Intensive Comparisons in Medieval French: Animal Names as the Second Term of the Comparison

Abstract

We study intensive comparisons of medieval French (Old and Middle French) whose second term corresponds to an animal name (e.g. ‘brave as a lion’, ‘humble as a dove’, ‘to beat someone like a donkey’). We consider successively (following a zoological typology of medieval inspiration) the generic names of animals, the names of quadrupeds (wild and domestic ones), birds, fish and vermin. We give many examples from various sources. We have identified around sixty adjectival bases and around forty distinct verbal bases for the type of comparisons considered. The study of these comparisons (presenting different degrees of frozenness) brings to light a whole series of identifiable clichés in other linguistic structures. This article is part of the COLINDANTE research project (Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación et Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona) which aims to systematically describe the intensive collocations of medieval French.