Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of tables
- Preface
- Symbols and abbreviations
- Technical terms
- Introduction: sounds and spelling
- 1 Articles and nouns
- 2 Contracted and modified forms
- 3 Adjectives and participles
- 4 Possessives and demonstratives
- 5 Verbs: basic patterns
- 6 Verbs: standard modifications
- 7 Personal pronouns
- 8 Relatives and interrogatives
- 9 Indefinite pronouns and adjectives
- 10 Adverbs
- 11 Conjunctions
- 12 Prepositions
- 13 Numerals
- 14 Verb usage
- 15 Word order and versification
- 16 Old French dialects
- APPENDICES
- Key to exercises
- Old French texts
- Authors and works quoted
- Select bibliography
- Glossary
12 - Prepositions
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 26 January 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of tables
- Preface
- Symbols and abbreviations
- Technical terms
- Introduction: sounds and spelling
- 1 Articles and nouns
- 2 Contracted and modified forms
- 3 Adjectives and participles
- 4 Possessives and demonstratives
- 5 Verbs: basic patterns
- 6 Verbs: standard modifications
- 7 Personal pronouns
- 8 Relatives and interrogatives
- 9 Indefinite pronouns and adjectives
- 10 Adverbs
- 11 Conjunctions
- 12 Prepositions
- 13 Numerals
- 14 Verb usage
- 15 Word order and versification
- 16 Old French dialects
- APPENDICES
- Key to exercises
- Old French texts
- Authors and works quoted
- Select bibliography
- Glossary
Summary
Types of prepositions
OFr prepositions express relations of time and place, also cause, means, manner and purpose, etc. They can b.
simple: a, de, en, o, vers,
compound, sometimes still written in two words: envers, desus, parmi or par mi,
adverbs (occasionally nouns or adjectives) used as prepositions:
soz, enz, lez (side, beside), lonc (long, along),
or prepositional phrases: en aval de (below).
Note: Oḍ, and even aḍ, the early forms of o and a, are still found in the early twelfth century, especially before vowels.
Reinforcement
The need for extra stress or greater precision encouraged compounds and prepositional phrases:
Atot le moine. (F.9.381)
With / Together with the monk.
Et lor dites de par moi··· (Gr.8)
And tell them from me on my behalf.
This tendency led to several forms with the same or similar meanings, e.g. a, tresqu' a entresqu'a(to, up to, right up to).
Extended functions
Many OFr words are etymologically both adverb and preposition (e.g. sus, sor) and retain their double function. In other cases adverbs and adverbial compounds were soon used as prepositions also (e.g. the compounds desus, devant, deriere). Thus by the twelfth century all elements in a reinforced series like soz, desoz, par desoz (under, below) can function as either prepositions or adverbs.
While most prepositions are restricted in their use, several have extended functions in OFr, particularly the common prepositions a, de, par, por and en. Their chief uses are indicated below.
Examples in §§164–9 have mainly been drawn from the Charroi de Nimes, Yvain and the Prise d' Orange.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Old FrenchA Concise Handbook, pp. 105 - 109Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1975