Studies in the Syntax of Central Languedocian (Occitan, Dialectology; France).

Abstract

Little recent work has been done on the syntax of the Occitan language. Of the earlier studies published, most are based on nineteenth-century written texts, and descriptions of the syntax drawn from them are more a mirror of French syntax than that of Occitan. Thus the question of the specificity of Occitan syntax arose. The present thesis responds to the dearth of detailed dialectal studies in Occitan syntax based entirely on oral sources. Such studies are needed to demonstrate the specificity of Occitan syntax as compared to French, and they can also be used to test the syntactic intercomprehensibility among Occitan dialects. Studies in the syntax of Central Languedocian is based entirely on fieldwork done by the author in 1981. This thesis is not intended as a grammar of Central Languedocian or even as a complete syntax. Rather, it offers a discussion of those syntactic features in one Occitan dialect which differ from the equivalent ones in French and in other dialects of Occitan Since Occitan is chiefly a spoken language, its syntax has been spared many of the rigid formulae prescribed by grammarians for the written use of language, formulae which usually lead to a loss of meaning in fixed and semantically empty structures. This study shows that speakers of Central Languedocian retain considerable freedom of syntactic expression: the manner in which they wish to represent reality usually takes precedence over formal rules of grammar. Syntactic freedom of expression is most evident in the usage of verbal mood, tense, and aspect; hence the longest chapter deals with verbals. Other areas of syntactic distinctiveness from st and ard French are included in chapters on nominals (discussion primarily of agreement in the nominal phrase and of the use of pronouns), negation, and subordination and coordination. Besides the purely linguistic description of the salient syntactic features of Central Languedocian, the study also contains a brief discussion of the sociolinguistic factors involved in the condition and description of a language in a diglossic situation. Nine maps are included.