Notes on Old French lexis

Abstract

The article contains three notes the author made while working on the lexical material for the Old French-Croatian Dictionary. They take up these points: 1. the study of Old French lexis, 2. Old French dictionaries and 3. the bibliography of lexical studies of Old French. The first note reviews hitherto gathered results and draws attention to the shortcomings of two approaches employed in the study of the lexical problematic of Old French: the traditional "classical" and the individual scientific approach. The second note contains a critical analysis of the quality of Old French dictionaries in respect to their applicability in practical lexical and lexicographic research. The third note takes up the question of the necessity and need for a bibliographical presentation of results of research done on Old French. Finally, the goal of the article is to broaden the narrow framework of Croatian scientific-professional pubblications dealing with the problems of Medieval French which has been in the constant limelight of research undertaken into the Romance languages.