A Patois of Saintonge: Descriptive Analysis of an Idiolect and Assessment of Present State of Saintongeais
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70-13,996 CHIDAINE, John Gabriel, 1922- A PATOIS OF SAINTONGE: DESCRIPTIVE ANALYSIS OF AN IDIOLECT AND ASSESSMENT OF PRESENT STATE OF SAINTONGEAIS. The Ohio State University, Ph.D., 1969 Language and Literature, linguistics University Microfilms, Inc., Ann Arbor, Michigan •3 COPYRIGHT BY JOHN GABRIEL CHIDAINE 1970 THIS DISSERTATION HAS BEEN MICROFILMED EXACTLY AS RECEIVED A PATOIS OF SAINTONGE : DESCRIPTIVE ANALYSIS OF AN IDIOLECT AND ASSESSMENT OF PRESENT STATE OF SAINTONGEAIS DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By John Gabriel Chidaine, B.A., M.A. ****** The Ohio State University 1969 Approved by Depart w .. w PLEASE NOTE: Not original copy. Some pages have indistinct print. Filmed as received. UNIVERSITY MICROFILMS PREFACE The number of studies which have been undertaken with regard to the southwestern dialects of the langue d'oi'l area is astonishingly small. Most deal with diachronic considerations. As for the dialect of Saintonge only a few articles are available. This whole area, which until a few generations ago contained a variety of apparently closely related patois or dialects— such as Aunisian, Saintongeais, and others in Lower Poitou— , is today for the most part devoid of them. All traces of a local speech have now’ disappeared from Aunis. And in Saintonge, patois speakers are very limited as to their number even in the most remote villages. The present study consists of three distinct and unequal phases: one pertaining to the discovering and gethering of an adequate sample of Saintongeais patois, as it is spoken today* another presenting a synchronic analysis of its most pertinent features; and, finally, one attempting to interpret the results of this analysis in the light of time and area dimensions. Such an undertaking, in spite of its limited scope, could not have been carried out by the writer alone. Indeed, it is impossible to acknowledge personally all those who helped during the field work phase. But, of course, it is to the Chalard family of Saint-Dizant-du-Gua that the author is most deeply indebted. Without their intelligent interest and dedication this study would not have been possible. With regard to the second phase of the work, the writer wishes to express his gratitude to all persons who offered him advice and guidance, especially to Professors P.R. L^on, University of Toronto, and D.H. Obrecht, University of Rochester, who kindly placed their laboratories and spectrographs at his disposal, and to S.M. Sapon, University of Rochester. The major part of this gratitude is addressed to Professor D.A. Griffin, Ohio State University, for his competent suggestions and criticisms, and his patience. iii VITA July 27, 1922 Born - La Rochelle, France 1955 B.A., University of Arizona, Tucson, .Arizona 1957 and 1959 Instructor, Department of Romance Languages, University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona I960 M.A., University of .Arizona, Tucson, Arizona I960 Instructor, U.S. Army School of Languages, Monterey, California 1965 Instructor, Department of Romance Languages, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio 196'- Assistant Professor, Department of Linguistics University of Rochester, Rochester, R.Y. 1965-1969 Associate Professor, Department of French, Victoria College, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario PUBLICATIONS "ch et ^ en saintongeais et en frangais canadien," Etudes de linguistique franco-canadienne. J.D; Gendron and G. Straka, edi Paris: Klincksieck, 19&7• pp. I1,5-51- FIELDS OF STUDY Major Field: Romance Linguistics Studies in Romance Lingustics. Professors David A. Griffin and E. Bulatkin Studies in General Linguistics. Professors William S. Wang and Leonard Rewmark Studies in Anthropology. Professors Edward H. Spicer and Harry T. Getty (University of Arizona) iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Page PREFACE ...................................... ii V I T A i v LIST OF CHARTS .................................. vi LIST OF MAPS .................................... vii INTRODUCTION ...................................... 1 Chapter I. GATHERING THE DATA .................... 7 II. GEOGRAPHICAL AND HISTORICAL SETTINGS........ 30 III. LINGUISTIC PAST OF SAINTONGE ................. fcO IV. PHONETICS ................................. 57 V. P H O N E M I C S ............................. 128 VI. M O R P H O L O G Y ................................. 160 VII. S Y N T A X ..................................... 180 VIII. LEXICON ........... ......................... 186 IX. HISTORICAL AND GEOGRAPHICAL CONSIDERATIONS . 20’' APPENDIX A. ...................................... 267 B ............................................... 