Leftward Stylistic Displacement (LSD) in medieval French * Un coup de dés jamais n’abolira le hasard (Mallarmé, 1897) ‘A throw of the dice never will abolish chance’ (transl. Basil Cleveland) Marie Labelle, UQAM Paul Hirschbühler, Université d’Ottawa 1. Leftward Stylistic Displacement (LSD) Medieval French is generally considered an asymmetric V2 language, with V2 in main clauses and SVO in embedded clauses, except for a small list of complements which may be V2 (e.g. complements of bridge verbs). But in embedded clauses, some element (non-finite verb, adverb, adjective, XP) may appear to the left of the fronted verb, as in (1)-(2). A similar word order pattern has been identified in other Medieval and Modern Romance languages (Benincà, 2006; Cardinaletti 2003; Egerland, 2011; Fischer, 2010, 2014; Fischer and Alexiadou, 2001; Fontana, 1993; Franco, 2009, 2012; Martins, 2005, 2011). (1) Qant levé furent del mangier. when risen were from-the eat ‘When they had finished eating’ [Le Chevalier de la Charrette 1043, in Mathieu 2006a: (7a)] (2) come cil font qui en queste doivent entrer like those do who in quest must enter ‘Like those who must start the quest do’ * We would like to thank Martin Elsig, Christine Meklenborg Salvesen and Beatrice Santorini for helpful comments and suggestions.