Contrastive grammar in the Renaissance

This paper focuses on how Jean Pillot, author of the most popular French grammar of the sixteenth century in terms of editions, took efforts to contrast his native language with Greek. His Gallicæ linguæ institutio (1550/1561), although written in Latin, contains numerous passages where Pillot subtly confronted French with Greek, surveyed in Section 2, in order to give his audience of educated German speakers a clearer view of the idiosyncrasies of French. In Section 3, I analyze why he preferred Greek to the other languages he knew in quite a number of cases, arguing that this subtle contrastive endeavor bore an indirect pedagogical and ideological load. Section 4 discusses the terminological means Pillot used to confront Greek with French, and their origins. In Section 5, I frame Pillot’s appropriation of Greek grammar in the long history of contrastive language studies, with special reference to the pivotal role of sixteenth-century linguistic analysis.

GRAMMATICAL TRANSFORMATIONS OF THE FRENCH LANGUAGE UNDER THE INFLUENCE OF THE IDEOLOGY OF ABSOLUTISM

The article is devoted to the study of the development of the grammatical system of the French language in the XVII century, during the golden age of the absolute monarchy. The analysis of the influence of the socio-political system on the changes in the French grammar of that time is carried out. In this century of authoritarian and centralized state organization, it was the grammars who shaped the language to their mind. The reign of Louis XIV created more than a hundred professional grammatical censors, thanks to whom the French language survived the era of "distinction" and consolidation. It is noted that participants of salons and court linguists such as Malherbe, Vaugelas, Chifflet, Maupas, Arnauld and Lancelot and others were engaged in organizing the French language. Each grammarian offers his own vision of the motives that must precede the adoption of a rule. It was found that in the era that is considered classic, two tendencies of grammatical transformations coexisted: the development of correct practical grammar, which contributed to the development of the social elite, and the development of analytical grammar, which drew its material from philosophy and logic. Grammarians mostly pursue the idea of perfect grammar with uniform and absolute rules.

The Finnish exclusive-negative construction ei…ku(i)n in the network of exclusion expressions

This paper shows that Finnish has the option of expressing ‘only’-like exclusive meaning with a clausal construction, here called the Exclusive-Negative Construction, ENC. It is similar to the better-known French ne…que construction but differs from it at many points where Finnish and French grammar differ, especially in the way negation is expressed in the two languages. The Finnish ENC contains overt negation, which accounts for its somewhat narrower distribution than the alternative option, the use of the focus particle vain/vaan ‘only’. Adopting the Construction Grammar framework, the paper argues that the ENC is a simple clausal construction with the idiosyncrasy of mixed polarity, a formal division of the clause into a negative and affirmative part. Derivation from an underlying comparative is rejected, but it is shown that the ENC has associations to more explicit ways of expressing exclusion. These conclusions receive support from dialectal and other non-standard data. Kokkuvõte. Maria Vilkuna: Soome keele välistav-eitav konstruktsioon ei...ku(i)n välistust väljendavate keeleliste vahendite võrgustikus. Artiklis näidatakse, et soome keeles võib väljendada välistavat tähendust (nagu ainult) lausekonstruktsiooniga, mida artiklis nimetatakse välistavaks-eitavaks konstruktsiooniks (the Exclusive-Negative Construction, ENC). See sarnaneb prantsuse keele konstruktsiooniga ne...que, ent erineb sellest mitmes aspektis, kus soome ja prantsuse keel üldiseltki erinevad, eriti mis puudutab eituse väljendamise viise kahes keeles. Soome konstruktsioon sisaldab eksplitsiitset eitust, mis seletab seda, miks konstruktsiooni kasutusala on mõnevõrra kitsam kui selle alternatiivil, fookuspartiklil vain/vaan ‘ainult’. Kasutades konstruktsioonigrammatika raamistikku, näidatakse artiklis, et ENC on lausekonstruktsioon, mille eripäraks on kahetine polaarsus: konstruktsioon jaotub vormiliselt eitavaks ja jaatavaks osaks. Väidetakse, et konstruktsioon ei ole tuletatud komparatiivikonstruktsioonist, kuid on seotud eksplitsiitsemalt välistust väljendavate vahenditega. Neid järeldusi toetavad murrete ja muu mittestandardse keelekasutuse andmed.

