Old French
Old French | |
---|---|
Ancien Français | |
Franceis, François, Romanz | |
Pronunciation | |
Era | Evolved into Middle French by the mid-14th century |
Early forms | Old Latin
|
Language codes | |
ISO 639-2 | fro |
ISO 639-3 | fro |
Glottolog | oldf1239 |
Old French (franceis, françois, romanz; French: ancien français) was the language spoken in most of the northern half of France approximately between the late 8th[2] and the mid-14th century. Rather than a unified language, Old French was a linkage of Romance dialects, mutually intelligible yet diverse. These dialects came to be collectively known as the langues d'oïl, contrasting with the langues d'oc, the emerging Occitano-Romance languages of Occitania, now the south of France.
The mid-14th century witnessed the emergence of
, etc.), each with its linguistic features and history.The region where Old French was spoken natively roughly extended to the northern half of the
Areal and dialectal divisions
The
As part of the emerging
Dialects or variants of Old French include:
- Burgundian in Burgundy, then an independent duchy whose capital was at Dijon;
- Picard of Picardy and Romance Flanders, with Lille, Amiens and Arras as some of the more prominent cities. It was said that the Picard language began at the east door of Notre-Dame de Paris, so far-reaching was its influence. It would also spread northwards in the area of Boulogne-sur-Mer that had a strong presence of Old Dutch and Middle Dutch;[4]
- Old Norman, in Normandy, whose principal cities were Caen and Rouen. The Norman Conquest of England brought many Norman-speaking aristocrats into Britain. Most of the older Norman (sometimes called "French") words in English reflect its influence, which became a conduit for the introduction into the Anglo-Norman realm, as did Anglo-Norman control of Anjou and Gascony and other continental possessions. Anglo-Norman was a language that reflected a shared culture on both sides of the English Channel.[5] Ultimately, the language declined and fell, becoming Law French, a jargon spoken by lawyers that was used in English law until the reign of Charles II of England; however, Norman varieties still survive in Normandy and the Channel Islands as regional languages: Jèrriais, Guernésiais, Sercquiais, and Auregnais
- Walloon, around Namur, now in Wallonia, Belgium;
- Gallo of the Duchy of Brittany;
- Lorrain of the Duchy of Lorraine.
Some modern languages are derived from Old French dialects other than Classical French, which is based on the Île-de-France dialect. They include
History
Evolution and separation from Vulgar Latin
Beginning with Plautus' time (254–184 b.c.), one can see phonological changes between Classical Latin and what is called Vulgar Latin, the common spoken language of the Western Roman Empire. Vulgar Latin differed from Classical Latin in phonology and morphology as well as exhibiting lexical differences; however, they were mutually intelligible until the 7th century when Classical Latin 'died' as a daily spoken language, and had to be learned as a second language (though it was long thought of as the formal version of the spoken language).[6]: 109–115 Vulgar Latin was the ancestor of the Romance languages, including Old French.[7][8][9][10][11]
By the late 8th century, when the Carolingian Renaissance began, native speakers of Romance idioms continued to use Romance orthoepy rules while speaking and reading Latin. When the most prominent scholar of Western Europe at the time, English deacon Alcuin, was tasked by Charlemagne with improving the standards of Latin writing in France, not being a native Romance speaker himself, he prescribed a pronunciation based on a fairly literal interpretation of Latin spelling. For example, in a radical break from the traditional system, a word such as ⟨viridiarium⟩ 'orchard' now had to be read aloud precisely as it was spelled rather than */verdʒjær/ (later spelled as OF 'vergier').[12]
Such a radical change had the effect of rendering Latin
As there was now no unambiguous way to indicate whether a given text was to be read aloud as Latin or Romance, various attempts were made in France to devise a new orthography for the latter; among the earliest examples are parts of the Oaths of Strasbourg and the Sequence of Saint Eulalia.
Non-Latin influences
Gaulish
Some
Within historical phonology and studies of language contact, various phonological changes have been posited as caused by a Gaulish substrate, although there is some debate. One of these is considered certain, because this fact is clearly attested in the Gaulish-language epigraphy on the pottery found at la Graufesenque (A.D. 1st century). There, the Greek word paropsid-es (written in Latin)[clarification needed] appears as paraxsid-i.[16] The consonant clusters /ps/ and /pt/ shifted to /xs/ and /xt/, e.g. Lat capsa > *kaxsa > caisse (≠ Italian cassa) or captīvus > *kaxtivus > OF chaitif[16] (mod. chétif; cf. Irish cacht 'servant'; ≠ Italian cattiv-ità, Portuguese cativo, Spanish cautivo). This phonetic evolution is common in its later stages with the shift of the Latin cluster /kt/ in Old French (Lat factum > fait, ≠ Italian fatto, Portuguese feito, Spanish hecho; or lactem* > lait, ≠ Italian latte, Portuguese leite, Spanish leche). This means that both /pt/ and /kt/ must have first merged into /kt/ in the history of Old French, after which this /kt/ shifted to /xt/. In parallel, /ps/ and /ks/ merged into /ks/ before shifting to /xs/, apparently under Gaulish influence.
The
Frankish
The pronunciation, vocabulary, and syntax of the Vulgar Latin spoken in
The Old Frankish language had a definitive influence on the development of Old French, which partly explains why the earliest attested Old French documents are older than the earliest attestations in other Romance languages (e.g.
