Re: French (was: swallow vs. nighingale)

----- Original Message -----

From: Grzegorz Jagodzinski

To: cybalist@yahoogroups.com

Sent: Saturday, December 15, 2007 1:37 AM

Subject: [Courrier indésirable] [tied] French (was: swallow vs. nighingale)

> From: Grzegorz Jagodzinski
> To: cybalist@... s.com
> Sent: Wednesday, October 24, 2007 2:45 AM
> Subject: Re: [tied] swallow vs. nighingale

>> Instead, I notice that phonetic rules function really well on words
>> which fulfil two conditions: a) they have medium frequency, i.e. they
>> are not very rare and not very frequent, b) they are derivatives with
>> clear word-formation structure, and the phonological changes (to go)
>> would not destroy this structure. They may also act quite well when a
>> new phoneme arises or when a phoneme disappears from the language
>> system.

============ =
> A.F (old)
>> Look at French from LAtin, and you will know that phonetic changes do
>> not care what the structure of the words is.
> ============ =========
Grzegorz wrote :
You are simply wrong.

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A.F

Please avoid that kind of statements ad hominem

Focus on data and assertions.

=> look at Moderator's rules.

======================

Between Latin and French there were many phonetic
changes which were not regular. In particular, the development of frequently
used words (and morphemes) was irregular (and the structure of the word was
also important). Examples are great in number, and you should know many of
them if you are interested in the subject. I intend to prepare a webpage on
phonetic irregularities. Be patient. As for now, only several examples
especially for you:

1) most forms of e^tre and avoir are irregular due to frequence,

=======

A.F

I think about everything in être et avoir is regular or explainable easily.

If you think otherwise,

I would appreciate an example.

=============

2) aller < ambula:re, irregular due to frequence,

========

A.F

The origin of aller is -in my opinion - unclear.

Derivation from ambulare is one possibility,

More complex possibilities exist.

==================

3) parler < parabola:re, irregular due to frequence (also Old French parole
> modern parle is irregular),

=========

A.F

I disagree.

Greekish Parabolare first was borrowed as Latin parawlare hence late latin parolare.

Parler et parole are just stressed in two different places.

Nothing at all is irregular.

Old French had je/Tu/il parole(s) : nous parlons, vous parlez, ils parolent.

A mess...Tidied up as root parl- for everyone.

Morphological levelling is the name for this phenomenon.

=================

4) many forms of faire are irregular due to frequence (including faisons
with e muet on the place of <ai>),

===========

A.F

I disagree with the example.

First some people say F-ai-z-oN

I say F-ö-z-oN, which I suppose is more "standard".

ö (schwa) as the result of unstress a in fac- is expected,

===========

5) oie, oiseau, poe^le - all irregular (*a expected on the place of o, cf.
the protoforms: *avicam, *avicellum, patellam), we do not always know why
they are such,

===========

A.F

oie from auca not avica

auca > old French (before XII century) oue

then remade as oie because of the word oiseau.

 

oiseau from aucella

 

poele

Patell-a > pë-el > po-el (because of p) > pwel > pwal

ë is schwa

 

So what ? I see nothing strange.

Please explain what you mean.

Arnaud
===========
A very good example of irregular change which depended on the structure
is -e:ba:s > old French -eies (-b- lost due to frequence) > -oies > Modern
French -ais (ei > ai irregular). In words with another structure e: > oi >
ai cannot be observed at all.

=========

A.F

I think your -eies- and -oies- stand for -eis/t- and -ois/t-.

I doubt these morphemes can have an extra -e- before -s-.

 

The "Imparfait" morphemes show a large variety of forms in Old French.

The situation resulting from decayed Latin spoken by foreign gaulish mouths was a complete mess. It has nothing to do with frequence. The problem was "tidy up this damn morpheme mess" so that we can understand each other.

 

At the end of the XVIII century *ois was stil regular [we].

Modern French has [e] instead of the expected [wa].

You can explain this in two ways.

First, colloquial "bad" French at that time had [e] instead of upper-class [we].

Interference of socio-lects is frequent in French :

Colloquial chaise (sh-e-z-) instead of regular (upper-class) chaire : English chair.

the "suburbs" change -r- > -z- was thwarted in most words but chaise survived.

Second, many dialects display interference between Imparfait and Passé Simple,

hence [e] in the imparfait can be a "borrowing" from Passé simple : ai.

 

This example is not at all "very good".

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