Visual perception, inference and dreams in Old French
il m’est avis que, avis li fu que
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.25145/j.cemyr.2026.34.22Keywords:
historical pragmatics, evidentiality, Old French, dreams, visual perception, inferenceAbstract
The present study is set within the framework of medieval French linguistics and historical pragmatics. It gives a semantic description of the evidential marker il m’est avis que, avis li fu que in Old French. Due to its etymological value, avis li fu que is related to visual perception and is an introducer of dreams in medieval French texts. The verbal locution estre avis is usually classified with the verbs of opinion. Il m’est avis que can mean ‘I see, as far as I see, it seems to me, I have the impression, I am convinced’, etc. The semantic value varies according to the context. In medieval French literary texts, dreams are introduced by the ritual formula il li fu avis que, which presents the dream as a reliable, real and true source of information. Medieval French texts treat the dream as a directly observed reality. The dream is external to the sleeper, has a supernatural origin and a transcendent meaning. The events of the dream correspond to reality. They are not pure fiction and are not imagined by the dreamer.
References
Bases de datos
BFM - Base de Français Médiéval [En línea]. Lyon : ENS de Lyon, Laboratoire IHRIM, 2022, , consultada el 20 de mayo de 2024.
Base de textes pour l’étude du rêve: https://reves.ca/.
Textos citados
Béroul, Tristan, Ernest Muret (Ed.), Champion, 1947.
Chanson de Roland, Gérard Moignet (Ed.), Bordas, 1972.
Chrétien de Troyes, Le Conte du Graal (Perceval), Pierre Kunstmann (Ed.), Universidad de Ottawa, Laboratoire de Français Ancien; ATILF, 2009.
Chrétien de Troyes, Guillaume d’Angleterre, Christine Ferlampin-Acher (Ed.), Champion Classiques, 2007.
Gautier d’Arras, Eracle, Guy Raynaud de Lage (Ed.), Champion, 1976.
Jean Renart, Roman de la Rose ou de Guillaume de Dole, Félix Lecoy (Ed.), Champion, 1962.
Philippe de Beaumanoir, Coutumes de Beauvaisis (volume 1), Amédée Salmon (Ed.), Picard, 1899, publicado en línea por l’ENS de Lyon en la Base de Français Médiéval.
Première Continuation de Perceval, W. Roach (Ed.), University of Pennsylvania Press, 1952.
Queste del Saint Graal, Christiane Marchello-Nizia y Alexei Lavrentiev (Ed.), ENS de Lyon, 2019.
Raoul de Houdenc, Méraugis de Portlesguez, Michelle Szkilnik (Ed.), Champion Classiques, 2004.
Renaud de Beaujeu, Le bel inconnu, Gwladys Perrie Williams (Ed.), Champion, 1929.
Le Roman de Thèbes, Guy Raynaud de Lage (Ed.), Champion, 1966.
Tristan en prose, Philippe Ménard (Ed.), Droz, 1987.
Estudios
Aikhenvald, Alexandra (2004). Evidentiality. Oxford University Press.
Braet, Herman (1975). Le songe dans la chanson de geste au xiie siècle. Romanica Gandensia.
Corbellari, Alain (2007). Pour une étude générique et synthétique du récit de rêve dans la littérature française médiévale. En Alain Corbellari y Jean-Yves Tilliette (Eds.), Le Rêve médiéval. Droz, 53-71.
Dendale, Patrick (2022). Evidential markers in French. En Björn Wiemer & Juana Marín Arrese (Eds.), Evidential Marking in European Languages. Toward a unitary comparative account. Berlin, De Gruyter, Akademie Verlag, 171-234.
Dendale, Patrick; Tasmowski, Liliane (2001). Introduction: evidentiality and related notions. Journal of Pragmatics, 33 , 3, 339-348.
Dendale, Patrick; Van Bogaert, Julie (2007). A semantic description of French lexical evidential markers and the classification of evidentials. Rivista di Linguistica, 19, 1, 65-89.
Goullut, Jean-Daniel (2007). Songes de la littérature épique et romanesque en ancien français. Aspects de la narration. En Alain Corbellari y Jean-Yves Tilliette (Eds.), Le Rêve médiéval. Droz, 37-52.
Le Goff, Jacques (1999). Rêves. En Jacques Le Goff y Jean-Claude Schmitt, Dictionnaire raisonné de l’Occident médiéval. Fayard, 950-968.
Lecouteux, Claude (1997). Le rêve et son arrière-plan au Moyen Âge: un aperçu. Cahiers d’Études Germaniques, 33, 11-18.
Marchello-Nizia, Christiane (1985). La rhétorique des songes et le songe comme rhétorique dans la littérature française médiévale. En Tullio Gregory (Ed.), I Sogni nel medioevo. Roma, Edizioni dell’Ateneo, 245-259.
Moignet, Gérard (1978). La grammaire des songes dans la Queste del Saint Graal. Langue Française, 40, 113-119.
Rodriguez Somolinos, Amalia (2014). Un marqueur médiatif de l’ancien français: il m’est avis que, ce m’est avis. En Jean-Claude Anscombre; Evelyne Oppermann-Marsaux; Amalia Rodríguez Somolinos (Eds.), Médiativité, polyphonie et modalité en français: études synchroniques et dia¬chroniques. Presses Sorbonne Nouvelle, 159-178.
Rodríguez Somolinos, Amalia (2010). L’évolution de apparemment en français: la formation d’un marqueur d’attitude énonciative. En Bernard Combettes, Céline Guillot, Sophie Prévost, Evelyne Oppermann-Marsaux, Amalia Rodríguez Somolinos (Eds.), Le changement en français. Etudes de linguistique diachronique. Peter Lang, 345-361.
Schmitt, Jean-Claude (2003/4). Récits et images de rêves au Moyen Âge. Ethnologie française, 2003/4 (vol. 33), 553-563.
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
The articles published in Cuadernos del Cemyr are distributed through the web portal of the Publications Service of the University of La Laguna and are freely accessible under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0).
Authors retain the copyright and grant the journal the right of first publication of the work, as well as a Creative Commons license that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the authorship of the work and its initial publication in this scientific journal.
Authors may separately establish additional agreements for the non-exclusive distribution of the version of the work published in Cuadernos del Cemyr (for example, publishing it in an institutional repository or in a book), with acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