This Germanic language shaped the popular Latin spoken here and gave it a very distinctive identity compared to the other future Romance languages. The very first noticeable influence is the substitution of the Latin melodic accent with a Germanic stress
- L decimus, -a 'tenth' > OF disme > French dîme 'tithe' (> English dime; Italian decimo, Spanish diezmo)
- VL dignitate > OF deintié (> English dainty; Italian dignità, Romanian demnitate)
- VL catena > OF chaeine (> English chain; Italian catena, Cast./Occitan cadena, Portuguese cadeia)
Additionally, two phonemes that had long since died out in Vulgar Latin were reintroduced: [h] and [w] (> OF g(u)-, ONF w- cf. Picard w-):
- VL altu > OF halt 'high' (influenced by Old Low Frankish [OLF] *hōh ; ≠ Italian, Portuguese alto, Catalan alt, Old Occitan aut)
- L vespa > French guêpe, Picard wèpe, Wallon wèsse, all 'wasp' (influenced by OLF *wapsa; ≠ Occitan vèspa, Italian vespa, Spanish avispa)
- L viscus > French gui 'mistletoe' (influenced by OLF *wīhsila 'morello' with analogous fruits, when they are not ripe; ≠ Occitan vesc, Italian vischio)
- LL vulpiculu 'fox kit' (from L vulpes 'fox') > OLF golpilz, Picard woupil 'fox' (influenced by OLF *wulf 'wolf'; ≠ Occitan volpìlh, Old Italian volpiglio, Spanish vulpeja 'vixen')
In contrast, the Italian, Portuguese and Spanish words of Germanic origin borrowed from French or directly from Germanic retain /gw/ ~ /g/, e.g. It, Sp. guerra 'war', alongside /g/ in French guerre). These examples show a clear consequence of bilingualism, that sometimes even changed the first syllable of the Latin words. One example of a Latin word influencing an OLF loan is framboise 'raspberry', from OF frambeise, from OLF *brāmbesi 'blackberry' (cf. Dutch braambes, braambezie; akin to German Brombeere, English dial. bramberry) blended with LL fraga or OF fraie 'strawberry', which explains the replacement [b] > [f] and in turn the final -se of framboise added to OF fraie to make freise, modern fraise (≠ Wallon frève, Occitan fraga, Romanian fragă, Italian fragola, fravola 'strawberry').[28][i]
Earliest written Old French
The earliest documents said to be written in the Gallo-Romance that prefigures French – after the
Pro Deo amur et pro Christian poblo et nostro commun salvament, d'ist di en avant, in quant Deus savir et podir me dunat, si salvarai eo cist meon fradre Karlo, et in aiudha et in cadhuna cosa ...
(For the love of God and for the Christian people, and our common salvation, from this day forward, as God will give me the knowledge and the power, I will defend my brother Karlo with my help in everything ...)
The second-oldest document in Old French is the
The royal
Transition to Middle French
In the Late Middle Ages, the Old French dialects diverged into a number of distinct langues d'oïl, among which Middle French proper was the dialect of the Île-de-France region. During the
Literature
The material and cultural conditions in France and associated territories around the year 1100 triggered what Charles Homer Haskins termed the "Renaissance of the 12th century", resulting in a profusion of creative works in a variety of genres. Old French gave way to Middle French in the mid-14th century, paving the way for early French Renaissance literature of the 15th century.
The earliest extant French literary texts date from the ninth century, but very few texts before the 11th century have survived. The first literary works written in Old French were saints' lives. The Canticle of Saint Eulalie, written in the second half of the 9th century, is generally accepted as the first such text.
At the beginning of the 13th century,
A fourth grouping, not listed by Bertrand, is the Crusade cycle, dealing with the First Crusade and its immediate aftermath.
The most important romance of the 13th century is the
Medieval French
Lyric poets in Old French are called
By the late 13th century, the poetic tradition in France had begun to develop in ways that differed significantly from the troubadour poets, both in content and in the use of certain fixed forms. The new poetic (as well as musical: some of the earliest medieval music has lyrics composed in Old French by the earliest composers known by name) tendencies are apparent in the
Discussions about the origins of non-religious theater (théâtre profane) – both drama and farce—in the Middle Ages remain controversial, but the idea of a continuous popular tradition stemming from Latin comedy and tragedy to the 9th century seems unlikely.
Most historians place the origin of medieval drama in the church's liturgical dialogues and "tropes". Mystery plays were eventually transferred from the monastery church to the chapter house or refectory hall and finally to the open air, and the vernacular was substituted for Latin. In the 12th century one finds the earliest extant passages in French appearing as refrains inserted into liturgical dramas in Latin, such as a Saint Nicholas (patron saint of the student clercs) play and a Saint Stephen play. An early French dramatic play is Le Jeu d'Adam (c. 1150) written in octosyllabic rhymed couplets with Latin stage directions (implying that it was written by Latin-speaking clerics for a lay public).
A large body of
Among the earliest works of rhetoric and logic to appear in Old French were the translations of Rhetorica ad Herennium and Boethius' De topicis differentiis by John of Antioch in 1282.
In northern Italy, authors developed Franco-Italian, a mixed language of Old French and Venetian or Lombard used in literary works in the 13th and 14th centuries.
Phonology
Old French was constantly changing and evolving; however, the form in the late 12th century, as attested in a great deal of mostly poetic writings, can be considered standard. The writing system at this time was more phonetic than that used in most subsequent centuries. In particular, all written consonants (including final ones) were pronounced, except for s preceding non-
Consonants
Type | Labial | Dental | Palatal | Velar | Glottal |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Nasal | m | n
|
ɲ | ||
Plosive
|
p b | d
|
k ɡ | ||
Affricate
|
t͡s d͡z | t͡ʃ d͡ʒ | |||
Fricative
|
f v | s z | h | ||
Lateral | l
|
ʎ | |||
Trill | r
|
Notes:
- All word-final devoicing, which was usually indicated in the orthography.
- The affricates /ts/, /dz/, /tʃ/, /dʒ/ became fricatives ([s], [z], [ʃ], [ʒ]) in Middle French.
- /ts/ had three spellings – c before e or i, ç before other vowels, or z at the end of a word – as seen in cent, chançon, priz ("a hundred, song, price").
- /dz/ was written as z, as in doze "twelve", and only occurred in the middle of the word.
