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Résumé :
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The paper presents a summary of my thesis (G. Eckert, Sprachtypus und Geschichte. Untersuchungen zum typologischen Wandel des Französischen, Tübingen 1986 a, 293 p., supervised by Eugenio Coseriu). It deals with a typological approach where “typus” is defined as the highest structural level of a language. The “typus” is realized at different systemic levels and at different positions within the architecture of a language, e.g. in the standard language as well as in the social, dialectal and stylistic variations of a language. E. Coseriu (1971) has shown that the Romance Languages synchronically and diachronically all function according to the “Romance typus”. Old French yet belongs to the Romance languages and applies the “Romance typus” in its different systems. As of Middle French, howewer, the linguistic development follows another direction : a “French typus” arises and develops through the history of the French language. Middle French does not appear to have different, disparate changes but rather shows the beginning of a new systematization which follows the principle of the “French typus” : the principle of “external” or “syntagmatic determination” without making a difference between “relational” and “non-relational” functions. The paper exemplarily investigates the categories number, gender, person, the comparative and word formation by comparing the different diachronic stages of French, Old French, Middle French and Modem French. It is shown that the approach is able to explain coherently not only the development of Standard French but also spoken French and even the deviations of « français avancé » (see G. Eckert 1986 b) in a typological framework from a diachronic perspective.
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