Contre Vaugelas: Antoine Arnauld on good usage, reason and the perfection of French

Abstract

Antoine Arnauld was a polymath: a major theologian and leader of the seventeenth-century French Jansenists, he also contributed to linguistic theory as a co-author of the ‘Grammaire générale et raisonnée' (1660). Less is known about his role as a lexicographer and observer of linguistic usage. In the ‘Réflexions sur cette maxime Que l'usage est la Règle et le tyran des langues vivantes' (1707), Arnauld contributed to a discussion over good usage launched by Vaugelas with the ‘Remarques sur la langue françoise' (1647). This essay compares the positions of Arnauld and Vaugelas concerning sources of usage, the role of reason and the ways in which language changes and argues that Arnauld postulated the autonomy of the language from the political sphere. It shows that Arnauld challenged Vaugelas's definition of good usage while suggesting ways to preserve French in its perceived state of perfection.