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  • John Palsgrave as Renaissance linguist by Gabriele Stein
  • Marko Oja
John Palsgrave as Renaissance linguist. By Gabriele Stein. (Oxford studies in lexicography and lexicology.) Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997. Pp. ix, 511.

Gabriele Stein’s study of John Palsgrave’s Lesclarcissement de la langue francoyse (1530) is perhaps the most extensive study of any Renaissance vernacular grammarian so far. S’s study will be an invaluable source for anyone studying the early stages of English linguistics as well as early sixteenth- century French or English.

Ch. 1 (1–36) details biographical information about Palsgrave. His work as a schoolmaster is discussed as well as his relationship with the court and, among others, Sir Thomas More. In Ch. 2 (37–78) S discusses the production and structure of Lesclarcissement as well as the treatment of French pronunciation and grammar in that work. Palsgrave is shown to be an interpreter, using the classical framework as a loose model to describe French grammar.

Ch. 3 (79–123) deals with the languages Palsgrave was describing. He is shown to have been aware of regional, social, and diachronic variation. His idea of correct French is contrasted with that of other French and English grammarians of the period.

Ch. 4 (124–73) begins the part of the book which concentrates on the word lists in Lesclarcissement. The arrangement of the lists is described, followed by a discussion of Palsgrave’s use of sources in compiling these. S shows that it is unclear whether he used French word lists, but he seems to have used English ones. Ch. 5 (174–93) should perhaps have come before Ch. 4, as it discusses the authors on whose works Palsgrave based his idea of correct English (Geoffrey Chaucer and John Lydgate) and French (Jean de Meung, Jean Froissart, Alain Chartier, Guillaume Alexis, and Jean Lemaire de Belges).

Continuing with the word lists, Ch. 6 (194–254) contains an exhaustive account of lemmatization in Lesclarcissement, with reference to nouns, adjectives, and verbs, and how it compares to earlier English dictionaries (Catholicon Anglicum and Promptorium parvulorum). Ch. 7 (255–90) contains a more detailed account of the ordering principles in the word lists, in Lesclarcissement as well as in the Ortus vocabulorum and the two English dictionaries mentioned above. Using English as the lexicographical metalanguage as well as a cross-referencing system, Palsgrave’s work is a step away from the classical tradition. Ch. 8 (291–338) concentrates on the structure of the French translations of English words, contrasting the practice with those in the three earlier works.

The issues discussed in Chs. 9 and 10 extend beyond the immediate scope of linguistic historiography. Ch. 9 (339–85) is of interest to the historical discourse linguist as it concentrates on evidence of language in use, e.g. greeting, agreeing and disagreeing, forms of address, thanking, and interjections. Cultural historians should find Ch. 10 (386–444) valuable, as S attempts ‘to draw a tentative picture of Palsgrave and his world as they emerge from his choice of verbs and examples’ (386) and discusses [End Page 602] issues ranging from games to the care of clothing. In the concluding Ch. 11 (445–66) S evaluates Palsgrave’s place in the history of English and French linguistics.

Marko Oja
University of Turku
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