- /ʎ/ (l mouillé), as in conseil, travaillier ("advice, to work"), became /j/ in Modern French.
- /ɲ/ appeared not only in the middle of a word, but also at the end, as in poing "fist". At the end of a word, /ɲ/ was later lost, leaving a nasalized vowel.
- /h/ was found only in Germanic loanwords or words influenced by Germanic (cf. haut, hurler). It was later lost as a consonant, though it was transphonologized as the so-called aspirated h that blocks liaison. In native Latin words, /h/ had been lost early on, as in om, uem, from Lat homō.
- Intervocalic /d/ from both Latin /t/ and /d/ was lenited to [ð] in the early period (cf. contemporary Spanish: amado [aˈmaðo]). At the end of words, it was also devoiced to [θ]. In some texts it was sometimes written as dh or th (aiudha, cadhuna, Ludher, vithe). By 1100 it disappeared altogether.[34]
Vowels
In Old French, the nasal vowels were not separate phonemes but only
Monophthongs
Type | Front | Central | Back | |
---|---|---|---|---|
Close | oral | i y | u | |
nasal | ĩ ỹ | |||
Close-mid | oral | e | ə | |
nasal | ẽ | õ | ||
Open-mid | ɛ | ɔ | ||
Open | oral | a | ||
nasal | ã |
Notes:
- /o/ had formerly existed but then closed to /u/; the original Western Romance /u/ having previously been fronted to /y/ across most of what is now France and northern Italy.
- /o/ would later appear again when /aw/ monophthongizedand also when /ɔ/ closed in certain positions (such as when it was followed by original /s/ or /z/ but not by /ts/, which later became /s/).
- /õ/ may have similarly become closed to /ũ/, in at least in some dialects, since it was borrowed into Middle English as /uːn/ > /aʊn/ (Lat computāre > OF conter > English count; Lat rotundum > OF ront > English round; Lat bonitātem > OF bonté > English bounty). In any case, traces of such a change were erased in later stages of French, when the close nasal vowels /ĩ ỹ õ~ũ/ were opened to become /ɛ̃ œ̃ ɔ̃/.
- /o/ would later appear again when /aw/
- /ə̃/ may have existed in the unstressed third-person plural verb ending -ent, but it may have already passed to /ə/, which is known to have happened no later than the Middle French period.
Diphthongs and triphthongs
Type | IPA | Example | Meaning |
---|---|---|---|
falling | |||
Oral
|
/aw/ | chevaus | horse |
/ɔj/ | toit | roof | |
/ɔw/ | coup | blow, hit | |
/ew/ ~ /øw/ | cieus | heavens | |
/iw/ ~ /iɥ/ | tiule | tile | |
Nasal | /ẽj/ | plein | full |
/õj/ | loing | far | |
rising | |||
Oral
|
/je/ | pié | foot |
/ɥi/ | fruit | fruit | |
/we/ ~ /wø/ | cuer | heart | |
Nasal | /jẽ/ | bien | well |
/ɥĩ/ | juin | June | |
/wẽ/ | cuens | count (nom. sg.) | |
triphthongs stress always falls on middle vowel | |||
Oral
|
/e̯aw/ | beaus | beautiful |
/jew/ | Dieu | God | |
/wew/ ~ /wøw/ | jueu | Jew |
Notes:
- In Early Old French (up to about the mid-12th century), the spelling ⟨ai⟩ represented a diphthong /aj/ instead of the later monophthong /ɛ/,[35] and ⟨ei⟩ represented the diphthong /ej/, which merged with /oj/ in Late Old French (except when it was nasalized).
- In Early Old French, the diphthongs described above as "rising" may have been falling diphthongs (/ie̯/, /yj/, /ue̯/). In earlier works with vowel assonance, the diphthong written ⟨ie⟩ did not assonate with any pure vowels, which suggests that it cannot have simply been /je/.
- The pronunciation of the vowels written ⟨ue⟩ and ⟨eu⟩ is debated. In the first records of Early Old French, they represented and were written as /uo/, /ou/, and by Middle French, they had both merged as /ø ~ œ/, but the transitional pronunciations are unclear.
- Early Old French had additional triphthongs /iej/ and /uoj/ (equivalent to diphthongs followed by /j/); these soon merged into /i/ and /ɥi/ respectively.
- The diphthong ⟨iu⟩ was rare and had merged into ⟨ui⟩ by Middle French (OF tiule > ModF tuile 'tile'; OF siure > Late OF suire > ModF suivre 'follow').
Hiatus
In addition to diphthongs, Old French had many instances of
- Lat audīre > OF oïr /uˈir/ 'hear' (ModF ouïr)
- VL *vidūta > OF veüe /vəˈy.ə/ 'seen' (ModF vue)
- Lat rēgīnam > OF reïne, /rəˈinə/ 'queen' (ModF reine)
- Lat pāgēnsem > OF païs /paˈis/ 'country' (ModF pays)
- Lat augustum > OF aoust /aˈu(s)t/ 'August' (ModF août)
- Lat patellam > OF paelle /paˈɛlə/ 'pan' (ModF poêle)
- LL quaternum > OF quaïer /kwaˈjer/ 'booklet, quire' (ModF cahier)
- LL aetāticum > OF aage, eage /aˈad͡ʒə/ ~ /əˈad͡ʒə/ 'age' (ModF âge)
Sample text
Presented below is the first
Text | Transcription | Translation |
---|---|---|
Charles li reis, nostre emperedre magnes, |
ˈt͡ʃarləs li ˈre͜is, ˈnɔstr‿empəˈræðrə ˈmaɲəs |
Charles the king, our great emperor, |
Grammar
Nouns
Old French maintained a two-case system, with a
Number | Latin | Early Proto-GR | Old French | |
---|---|---|---|---|
Singular | nominative | ille vīcīnus | *[li βeˈdzʲinos] | li veisins |
oblique (Latin accusative) |
illum vīcīnum | *[lo βeˈdzʲino] | le veisin | |
Plural | nominative | illī vīcīnī | *[li βeˈdzʲini] | li veisin |
oblique (Latin accusative) |
illōs vīcīnōs | *[los βeˈdzʲinos] | les veisins |
In later Old French, the distinctions had become moribund. As in most other Romance languages, it was the oblique case form that usually survived to become the Modern French form: l'enfant "the child" represents the old oblique (Latin accusative īnfantem); the OF nominative was li enfes (Lat īnfāns). There are some cases with significant differences between nominative and oblique forms (derived from Latin nouns with a stress shift between the nominative and other cases) in which either it is the nominative form that survives or both forms survive with different meanings:
- Both OF li sire, le sieur (Lat seiior, seiiōrem) and le seignor (nom. †sendre;[iii] Lat senior, seniōrem) survive in the vocabulary of later French (sire, sieur, seigneur) as different ways to refer to a feudal lord.