Coercing the Delta. The French Grammar of Control in the African Landscape of Colonial Louisiana, 1699-1732

The long-term transformation of the Louisiana delta beginning in 1699 has been primarily understood as a French colonial struggle for the control of nature. Yet, in order for French colonisers to control nature, they first sought to control enslaved Africans. While slave coercion was a daily problem for French inhabitants, documentation of the 'routinized violence' of chattel slavery is predictably absent in records of the built environment. As a result, the building of colonial New Orleans, beginning in 1718, has become a story of French design, not of enslaved African labour. This paper examines the accounts and correspondence of French colonisers who veiled their own dependence on indigenous, indentured and enslaved people by adopting a performative language of mastery as they projected or described labour projects essential to the 'control of nature'. What colonisers could not master in person they performed on paper via pronouns, tenses, constructions and the passive voice. The 'French' Louisiana delta is better understood as an African-built landscape reinscribed on Indigenous territory under French coercion.

The first Russian educational books on the French language, printed word and oral instruction

Данная статья посвящена анализу первых учебных книг, заложивших основу для дальнейшего развития учебного книгоиздания по вопросам изучения французского языка в России. Проанализированы наиболее известные первые учебники по французскому языку: «Новая францусская грамматика…» В.Е. Теплова, «Французская азбука» А. де Лави, «Наставление как по-французски…» Я. Сигезбека, «Французская азбука» Академии наук, «Новый французский словарь» П.И. Богдановича и др. Автор приходит к выводу, что все учебники французского языка рассматриваемого периода выступают своеобразным «зеркалом», отражающим прогресс, имевший место в российской педагогической мысли. Важным наблюдением признается тот факт, что многие французские азбуки, целевой аудиторией которых выступали учащиеся гимназий, приобретали популярность среди изучавших французский язык самостоятельно. Иными словами, они переходили в разряд самоучителей, в значительной степени расширяя тем самым их функциональную характеристику. The article is devoted to the analysis of the first educational books that laid the foundation for the further development of educational publishing on the study of the French language in Russia. The most famous first textbooks on the French language are analyzed: «New French grammar ...» by V. Ye. Teplov, «French alphabet» by A. de Lavi, «Manual...» by J. Sigesbek, «French alphabet» by the Academy of Sciences, «New French Dictionary» by PI Bogdanovich, etc. The author comes to the conclusion that all French textbooks of the period under review act as a kind of ‘mirror’ which reflects the progress that took place in Russian pedagogical thought. An important observation is the fact that many French alphabets, aimed for students, gained popularity among those who studied French on their own. In other words, they passed into the category of self-instruction manuals, thereby significantly expanding their functional characteristics.

Designing a Lesson Plan About Teaching French Grammar as a Foreign Language from a Social Constructivist Approach

In modern methods, in line with the social constructivist and action-oriented approaches, knowledge should be (co-) constructed by the learner in interaction with his or her learning environment which has been established by the teacher prior to the session. A social constructivist approach can be described as learning-centered. This approach indicates learning as an interactive process. This study aims to define how learners build instructional sequences based on the European Common Language Reference Framework (CEFR) and action-oriented methods by using authentic documents including metalanguage. The sequence is for adult learners at A2 level. They are Turkish students who are at least 19 years old and they have participated in a one-year preparatory class with the aim of reaching B1 level. We will analyze the context of the procedure teaching and the profile of the learners to whom it will be passed. At the end of these introductory analyzes, which are important for the development of an audience-specific learning sequence, we will create a sequence guide with additional activity sheets for students.

Language sources and the reconstruction of early languages

This article argues that with the original emphasis on dialectal variation, using primarily literary texts from various regions, analysis of Old French has routinely neglected social variation, providing an incomplete picture of its grammar. Accordingly, Old French has been identified as typically featuring e.g. “pro-drop”, brace constructions, and single negation. Yet examination of these features in informal texts, as opposed to the formal texts typically dealt with, demonstrates that these documents do not corroborate the picture of Old French that is commonly presented in the linguistic literature. Our reconstruction of Old French grammar therefore needs adjustment and further refinement, in particular by implementing sociolinguistic data. With a broader scope, the call for inclusion of sociolinguistic variation may resonate in the investigation of other early languages, resulting in the reassessment of the sources used, and reopening the debate about social variation in dead languages and its role in language evolution.