Modus po verbech opinandi v (před)klasické francouzštině: kvantitativní analýza
Mood in subordinate clauses after verba opinandi in (pre-)classical French: a quantitave analysis

Summary/Abstract: The paper deals with the development in the usage of verbal moods following verba opinandi in preclassicaland classical French. An evident change in mood usage following these verbs had takenplace in the 17th century, namely a decline of the subjunctive in favour of the indicative, which becamethe norm in affirmative sentences by the end of the century. The aim was to verify theoreticalinformation from old and historical grammars on the evidence of authentic texts in FRANTEXT, a setof French diachronic corpora. This research enabled the derivation of statistics to identify a turningpoint in the development, which appears to be around the year 1640. It also revealed distinctionsbetween different sentence types in respect of the indicative/subjunctive ratio. Whereas affirmativesentences tend towards the indicative as the only possible mode, the subjunctive is retained innegations, questions and conditionals, since these sentence types exhibit a more negative epistemicmodality, typically expressed with the subjunctive.

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