- ModF sœur "sister" is the nominative form (OF suer < Latin nominative soror); the OF oblique form seror (< Latin accusative sorōrem) no longer survives.
- ModF prêtre "priest" is the nominative form (OF prestre < presbyter); the OF oblique form prevoire, later provoire (< presbyterem) survives only in the Paris street name Rue des Prouvaires.
- ModF indefinite pronoun on "one" continues Old French nominative hom "man" (< homō); homme "man" continues the oblique form (OF home < hominem).
In a few cases in which the only distinction between forms was the nominative -s ending, the -s was preserved. An example is fils "son" (< Latin nominative fīlius). The fact that the -s in the word is still pronounced today is irregular, but has to do with the later developments, namely the Middle French and Early Modern French system of pausal pronunciations.
As in Spanish and Italian, the neuter gender was eliminated, and most old neuter nouns became masculine. Some Latin neuter plurals (which ended in -a) were reanalysed as feminine singulars: Lat gaudium was more widely used in the plural form gaudia, which was taken for a singular in Vulgar Latin and ultimately led to ModF la joie, "joy" (feminine singular).
Nouns were declined in the following declensions:
Number | Class I (feminine) | Class II (masculine) | |||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Class I normal | Class Ia | Class II normal | Class IIa | ||||
meaning | "woman" | "thing" | "city" | "neighbor" | "servant" | "father" | |
sg. | nominative | la fame | la riens | la citez | li veisins | li sergenz | li pere |
oblique | la rien | la cité | le veisin | le sergent | le pere | ||
pl. | nominative | les fames | les riens | les citez | li veisin | li sergent | li pere |
oblique | les veisins | les sergenz | les peres |
Numbers | Class III (both) | ||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Class IIIa | Class IIIb | Class IIIc | Class IIId | ||||||
meaning | "singer" | "baron" | "nun" | "sister" | "child" | "priest" | "lord" | "count" | |
sg. | nominative | li chantere | li ber | la none | la suer | li enfes | li prestre | li sire | li cuens |
oblique | le chanteor | le baron | la nonain | la seror | l'enfant | le prevoire | le sieur | le conte | |
pl. | nominative | li chanteor | li baron | les nones | les serors | li enfant | li prevoire | li sieur | li conte |
oblique | les chanteors | les barons | les nonains | les enfanz | les prevoires | les sieurs | les contes |
Class I is derived from the Latin first declension. Class Ia mostly comes from Latin feminine nouns in the third declension. Class II is derived from the Latin second declension. Class IIa generally stems from second-declension nouns ending in -er and from third-declension masculine nouns; in both cases, the Latin nominative singular did not end in -s, which is preserved in Old French.
The classes show various analogical developments: Class I nominative plural -es from the accusative instead of -∅ (-e after a consonant cluster) in Class I nominative plural (Lat -ae, although there is evidence to suggest this analogy had already occurred in VL), li pere instead of *li peres (Lat illi patres) in Class IIa nominative plural, modelled on Class II, etc.
Class III nouns show a separate stem in the nominative singular that does not occur in any of the other forms:
- IIIa nouns are agent nouns which ended in -ātor, -ātōrem in Latin and preserve the stress shift.
- IIIb nouns also had a stress shift, from -ō to -ōnem (although several IIIb nouns actually continue Frankish weak nouns with a similar inflection: Frankish *barō ~ *baran becomes OF ber ~ baron).
- IIIc nouns are an Old French creation and have no clear Latin antecedent.
- IIId nouns represent various other third-declension Latin nouns with stress shift or a change of consonant (soror, sorōrem; īnfāns, īnfāntem; presbyter, presbyterem; seiior, seiiōrem; comes, comitem).
Regular feminine forms of masculine nouns are formed by adding an -e to the masculine stem (unless the masculine stem already ends in -e). For example, bergier (shepherd) becomes bergiere (ModF berger and bergère).
Adjectives
Adjectives agree in terms of number, gender and case with the noun that they are qualifying. Thus, a feminine plural noun in the nominative case requires any qualifying adjectives to be feminine, plural and nominative. For example, in femes riches, riche has to be in the feminine plural form.
Adjectives can be divided into three declensional classes:[39]
- Class I corresponding roughly to Latin 1st- and 2nd-declension adjectives
- Class II corresponding roughly to Latin 3rd-declension adjectives
- Class III containing primarily the descendants of Latin synthetic comparative forms in -ior, -iōrem.
