The Substantivation of the Infinitive in Old French

• Published in: Langue française 2005-01, Vol.147 (Sept), p.98-120
• Main Author: Buridant, Claude
• Format: Article
• Language: fre
• ISSN: 0023-8368

In the first part of the article the infinitive is characterized in the whole verbal system & the general theoretical parameters of this substantivation are brought out. After this restatement the study is devoted to the substantivation of this mood & its fundamental characteristics in Old French, that is the possibility to have a complementation. A distinction is made between essential & accidental substantivated infinitives. The first are characterized by morphological, syntactical & semantical criteria & seem restricted to fundamental zones of human activities, The second, facultative, can have the characterization & complementation of the substantive & of the verb at one & the same time. They often are favoured by some conditions (use of the preposition de, verbal constructions, use of sanz point de) & express all the functions of a noun. They often occur as a synthetical form of thematization (condensed anaphoric recapitulation or cataphoric thematization) & as a preferential process of abstraction in the courtly & allegoric style of the 13th century. These possibilities & the range of these uses are more & more limited in the evolution, where French diverges in its typology from the other romance languages, & specially in & after the classical period, but the substantivation of the infinitive rises again actually - without complementation - in using the resources always available to the mood. 27 References. Adapted from the source document