Percepción visual, inferencia y sueños en francés antiguo: il m’est avis que, avis li fu que

The present study is set within the framework of medieval French linguistics and historical pragmatics. It gives a semantic description of the evidential marker il m’est avis que, avis li fu que in Old French. Due to its etymological value, avis li fu que is related to visual perception and is an introducer of dreams in medieval French texts. The verbal locution estre avis is usually classified with the verbs of opinion. Il m’est avis que can mean ‘I see, as far as I see, it seems to me, I have the impression, I am convinced’, etc. The semantic value varies according to the context. In medieval French literary texts, dreams are introduced by the ritual formula il li fu avis que, which presents the dream as a reliable, real and true source of information. Medieval French texts treat the dream as a directly observed reality. The dream is external to the sleeper, has a supernatural origin and a transcendent meaning. The events of the dream correspond to reality. They are not pure fiction and are not imagined by the dreamer.