Subject position in the diachrony of French, nominal and pronominal subjects across genres

This contribution analyses subject inversion in Old and Middle French (13th - 16th c.), to investigate the key steps in the loss of Verb Second grammar (V2) through time. The study focuses on two sets of texts, one of literary genre, the other of legal genre, and explores the evolution pronominal subjects, comparing it with previous results on the evolution of nominal subjects for the same texts. The statistical analysis shows that pronominal subject inversion is lost at similar rates in the two genres. This contrasts with nominal subject inversion, which is only ever attested – and lost – in literary material. This reveals that the syntax of nominal and pronominal subject inversion is different, substantiating the idea that the two types of subjects have two distinct clausal positions. Furthermore, the results suggest that in the early stages the two genres present two different types of V2, which we interpret as corresponding to a “high” Force-V2 for literary texts, “low” Fin-V2 for legal texts. In the later stages, both types of V2 are gradually lost. Genre plays therefore a crucial role in the development from V2 to SVO, with legal texts being more advanced in the path of change than literary texts.