MORPHOGRAPHY IN THE FRENCH WRITING SYSTEM OF IX–XVIII CENTURIES

Abstract

Purpose. The article identifies the peculiarities of morphological writing in the history of the development of French graphics. The purpose of the exploration was to outline the basic principles of writing on which the modern French graphic tradition is based, to study the graphic complexes that record morphological writing in different eras, to reveal the peculiarities of the evolution of morphography. Methods. The work uses a diachronic approach that includes comparative-historical and descriptive methods. Functional and etymological approaches, as well as elements of statistical analysis, were used to establish the main functions of morphological writing. Results. The article substantiates that the graphic system of the French language is multisystemic and represents the variability of the use of different principles of phonographic and semiographic writing. The graphic structure of the French language is characterized by the presence of systematic semiography, which visually records the morphological and lexical-semantic connections of the language. The article offers a new interpretation of the concept of morphography, as a semiographic type of writing, which has in its arsenal graphic signs intended to convey certain grammatical features of the language. Analysis of the graphic inventory established that morphographism is inherent in both single-letter and multi-letter graphemes: digraphs and trigraphs. Among the main semiographic complexes for the reproduction of morphological writings, diacritical marks (acute, trema, circumflex, sedium) and doubling of letters should be noted. The presented means of graphic fixation of morphographs was very popular in the Middle French period of the development of the French language, which took hold and acquired its further development in the following eras (Renaissance and Enlightenment). Conclusions. Therefore, morphological writings undergo their rapid development from the Middle French period in connection with the intensive development of word-forming and grammatical processes of the French language in the 14th–15th centuries. The studied corpus of graphemes clearly demonstrated the general tendency to simplify the phonographic principle of writing and the growth of the morphological principle during the history of the formation of the graphic system of the French language.