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Variation and Text Type in Old Occitan Texts

Wilson, Christin M L
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1331136026

Abstract Details

2012, Doctor of Philosophy, Ohio State University, Linguistics.
Although there is a fairly large corpus of Old Occitan texts, the majority of the linguistic analysis on the language has been done using only one type of text: the lyric poetry of the troubadours, though the lyric poetry accounts for only about ten percent of the total Old Occitan corpus. Our understanding of the language and its development is thus less complete and accurate than it could be if all of the types of texts that constitute the full corpus were considered more fully. This study seeks to bridge that gap by considering whether analyzing the understudied prose and non-lyric poetry texts uncovers the same variants and patterns as the lyric poetry, or to what extent these vary between text types. The publication of the Concordance de l’Occitan Médiéval (COM), which includes the entirety of the Old Occitan corpus for the first time, allows the prose and non-lyric poetry texts to be searched and analyzed digitally. Very little quantitative work has been done concerning the patterns of variation within the Old Occitan texts, but the creation of the COM makes such studies possible. Using this corpus and taking previous research on the language as a starting point (e.g. Jensen 1976, Anglade 1977), this study compares the attestations and patterns of the use of phonological and morphological features between the three major types of text in Old Occitan: the lyric poetry texts, the non-lyric poetry texts, and the prose texts. By considering these features both quantitatively and qualitatively, I seek to further understand the relationship between variation and text type, particularly in reference to the representation of sound change in progress. Three aspects of the Old Occitan language are investigated: the use of analytic and synthetic comparative adjective forms, the formation of adjectives using various derivational suffixes, and the development of the glide-initial diphthongs. My findings show that the text type plays an important role in the patterns of variation found within the texts; the patterns of variation of all three features investigated were significantly different in each type of text. For example, the synthetic comparative formation of some adjectives is far more common in the lyric poetry than in either the non-lyric poetry or in the prose. Similarly, the diphthong variants of the front mid vowels are significantly more common in the lyric poetry than in the other types of texts. The type of text, however, is not the only feature to influence the use of these aspects of the language. Instead, text type differences interact with differences based on the date of the text, the dialect or geographic location of the text, and other parameters to create a complex web of associations and tendencies to which Old Occitan writers were sensitive.
Brian Joseph (Advisor)
Daniel Collins (Committee Member)
Hope Dawson (Committee Member)
Dieter Wanner (Committee Member)
234 p.
Linguistics
Old Occitan texts; text types; variation and text type

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Wilson, C. M. L. (2012). Variation and Text Type in Old Occitan Texts [Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1331136026

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Wilson, Christin. Variation and Text Type in Old Occitan Texts. 2012. Ohio State University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1331136026.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Wilson, Christin. "Variation and Text Type in Old Occitan Texts." Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University, 2012. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1331136026

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

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This open access ETD is published by The Ohio State University and OhioLINK.