Initial subordinate clauses in Old French: Syntactic variation and the clausal left periphery

This paper examines word order variation and change in Old French, in which subordinate clauses that immediately precede a main declarative can occur in at least two distinct syntactic positions with respect to the main clause. Data from a corpus of Old French texts from the 10th until the early 14th centuries show that most initial subordinates are situated outside the main clause proper, although some examples occur in the first position of the main clause. Adopting a richly articulated clausal left periphery (Benincà, 2006), the SceneSetting projection of FrameP is proposed as the default syntactic position for extra-clausal initial subordinates. Although Old French is considered a verb-second language, initial subordinates often yield sequences in which the finite verb of the main clause appears in third or higher position. Following Labelle (2007) and others, I argue that a complex left periphery accounts for descriptively non-V2 word orders, while upholding a V2 analysis for Old French. Finally, following Vance et al. (2010), who examined the role of initial subordinates in the loss of V2 in Old French, I show that for most of the Old French period, the grammar of main declaratives that follow initial subordinates is characteristically V2. Only over the course of the 13th century does the subject–verb order become dominant.

► I analyze the position of initial subordinate clauses in Old French.
► Initial subordinates usually occur in the left periphery of the declarative.
► An articulated left periphery explains V3 orders in the Old French V2 grammar.