Class I adjectives have a feminine singular form (nominative and oblique) ending in -e. They can be further subdivided into two subclasses, based on the masculine nominative singular form. Class Ia adjectives have a masculine nominative singular ending in -s:
Masculine Feminine Neuter Case Singular Plural Singular Plural Singular Nominative bons bon bone bones bon Oblique bon bons —
For Class Ib adjectives, the masculine nominative singular ends in -e, like the feminine. There are descendants of Latin second- and third-declension adjectives ending in -er in the nominative singular:
Masculine Feminine Neuter Case Singular Plural Singular Plural Singular Nominative aspre aspre aspre aspres aspre Oblique aspres —
For Class II adjectives, the feminine singular is not marked by the ending -e:
Masculine Feminine Neuter Case Singular Plural Singular Plural Singular Nominative granz grant granz/grant granz grant Oblique grant granz grant —
An important subgroup of Class II adjectives is the present participial forms in -ant.
Class III adjectives have a stem alternation, resulting from stress shift in the Latin third declension and a distinct neuter form:
Masculine Feminine Neuter Case Singular Plural Singular Plural Singular Nominative mieudre(s) meillor mieudre meillors mieuz Oblique meillor meillors meillor —
In later Old French, Classes II and III tended to be moved across to Class I, which was complete by Middle French. Modern French thus has only a single adjective declension, unlike most other Romance languages, which have two or more.
Verbs
Verbs in Old French show the same extreme phonological deformations as other Old French words; however, morphologically, Old French verbs are extremely conservative in preserving intact most of the Latin alternations and irregularities that had been inherited in
For example, the OF verb laver "to wash" (Lat lavāre) is conjugated je lef, tu leves, il leve in the
- The alternation je lef ~ tu leves is a regular result of the final devoicingtriggered by loss of final /o/ but not /a/.
- The alternation laver ~ tu leves is a regular result of the diphthongization of a stressed open syllable/a/ into /ae/ > /æ/ > /e/.
- The alternation je lef ~ tu les ~ il let in the subjunctive is a regular result of the simplification of the final clusters /fs/ and /ft/, resulting from loss of /e/ in final syllables.
Modern French, on the other hand, has je lave, tu laves, il lave in both indicative and subjunctive, reflecting significant analogical developments: analogical borrowing of unstressed vowel /a/, analogical -e in the first singular (from verbs like j'entre, with a regular -e ) and wholesale replacement of the subjunctive with forms modelled on -ir/-oir/-re verbs. All serve to eliminate the various alternations in the OF verb paradigm. Even modern "irregular" verbs are not immune from analogy: For example, OF je vif, tu vis, il vit (vivre "to live") has yielded to modern je vis, tu vis, il vit, eliminating the unpredictable -f in the first-person singular.
The simple past also shows extensive analogical reformation and simplification in Modern French, as compared with Old French.
The Latin pluperfect was preserved in very early Old French as a past tense with a value similar to a preterite or imperfect. For example, the Sequence of Saint Eulalia (878 AD) has past-tense forms such as avret (< Lat habuerat), voldret (< Lat voluerat), alternating with past-tense forms from the Latin perfect (continued as the modern "simple past"). Old Occitan also preserved this tense, with a conditional value; Spanish still preserves this tense (the -ra imperfect subjunctive), as does Portuguese (in its original value as a pluperfect indicative).
Verb alternations
In Latin, stress was determined automatically by the number of syllables in a word and the weight (length) of the syllables. That resulted in certain automatic stress shifts between related forms in a paradigm, depending on the nature of the suffixes added. For example, in pensō "I think", the first syllable was stressed, but in pensāmus "we think", the second syllable was stressed. In many Romance languages, vowels diphthongized in stressed syllables under certain circumstances but not in unstressed syllables, resulting in alternations in verb paradigms: Spanish pienso "I think" vs. pensamos "we think" (pensar "to think"), or cuento "I tell" vs. contamos "we tell" (contar "to tell").
In the development of French, at least five vowels diphthongized in stressed,
The different types are as follows:
Vowel alternation | Environment | Example (-er conjugation) | Example (other conjugation) | |||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Stressed | Unstressed | Latin etymon | 3rd singular pres. ind. |
Infinitive | meaning | Latin etymon | 3rd singular pres. ind. |
Infinitive / Other form |
meaning | |
/e/ | /a/ | free /a/ | lavāre | leve | laver | "to wash" | parere > *parīre |
pert | parir | "to give birth" |
/ãj̃/ | /ã/ | free /a/ + nasal | amāre | aime | amer | "to love" | manēre | maint | maneir, manoir | "to remain" |
/je/ | /e/ | palatal + free /a/ | *accapāre | achieve | achever | "to achieve" | ||||
/i/ | /e/ | palatal + /a/ + palatal | *concacāre | conchie | concheer | "to expel" | iacēre | gist | gesir | "to lie (down)" |
/a/ | /e/ | palatal + blocked /a/ | *accapitāre | achate | acheter | "to buy" | cadere > *cadēre |
chiet | cheoir | "to fall" |
/a/ | /e/ | intertonic /a/ + palatal? | *tripaliāre | travaille | traveillier | "to torment, make suffer" | ||||
