French Literature Reviews - 2026
Zinaida Geylikman, Baron et chevalier en français médiéval. Une étude sémantique de noms d'humains dans la société féodale
Literary Theory, Linguistics and Stylistics
Zinaida Geylikman, Baron and chevalier in Medieval French: A Semantic Study of Human Nouns in Feudal Society. Based on a case study, this book highlights the importance of semantic variation across different text types in Medieval French. Drawing on a corpus comprising four textual genres and spanning a broad diachronic range from the 12th to the 15th century, it provides a detailed semantic analysis of two human nouns: baron and chevalier. The analysis clearly reveals regular patterns in usage variations from one discourse type to another, highlighting lexical and semantic shifts closely tied to the evolution of feudal society. Beyond uncovering the semantic content of baron and chevalier, this work serves as a methodological pilot for the lexical semantics of human nouns in Medieval French. Zinaida Geylikman holds a PhD in Linguistics from the SAPRAT research team at EPHE, Paris, PSL University (2017). She teaches French linguistics, as well as general linguistics and semantics, and her research focuses primarily on the lexical semantics of human nouns. The introduction to the book and its table of contents are available in open access on the publisher's website.
The study of historical semantics often involves tracing how specific terminology adapts to changing social structures. In the context of medieval studies, the evolution of titles and social designations reflects broader shifts in the hierarchy and organization of feudal life. Baron and chevalier in Medieval French: A Semantic Study of Human Nouns in Feudal Society examines the usage of baron and chevalier across a corpus of four textual genres spanning the 12th to the 15th century.
The methodology employed in this work emphasizes the necessity of considering genre and discourse type when analyzing lexical change. By comparing how these human nouns appear across four distinct textual genres, the research highlights patterns in usage variations linked to the evolution of feudal society. Readers interested in the intersection of medieval social history and linguistic analysis may find this examination of feudal terminology relevant to their research.