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Heath’s Modern Language Series
AN OUTLINE
OF THE
PHONOLOGY AND MORPHOLOGY
OF
OLD PROVENÇAL
BY
C. H. GRANDGENT
Professor of Romance Languages in Harvard University
Revised Edition
BOSTON, U. S. A.
D. C. HEATH & CO., PUBLISHERS
1909
Copyright, 1905,
BY D. C. Heath & Co.
This book, which is intended as a guide to students ofRomance Philology, represents the result of desultorylabors extending through a period of twenty years. My firstintroduction to the scientific pursuit of Provençal linguisticswas a course given by Paul Meyer at the École des Chartesin the winter of 1884-85. Since then I have been collectingmaterial both from my own examination of texts and fromthe works of those philologists who have dealt with the subject.Besides the large Grammars of the Romance Languagesby Diez and by Meyer-Lübke, I have utilized H.Suchier’s Die französische und provenzalische Sprache (inGröber’s Grundriss der romanischen Philologie, I, 561), theIntroduzione grammaticale in V. Crescini’s Manualetto provenzale,the Abriss der Formenlehre in C. Appel’s ProvenzalischeChrestomathie, and many special treatises to whichreference will be made in the appropriate places. Consciousof many imperfections in my work, I shall be grateful forcorrections.
I have confined myself to the old literary language, believingthat to be of the greatest importance to a student ofRomance Philology or of Comparative Literature, and fearinglest an enumeration of modern forms, in addition to theancient, might prove too bewildering. I should add thatneither my own knowledge nor the material at my disposal is[iv]adequate to a satisfactory presentation of the living idiomsof southern France. These dialects have, however, beeninvestigated for the light they throw on the geographicaldistribution of phonetic variations; my chief source of informationhas been F. Mistral’s monumental Dictionnaireprovençal-français. Catalan and Franco-Provençal have beenconsidered only incidentally. I have not dealt with word-formation,because one of my students is preparing a treatiseon that subject.
Readers desiring a brief description of Provençal literatureare referred to H. Suchier and A. Birch-Hirschfeld, Geschichteder französischen Literatur, pp. 56-96; A. Stimming, inGröber’s Grundriss der romanischen Philologie, II, ii, pp.1-69; and A. Restori, Letteratura provenzale. For a moreextended account of the poets they should consult Die Poesieder Troubadours and the Leben und Werke der Troubadoursby F. Diez; and The Troubadours at Home by J. H. Smith.The poetic ideals are discussed by G. Paris in Romania, XII,pp. 516-34; and with great fulness by L. F. Mott in TheSystem of Courtly Love. The beginnings of the literature aretreated by A. Jeanroy in his Origines de la poésie lyrique enFrance au moyen âge, reviewed by G. Paris in a series of importantarticles in the Journal des Savants (November andDecember, 1891, and March and July, 1892) reprinted separatelyin 1892 under the same title as Jeanroy’s book. Contribut