| The goal of the present work is twofold. First, it aims to provide a detailed, corpus-based study in the diachronic grammaticalization of a pronominal form from a lexical form. Based on numerous examples from texts ranging from the pre-classical Latin through the Old French periods, the semantic, syntactic, phonological, and orthographic development of the French indefinite pronoun on 'one, people' is traced from its lexical origins in Latin as the noun homo 'a human being, man, person'. These developments are interpreted, in large part, relative to current grammaticalization theory. The second goal of this work is to resolve the disagreement current in the literature regarding the origins of on. A thorough and systematic treatment of the historical development of on is lacking in the literature, which has given rise to two opposing views in this regard. On the one hand are those that argue that the rise of on in French is due to an imitation of Frankish man 'one, people', a form which functions semantically and syntactically in much the same way as on, and also derives historically from a noun meaning 'a human being, man, person'. On the other hand are those who maintain that on resulted, not from an imitation of Frankish man, but from developments native to Latin. It is argued here that on has its roots not in Frankish but in Latin. Two kinds of evidence are given to support this. The first is geographical: a non-specific reflex of homo has been attested not only in Frankish-contact territory, but also in Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Catalan, and Provencal. The second is chronological: a non-specific use of homo occurs in Classical and Late Latin texts prior to the first great wave of Germanic invasions into Gaul in the fifth century. Examples are drawn from Classical, Late Latin, and Old Romance texts, as well as from the modern Romance languages. |