/je/ | /e/ | free /ɛ/ | levāre | lieve | lever | "to raise" | sedēre | siet | seeir, seoir | "to sit; suit, be fitting" |
/jẽ/ | /ẽ/ | free /ɛ/ + nasal | tremere > *cremere |
crient | creindre (var. cremir, -oir) | "to fear" | ||||
/i/ | /ej/ | /ɛ/ + palatal | pretiāre | prise | preiser | "to value" | exīre | ist | eissir | "to exit, go out" |
/ɛ/ | /e/ | intertonic /ɛ, e/ + double cons. | appellāre | apele | apeler | "to call" | ||||
/oj/ | /e/ | free /e/ | adhaerāre > *adēsāre |
adoise | adeser | "to touch" | ||||
/ẽj̃/ | /ẽ/ | free /e/ + nasal | mināre | meine | mener | "to lead" | ||||
/i/ | /e/ | palatal + free /e/ | ||||||||
/oj/ | /i/ | intertonic /e/ + palatal | – | charroie | charrier | "to cart around" | ||||
/we/ | /u/ | free /ɔ/ | *tropāre | trueve | truver | "to invent, discover" | morī > *morīre |
muert | mourir | "to die" |
/uj/ | /oj/ | /ɔ/ + palatal | *appodiāre | apuie | apoiier | "to lean" | ||||
/ew/ | /u/ | free /o/ | dēmōrārī | demeure | demo(u)rer | "to stay" | cōnsuere > *cōsere |
queust | co(u)sdre | "to sew" |
/u/ | /e/ | intertonic blocked /o/ | *corruptiāre | courouce | courecier | "to get angry" | ||||
/ũ/ | /ã/ | intertonic blocked /o/ + nasal | calumniārī | chalonge | chalengier | "to challenge" |
In Modern French, the verbs in the -er class have been systematically levelled. Generally, the "weak" (unstressed) form predominates, but there are some exceptions (such as modern aimer/nous aimons). The only remaining alternations are in verbs like acheter/j'achète and jeter/je jette, with unstressed /ə/ alternating with stressed /ɛ/ and in (largely-learned) verbs like adhérer/j'adhère, with unstressed /e/ alternating with stressed /ɛ/. Many of the non-er verbs have become obsolete, and many of the remaining verbs have been levelled; however, a few alternations remain in what are now known as
Some verbs had a more irregular alternation between different-length stems, with a longer, stressed stem alternating with a shorter, unstressed stem. That was a regular development stemming from the loss of unstressed intertonic vowels, which remained when they were stressed:
- j'aiu/aidier "help" < adiūtō, adiūtāre
- j'araison/araisnier "speak to" < adratiōnō, adratiōnāre
- je deraison/deraisnier "argue" < dēratiōnō, dēratiōnāre
- je desjun/disner "dine" < disiēiūnō, disiēiūnāre
- je manju/mangier "eat" < mandūcō, mandūcāre
- je parol/parler "speak" < *paraulō, *paraulāre < parabolō, parabolāre
The alternation of je desjun, disner is particularly complicated; it appears that:
inf | 1sg.ind.pres | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Latin | disiēiūnāre | /disjeːjuːˈnaːre/ | disiēiūnō | /disjeːˈjuːnoː/ | |
Western Romance | Triphthong reduction | disīūnāre | /disiːuːˈnaːre/ | disīūnō | /disiːˈuːnoː/ |
Loss of phonemic length | disjunare | /disjuˈnare/ | disjuno | /disˈjuno/ | |
Syncopation | disinare | /disiˈnaːre/ | – | ||
Change in quality and metaphony | disinare | /disiˈnarɛ/ | desjuno | /desˈjuno/ | |
Gallo-Romance | Lenition | dizinare | /diziˈnarɛ/ | – | |
Further syncopation | diznare | /dizˈnarɛ/ | – | ||
Old French | Further syncopation | disnar | /dizˈnar/ | desjun | /desˈjun/ |
Diphthongization | disner | /disˈnɛr/ | – | ||
Fortition | – | desjun | /desˈdʒun/ | ||
Devoicing | disner | /disˈnɛr/ | – | ||
Allophonic nasalization | – | desjun | /desˈdʒũn/ | ||
Fronting | – | desjun | /desˈdʒỹn/ | ||
Compensatory lengthening | disner | /diːˈnɛr/ | desjun | /deːˈdʒỹn/ |
Both stems have become full verbs in Modern French: déjeuner "to have lunch" and dîner "to dine". Furthermore, déjeuner does not derive directly from je desjun (< *disi(ēi)ūnō, with total loss of unstressed -ēi-). Instead, it comes from OF desjeüner, based on the alternative form je desjeün (< *disiē(i)ūnō, with loss of only -i-, likely influenced by jeûner "to fast" < OF jeüner < je jeün /d͡ʒe.ˈyn/ "I fast" < iē(i)ūnō: iē- is an initial rather than intertonic so the vowel -ē- does not disappear).
Example of regular -er verb: durer (to last)
Indicative | Subjunctive | Conditional | Imperative | |||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Present | Simple past | Imperfect | Future | Present | Imperfect | Present | Present | |
je | dur | durai | duroie | durerai | dur | durasse | dureroie | — |
tu | dures | duras | durois | dureras | durs | durasses | durerois | dure |
il | dure | dura | duroit | durera | durt | durast | dureroit | — |
nos | durons | durames | duriiens/-ïons | durerons | durons | durissons/-issiens | dureriions/-ïons | durons |
vos | durez | durastes | duriiez | dureroiz/-ez | durez | durissoiz/-issez/-issiez | dureriiez/-ïez | durez |
ils | durent | durerent | duroient | dureront | durent | durassent | dureroient | — |
Non-finite forms:
- Infinitive: durer
- Present participle: durant
- Past Participle: duré
Auxiliary verb: avoir
Example of regular -ir verb: fenir (to end)
Indicative | Subjunctive | Conditional | Imperative | |||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Present | Simple past | Imperfect | Future | Present | Imperfect | Present | Present | |
je | fenis | feni | fenissoie | fenirai | fenisse | fenisse | feniroie | — |
tu | fenis | fenis | fenissoies | feniras | fenisses | fenisses | fenirois | fenis |
il | fenist | feni(t) | fenissoit | fenira | fenisse(t) | fenist | feniroit | — |
nos | fenissons | fenimes | fenissiiens | fenirons | fenissons | fenissons/-iens | feniriiens | fenissons |
