Re: Norman French Question

Yahya Abdal-Aziz wrote:
> Hi Adam,
>
> On Thu, 23 Feb 2006, Adam Walker wrote:
>
>>Would anyone here happen to know the word "ly" in the
>>phrase "saunz plus à ly" means?  Also what is the
>>modern standard French equivalent and the etymology,
>>if you happen to know?
>
>
> I'd hazard a guess by analogy from modern French
> "lui", that it might mean "him".
I'm not an expert on Norman-French, but I do have an Old French grammar.
"ly" would, of course, be an orthographic variation of "li".

Old French did not have the modern distinction of conjunctive &
disjunctive pronouns. But on checking the 3rd person pronoun, I find
that there are two series of the 'cas régime' (oblique case):
       MASC.    FEM.
1.  lo, le    la
2.  lui, li   lei, lie, li

#1 are used for direct objects and #2 for indirect. I am not sure which
series were preferred after prepositions. But assuming either were
possible, then "a ly" could mean 'to him' or 'to her', I guess.

> Which would make me
> interlinearise the whole phrase in French as "sans plus
> à lui", or translate it to "sans plus que lui", "without
> more than him".
Yes, there's little doubt, I think, that 'saunz' is the modern 'sans'
(without). But it seem to me a big jump from 'a' to 'que'. I would
hazard a guess: "without any more for him (her)"

I notice that at noon UTC on March 1st, all parts of the following site
will be open to unrestricted access:
http://www.anglo-norman.net/

Maybe Adam could contact them for clarification of ""saunz plus à ly".

--
Ray
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