verb-complement was common in both prose and poetry, another order, that of
complement-verb-subject (+possible additional complement), was frequent, particularly
in poetry and in main clauses. Thus, the sentence Ses barons fist li rois venir means “The
king summoned his barons.” In Middle French, as use of the case system declined, word
order tended to become more fixed.
Parataxis, or the placing together of clauses or phrases without explicit coordinating or
subordinating words, was frequent in verse texts of the Old French period. In Middle
French, parataxis became rare. On the other hand, the revival of classical studies and with
it a taste for latinizing encouraged many writers of Middle French prose to imitate Latin
periodic construction.
Although over the centuries French has borrowed vocabulary from other languages,
Old French was overwhelmingly a language inherited from colloquial Latin. The Celtic
spoken originally by the Gauls contributed words to French, as vassal, cheval. Low Latin,
the written form of Latin which persisted throughout the Gallo-Roman and Old French
periods, continued to provide words. Germanic words from many semantic groups passed
into French, some in the Vulgar Latin period, others in Gallo-Roman: heaume, guise,
garnir, blanc, choisir, fournir, danser, gage, guetter are but a few examples. In the
Middle French period, the desire to latinize brought large-scale borrowing from Classical
Latin. Borrowings from Italian became more numerous, reflecting Italy’s new cultural
ascendancy.
Thelma S.Fenster
[See also: ANGLO-NORMAN LITERATURE; FRANCO-ITALIAN LITERATURE;
LITURGICAL LANGUAGES; OCCITAN LANGUAGE; STRASBOURG, OATHS OF]
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