vos | fenissez | fenistes | fenissiiez | feniroiz/-ez | fenissez | fenissoiz/-ez/-iez | feniriiez | fenissez |
ils | fenissent | fenirent | fenissoient | feniront | fenissent | fenissent | feniroient | — |
Non-finite forms:
- Infinitive: fenir
- Present participle: fenissant
- Past participle: feni(t)
Auxiliary verb: avoir
Example of regular -re verb: corre (to run)
Indicative | Subjunctive | Conditional | Imperative | |||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Present | Simple past | Imperfect | Future | Present | Imperfect | Present | Present | |
je | cor | corui | coroie | corrai | core | corusse | corroie | — |
tu | cors | corus | coroies | corras | cores | corusses | corroies | cor |
il | cort | coru(t) | coroit | corra | core(t) | corust | corroit | — |
nos | corons | corumes | coriiens | corrons | corons | corussons/-iens | corriiens | corons |
vos | corez | corustes | coriiez | corroiz/-ez | corez | corussoiz/-ez/-iez | corriiez | corez |
ils | corent | corurent | coroient | corront | corent | corussent | corroient | — |
Non-finite forms:
- Infinitive: corre
- Present participle: corant
- Past participle: coru(t)
Auxiliary verb: estre
Examples of auxiliary verbs
avoir (to have)
Indicative | Subjunctive | Conditional | Imperative | |||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Present | Simple past | Imperfect | Future | Present | Imperfect | Present | Present | |
je | ai | eüi, oi | avoie | aurai | ai | eüsse | auroie | — |
tu | ais (later as) |
eüs | avois | auras | ais | eüsses | aurois | ave |
il | ai (later a) |
eü(t), ot | avoit | aura | ai | eüst | auroit | — |
nos | avons | eümes | aviiens/-ïons | aurons | aions | eüssons/-issiens | auravons/-ïons | avons |
vos | avez | eüstes | aviiez | auroiz/-ez | aiez | eüssoiz/-issez/-issiez | auravez/-ïez | avez |
ils | ont | eürent | avoient | auront | ont | eüssent | auroient | — |
Non-finite forms:
Auxiliary verb: avoir
estre (to be)
Indicative | Subjunctive | Conditional | Imperative | |||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Present | Simple past | Imperfect | Future | Present | Imperfect | Present | Present | |
je | suis | fui | (i)ere esteie > estoie |
(i)er serai estrai |
seie > soie | fusse | sereie > seroie estreie > estroie |
— |
tu | (i)es | fus | (i)eres esteies > estoies |
(i)ers seras estras |
seies > soies | fusses | sereies > seroies estreies > estroies |
seies > soies |
il | est | fu(t) | (i)ere(t), (i)ert esteit > estoit |
(i)ert sera(t) estra(t) |
seit > soit | fust | sereit > seroit estreit > estroit |
— |
nos | somes, esmes | fumes | eriiens, erions estiiens, estions |
(i)ermes serons estrons |
seiiens, seions > soiiens, soions | fussons/-iens | seriiens, serions estriiens, estrions |
seiiens > soiiens, seions > soions |
vos | estes | fustes | eriiez estiiez |
— sere(i)z estre(i)z |
seiiez > soiiez | fusseiz/-ez/-iez | seriiez estriiez |
seiiez > soiiez |
ils | sont | furent | (i)erent esteient > estoient |
(i)erent seront estront |
seient > soient | fussent | sereient > seroient estreient > estroient |
— |
Non-finite forms:
- Infinitive: estre
- Present participle: estant
- Past participle: esté(t)
Auxiliary verb: avoir
Other parts of speech
Adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions and interjections are generally invariable. Pronouns are usually declinable.
See also
Explanatory notes
- ^ Portuguese framboesa 'raspberry' and Spanish frambuesa are French loans.
- ^ Phonetic evolution approximately as follows: CL ⟨vicinus⟩ [wiːˈkiːnus] > VL [βeˈcinʊs][38] > early Proto-GR *[βeˈdzʲinos] > OF ⟨veisins⟩ [vejˈzĩns]. The ModF counterpart is ⟨voisin⟩ [vwaˈzɛ̃].
- ^ The OF nominative sendre, inherited from Latin senior, appears only in the Oaths of Strasbourg, spelled sendra, before it became obsolete.
References
Citations
- ^ Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin; Bank, Sebastian (2022-05-24). "Oil". Glottolog. Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. Archived from the original on 2022-10-08. Retrieved 2022-10-07.
- ISBN 978-1-136-90328-1. [2-4; we might wonder whether there's a point at which it's appropriate to talk of the beginnings of French, that is, when it was deemed no longer make to think of the varieties spoken in Gaul as Latin. Although a precise date can't be given, there is a general consensus (see Wright 1982, 1991, Lodge 1993) that an awareness of a vernacular, distinct from Latin, emerged at the end of the eighth century.]
- ^ Kinoshita 2006, p. 3.
- ^ Milis (1978)
- ^ Lusignan, Serge (2004). La langue des rois au Moyen Âge: Le français en France et en Angleterre [The language of kings in the Middle Ages: French in France and England] (in French). Paris: Presses Universitaires de France.
- ISBN 0-271-02000-8.
- ^ "Brill Online Dictionaries". Iedo.brillonline.nl. Archived from the original on 2013-06-17. Retrieved 2013-06-16.
- ^ "Romance languages". Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved 2013-06-16.
- ISBN 9781884964985. Retrieved 2013-06-16.
- ^ "Definition of Italic". Oxford Dictionaries. Archived from the original on February 23, 2011. Retrieved 2013-06-16.
- ^ "Definition of Romance". Oxford Dictionaries. Archived from the original on April 26, 2011. Retrieved 2013-06-16.
- ^ Wright (1982), pp. 104–7
- ^ Wright (1982), pp. 118–20
- ^ Xavier, Delamarre (2003). Dictionnaire de la langue gauloise [Dictionary of the Gallic language] (in French). Paris: Errance.
- ^ Delamarre (2003, pp. 389–90) lists 167
- ^ ISBN 978-2-87772-224-7.
- ISBN 978-2-7298-6470-5.
