Études sur la formation des mots en français préclassique et classique

The 24 chapters of this book cover selected questions related to word formation in the pre-classical and classical French of the 16th and 17th centuries. The first section of the book focuses on theoretical issues (periodization, lexicalization, linguistic norm, morphological productivity, the optimality theory and its use in diachronic morphology), while the second contains several studies on specific types of word formation (the nominalization using -ment, -ance and -aison suffixes, collective nous ending in -age and others, and the history of certain words, such as adjectives derived from matin-, words derived from the root assassin- and others). The third part analyzes Jean Pallet’s French-Spanish dictionary and the approach of the 17th-century linguistic "observers" to word formation.