278 C ............................................... 28U BIBLIOGRAPHY ...................................... 306 v LIST OF CHARTS Page 1. Phonetic Inventory : Consonants............... 60 2. Phonetic Inventory : Vowels .................. 6l 3. Palatalized Forms and Variations .............. 97 Ji. Palatalized Forms and Variations .............. 98 5. Palatalized Forms and Variations .............. 99 6 . Phonemic Inventory of Consonants ............. 130 7. Phonemic Inventory of Vowels ................. 1^5 vi LIST OF MAPS Page 1. Location of Map II with Reference to France ..... 21 2. Location of Lorignac with Reference to Saintonge, Aunis, and Poitou . 22 3. Boundary between -ac and non-ac communities..... h5 h. /h/ 210 5 . m ........................ 213 6 . Approximate distribution of /k/ Forms ............. 2l8 7. Approximate distribution of /g/, /d/, /l/ Forms . 223 vii INTRODUCTION Utilizing as a corpus the idiolect of a single speaker of Saintongeais as a basis, the object of this study is threefold: (l) primarily to present a synchronic descriptive analysis of the type of speech used in a section of the former province of Saintonge; (2) to furnish a comparative listing and evaluation of features which characterize Saintongeais and differ from French; (3) to assess and, hopefully, justify the value of the linguistic material contained in the corpus to evaluate the linguistic material from the standpoint of French dialectology. However, certain questions will have to be examined with special care. We shall need to define certain concepts, even at the risk of occasional arbitrariness, in order to avoid an excess of imprecision in our terminology. As Martinet pointed out,'*' terminology is indeed one of the issues which has plagued the field of dialectology. Of foremost importance is the question: should the use of a single idiolect be considered justifiable and sufficiently significant for a study of this nature? It would be futile to revive here old quarrels, such as the aged debate between Meyer and Ascoli on the nature of dialects. This matter can be examined from a more modern point of view. If the concept of idiolect is 1Andre Martinet, "Dialect." Romance Philology, VIII (l95,0^ pp. 1-11. 1 to be accepted as "an individual's set of linguistic habit," then it comes close to being a synonym of Saussurian parole, "an individual manifestation of a langue;" and if the latter term is. defined as "the ensemble of speech habits of a social community," in turn it becomes almost identical with the concept of dialect in its most widely accepted sense. The relationship between the terms "idiolect" and "dialect" is lucidly expressed by R. Hall in these terms: Its use also enables us to give a clearer definition of the term dialect, i.e. as involving only those features of linguistic usage which are common to an entire speech-community. The only linguistic realities, in the sense of directly observable or deducible phenomena, are idiolects and the elements into which they may be analyzed; all other linguistic entities are abstractions, arrived at by either naive or scientific analysis. Within such a framework of reference, the use of a single idiolect of Saintongeais would be justified, providing it is judged as being a "fair" representation of what is meant by Saintongeais (in this respect the following chapter relates the reasons which motivated this particular choice). Today, Saintongeais is a form of speech so rare as to its occurrence and so varied as to a number of its aspects that it could hardly be identified as representing the "ensemble of speech habits" of ^Robert A. Hall Jr., "idiolect and linguistic super-ego," Studia Linguistica, V (1951), pp.21-27. ^Ibid., pp.22-25. the Saintonge area; rather, it represents various types of speech habits used by few members of limited and relatively isolated groups. Comparison between this corpus and French was made on the basis of three types of features which were identified in the course of analysis: features similar to Standard French, others resembling features found in Popular French, and still others differing from either preceding type. Standard French was chosen as the prime basis for comparison: it is the type of French which is recognized as being national and "ideal," which is used by the classe cultivde because of its dependence on the written and literary type, and which is described and taught in schools as being both normative and prescriptive. Popular French is considered as representing a type of substandard French spoken by "lower class people,"**' uneducated members of the larger urban centers,^ and whose features have been described especially by Bauche^ and 7 Guiraud. Features which differed from either Standard French or Popular French were considered as being distinctive and characterizing Saintongeais; as