Le déclin du Gaulois et sa disparition ne s'expliquent pas seulement par des pratiques culturelles spécifiques: Lorsque les Romains conduits par César envahirent la Gaule, au 1er siecle avant J.-C., celle-ci romanisa de manière progressive et profonde. Pendant près de 500 ans, la fameuse période gallo-romaine, le gaulois et le latin parlé coexistèrent; au VIe siècle encore; le temoignage de Grégoire de Tours atteste la survivance de la langue gauloise.
- ^ Peter Schrijver, Studies in the History of Celtic Pronouns and Particles, Maynooth, 1997, 15.
- ^ a b Savignac, Jean-Paul (2004). Dictionnaire Français-Gaulois. Paris: La Différence. p. 26.
- ^ Henri Guiter, "Sur le substrat gaulois dans la Romania", in Munus amicitae. Studia linguistica in honorem Witoldi Manczak septuagenarii, eds., Anna Bochnakowa & Stanislan Widlak, Krakow, 1995.
- ^ Eugeen Roegiest, Vers les sources des langues romanes: Un itinéraire linguistique à travers la Romania (Leuven, Belgium: Acco, 2006), 83.
- ^ Matasovic, Ranko (2007). "Insular Celtic as a Language Area". Papers from the Workship within the Framework of the XIII International Congress of Celtic Studies: 106.
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- ^ Bernard Cerquiglini, La naissance du français, Presses Universitaires de France, 2nd edn., chap. 3, 1993, p. 53.
- ^ Cerquiglini 53
- ^ Cerquiglini 26.
- ^ "Etymology of frambuesa (Spanish)". Buscon.rae.es. Retrieved 2013-06-16.
- ISBN 9780719001765. Retrieved 15 March 2023.
- ISBN 978-2-253-05341-5
- ^ (in French) Antoine Adam, Georges Lerminier, and Édouard Morot-Sir, eds. Littérature française. "Tome 1: Des origines à la fin du XVIIIe siècle", Paris: Larousse, 1967, p. 16.
- ^ (in French) Antoine Adam, Georges Lerminier, and Édouard Morot-Sir, eds. Littérature française. "Tome 1: Des origines à la fin du XVIIIe siècle", Paris: Larousse, 1967, p. 36-37.
- ^ Rickard 1989: 47–8, Laborderie 1994: § 2.2
- ^ Berthon, H. E.; Starkey, V. G. (1908). Tables synoptiques de phonologie de l'ancien français. Oxford Clarendon Press.
- ^ Zink (1999), p. 132
- ^ Per Hall (1946), converted from Americanist notation to IPA and with corrected word order at the beginning of line four.
- JSTOR 4172774.
- ^ Pope 1934: § 294
- ^ Moignet (1988, p. 26–31), Zink (1992, p. 39–48), de La Chaussée (1977, p. 39–44)
General sources
- Ayres-Bennett, Wendy (1995). A History of the French Language Through Texts. London/New York: Routledge.
- Banniard, Michel (1997). Du latin aux langues romanes. Paris: Nathan.
- Cole, William (2005). First and Otherwise Notable Editions of Old French Texts Printed from 1742 to 1874: A Bibliographical Catalogue of My Collection. Sitges: Cole & Contreras.
- de la Chaussée, François (1977). Initiation à la morphologie historique de l'ancien français. Paris: Klincksieck. ISBN 978-2-252-01922-1.
- Delamarre, X.; P.-Y. Lambert (2003). Dictionnaire de la langue gauloise : Une approche linguistique du vieux-celtique continental (2nd ed.). Paris: Errance. ISBN 978-2-87772-237-7.
- Einhorn, E. (1974). Old French: A Concise Handbook. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-20343-2.
- Grandgent, Charles Hall (1907). An introduction to Vulgar Latin. Boston: D.C. Heath & Co.
- Hall, Robert Anderson (October 1946). "Old French phonemes and orthography". Studies in Philology. Vol. 43, No. 4. 575–585. JSTOR 4172774.
- Kibler, William (1984). An Introduction to Old French. New York: Modern Language Association of America.
- Kinoshita, Sharon (2006). Medieval Boundaries: Rethinking Difference in Old French Literature. University of Pennsylvania Press.
- Laborderie, Noëlle (2009). Précis de Phonétique Historique. Paris: Armand Colin.
- Lanly, André (2002). Morphologie historique des verbes français. Paris: Champion. ISBN 978-2-7453-0822-1.
- Lodge, R. Anthony (1993). French: From Dialect to Standard. London/New York: Routledge.
- Milis, L. (1978). "La frontière linguistique dans le comté de Guînes: un problème historique et méthodologique". Actes du 101e Congrès nationale des sociétés savantes. Paris. Section d'histoire moderne et contemporaine (pages 249–262).
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) - Moignet, Gérard (1988). Grammaire de l'ancien français (2nd ed.). Paris: Klincksieck. ISBN 9782252015094.
- Pope, Mildred K. (1934). From Latin to Modern French with Especial Consideration of Anglo-Norman Phonology and Morphology. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
- Rickard, Peter (1989). A history of the French language. London: Unwin Hyman.
- Zink, Gaston (1999). Phonétique historique du français (6th ed.). Paris: PUF. ISBN 978-2-13-046471-6.
- Zink, Gaston (1992). Morphologie du français médiéval (2nd ed.). Paris: PUF. ISBN 978-2-13-044766-5.
External links
- An Introduction to Old French by François Frédéric Roget (1887)
- Old French Online by Brigitte L. M. Bauer and Jonathan Slocum, free online lessons at the Linguistics Research Center at the University of Texas at Austin
- Historical French Reader : medieval period by Paul Studer and E.G.R Waters (1924)
- DÉCT (Electronic Dictionary of Chretien de Troyes): complete lexicon and transcriptions of the five romances of this Old French author. University of Ottawa, Le Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS).
- Du Bellay, Joachim (1549). La Défense, et illustration de la langue française. Paris: Arnoul L'Angelier.