prototype of the second edition of “Devis” (1560), as indicated by the identity of their structure and subject matter (Jacquetin-Gaudet, 2010: 29). Like P. Bembo, A. Matthieu does not focus his attention on the principles of classification of parts of speech and does not give them a fixed nomenclature. Nevertheless, the textological analysis of the second “Devis” reveals that he does not single out the pronoun into an independent element of the cross-sectional system, and, based on the similarity of official functions, places it together with the article into a class of “signs” (indices).

The French pronoun system in the concept of A. Matthieu is far from complete. Of the six lexical-semantic groups in its composition, represented by personal, relative, possessive, indicative, interrogative and indefinite pronouns, the author focuses his attention only on the first two. Such selectivity in relation to the facts of linguistic reality does not mean that the author of “Devis” does not distinguish all types of pronouns. Unlike the majority of the Renaissance descriptions of the French language, presented in the form of explanatory grammars, the A.  Matthieu treatise is written in the genre of “discourse on language”, allowing for a more free flow of material. In addition, the very name of the treatise – “Devis” (from the French “deviser” = to talk) – involuntarily suggests that a real small talk could form the basis of its writing. This idea was first reflected in the work of A. Jacquetin-Gaudet (Jacquetin-Gaudet, 2010). Thus, taking into account the genre features of the composition, it can be assumed that A. Mathieu intentionally avoids a detailed description of the pronominal class of words and concentrates only on those elements which, in his opinion, are the most significant or have some particular features in use.

Thus, the most detailed statement in his linguistic concept A. Matthieu dedicates personal pronouns, the frequency of which in the XVIth century increased significantly. As historians of the language point out, the generalization of the reflection of personal, especially subject, pronouns in speech was associated, on the one hand, with the neutralization or complete disappearance of the verbal inflections indicating a particular person. On the other hand, it was connected with the establishment of a new syntactic order “subject-verbe-object”, which implied the obligatory presence of the subject. In addition, the omission of a personal pronoun was censured by the majority of poets and grammatists who actively advocated its use (Fragonard, 1994: 72; Picoche, 1994: 228; Huchon, 2002: 162). In his treatise A. Matthieu does not express an open call for the use of personal subject pronouns. Nevertheless, he notes their regular presence before the verb: “Les faictz et actions sont guidees par Icelles [verbes] <…> (Matthieu, 1560: 18).

The analysis of a personal subject pronoun in the treatise fully demonstrates the primacy of the usage in the linguistic concept of A. Matthieu. As is known, the Greek-Latin grammatical canon assumed the study of parts of speech according to the following scheme: definition system (list of grammatical categories) – norm (inflection and / or derivation rules) – usage (examples for reducible rules and usage patterns in speech). Based on this, in the absolute majority of French grammars, analysis of both personal and other types of pronouns took place within the section devoted to this class of words. On the other hand, as V.G Hack writes, from the point of view of syntax, personal pronouns are a constant element of the synonym “pronoun-verb” (Hack, 2000: 132). The fact that A. Mathieu describes these units in the section on the verb shows that in its concept, when explaining grammatical facts, it goes not from system to usage, but, conversely, from usage to system.

As the main grammatical categories of the personal subject pronoun A. Mathieu gives the categories of person and number. Thus, in his opinion, French personal pronouns have three persons and, like nouns, two numbers (singular and plural). For visual illustration, it uses the following vertical scheme:

Nombre unique nombre de beaucoup

Le premier ie nous

Le second tu vous

Le troysiesme il ilz

(Matthieu, 1560: 18).

The personal object pronoun has been highly controversial in the treatise. Not only A. Matthieu mentions the form of a third person of all his forms, moreover he takes it for the form of a French definite article. It should be emphasized that such a mixture of forms was quite common in the pages of the first French grammars. According to historians of the language, it is based on the common origin of the forms of the French personal pronoun and the definite article from the Latin indicative pronoun ille (Picoche, 1994: 223; Perret, 2008: 130). So, A. Mathieu argues that the article determining the noun can be placed after it: “fuys l’ignorance qui est meschante / ignorance est meschante, fuys la” (Matthieu, 1560: 17).

A reliance on the usage did not allow A. Mathieu to pass over personal percussion pronouns, the use of which in the 16th century began to be of a rather frequency nature due to the restriction of the possibility of personal subject pronouns in the independent syntactic function (Nyrop, 1925: 220; Katagoshchina, 1976: 302]. The paradigm of these units in the treatise is as follows:

moy ---- toy ---- luy ---- nous ---- vous ---- eulx

(Matthieu, 1560 : 32).

Explaining what their purpose is, the author of “Devis” writes: «<…> les indices de personnes peuvent acceder aux nerfs quand par effect on veult declarer sa parolle, mesmement par affection» (Matthieu, 1560: 32). For illustration, A.  Matthieu quotes the following phrases: “je le veulx moy, tu las faict toy, il dict luy” (Matthieu, 1560: 32). What sways other instances of the use of personal pronoun pronouns, which, according to C. Marchello-Nizia, existed in the middle French, eight, A. Matthieu is silent about them (Marchello-Nizia, 1999: 95).

The fragmentation of the grammatical presentation in the concept of A.  Matthieu is also manifested in relation to the category of relative pronouns, the study of which occurs separately from the personal pronouns within the nominal class of words. Of all the author’s forms, “Devis”, they are interested only in the qui and lequel forms, the fashion for which they are used in writing in the 16th century acquired a mass character (Picoche, 1994: 246; Fragonard, 1994: 99; Huchon, 2002: 164]. So, according to A. Mathieu, these language units are interchangeable doublets, as they can refer to the same type of noun. The only difference is that the pronoun qui, unlike lequel, does not change in faces and numbers, regardless of which word is its antecedent. As an example, he gives the following phrases: "les Roys vertueux qui ayment justice / la femme de bien qui est chaste" (Matthieu, 1560: 17). Despite the fact that this example to the rule is unique, it is more than illustrative due to the principle of opposition used by A. Matthieu.

Conclusions

Thus, as a result of this analysis focused on the description principles of pronoun in the second edition of A. Matthieu “Devis de la langue francoyse” (1560), we found that the author mostly does not deviate from the postulates of the Greek-Latin canon in defining its nature and functions. However, in terms of the status, boundaries, and nomenclature of this class of words, his views differ in many respects both with late-antique authors, and with many authors of French grammars of the XVI century. The peculiarity of the interpretation of the pronoun in the linguistic concept of A. Matthieu consists, first, in refusing to endow it with the status of an independent part of speech and, as a result, dispersing its description on the pages of the treatise. Secondly, its peculiarity consists in the fuzziness and mobility of the grammatical paradigm of the French pronoun, indicating the incompleteness of the process of forming this class of words in the era under consideration. Finally, reliance on the pattern, as well as the genre identity of “Devis,” explains the conciseness and selectivity of A. Matthieu approach to the description of the pronominal class of words.