Demystifying “Stylistic Fronting” in Medieval French

This study re-examines the phenomenon traditionally termed Stylistic Fronting (SF) in Medieval French. Drawing on data from verse texts dating from the thirteenth to the fourteenth centuries, it investigates the syntactic distributions and pragmatic functions associated with these fronting constructions. I argue that, despite the apparent fronting of heads in certain cases, these constructions are best analysed as phrasal movements. Moreover, the term Stylistic Fronting obscures a wide range of internal variation. One sub-type of these constructions involves pragmatic fronting of non-subject constituents to the highest projection in the left periphery—ForceP—while another is driven by the interplay of the EPP and φ-agreement, targeting lower projections such as FinP and IP. These findings not only clarify the syntactic architecture of Medieval French but also shed light on broader typological tendencies in the diachrony of European languages.