#1815. 不定代名詞 one の用法はフランス語の影響か？[french][borrowing][personal_pronoun][numeral][contact]

　フランス語は英語の語彙や綴字には大きな影響を及ぼしてきたが，英文法に及ぼした直接の影響はほとんどないといわれる．「#1208. フランス語の英文法への影響を評価する」 ([2012-08-17-1]) で論じたように，間接的な影響ということでいえば，「#1171. フランス語との言語接触と屈折の衰退」 ([2012-07-11-1]) で取り上げた問題はおおいに議論に値するが，統語や形態へのフランス語の影響はほとんどないといってよい．数少ない例の1つとして，「#204. 非人称構文」 ([2009-11-17-1]) の記事でみたように，中英語期中の非人称動詞および非人称構文の増加はフランス語に負っていることが指摘されるが，せいぜいそれくらいのものだろう．
　しかし，もう1つ，ときにフランス語からの文法的な影響として指摘される項目がある．One should always listen to what other people say. のように用いられる，不定代名詞 one である．これが，対応するフランス語の不定代名詞 on (< L homo) の借用ではないかという議論だ．最近では，Millar (126) が，次のように指摘している．

What is noteworthy about these large-scale French-induced changes is that they are dependent upon the massive lexical borrowing. Other structural changes not connected to this are limited (and also contested), such as the origin of the Modern English impersonal pronoun one in the ancestor of Modern French on.

　OED の one, adj., n., and pron. によると，フランス語影響説は必ずしも妥当ではないかもしれない旨が示唆されている．

The use as an indefinite generic pronoun (sense C. 17), which replaced ME pron.², MEN pron. in late Middle English, may have been influenced by Anglo-Norman hom, on, un, Old French, Middle French on (12th cent.; mid 9th cent. in form om ; French on; ultimately < classical Latin homō: see HOMO n.¹), though this is not regarded as a necessary influence by some scholars.

　C. 17 に挙げられている初例は，MED ōn (pron) の語義2からの初例を取ったものである．

a1400 (a1325) Cursor Mundi (Vesp.) 1023 (MED), Of an [a1400 Gött. ane; a1400 Trin. Cambr. oon] qua siþen ete at þe last, he suld in eild be ai stedfast.

　Mustanoja (223--24) が，後期中英語における one のこの用法の発生について，まとまった議論を展開している．やや長いが，すべて引用しよう．

   'ONE.' --- The origin of the one used for the indefinite person has been the subject of some scholarly dispute. Some grammarians believe that it developed from the indefinite one (originally a numeral . . .) meaning 'a person,' just as man expressing the indefinite person developed from man meaning 'a human being.' It has also been suggested that the one used for the indefinite person is in reality French on (from Latin homo), though influenced by the native indefinite one. This view, first expressed by R. G. Latham (The English Language, Vol. II, London 1855), has been more recently advocated by G. L. Trager and H. Marchand . . . . The case of those who maintain that one is a direct loan from French is, however, somewhat weakened by the fact that in the two earliest known instances of this use one occurs as an object of the verb and as an attributive genitive ('possessive dative'); one of these is doo thus fro be to be; thus wol thai lede oon to thaire dwelliyng place (Pall. Husb. v 181). The earliest examples of one as an indefinite subject are recorded in works of the late 15th century: --- he herde a man say that one was surer in keping his tunge than in moche speking, for in moche langage one may lightly erre (Earl Rivers Dicts 57); --- every chambre was walled and closed rounde aboute, and yet myghte one goo from one to another (Caxton En. 117). It is not until the second half of the 16th century that the use of one in this sense becomes common.
   From all we know about the first appearance and the subsequent development of one expressing the indefinite person it seems that this use arose as a synthesis of native one and French on. This view is further supported by the fact that in Anglo-Norman the spelling un is used not only for the numeral un but also for the indefinite person, as in the proverb un vout pendre par compaignie.

    
    　標記の問題は，いまだ決着がついていない．
    
　・ Millar, Robert McColl. English Historical Sociolinguistics. Edinburgh: Edinburgh UP, 2012.
　・ Mustanoja, T. F. A Middle English Syntax. Helsinki: Société Néophilologique, 1960.

[ ツイート | 固定リンク | 印刷用ページ ]