Re: "Roumant", or whatever it may be called. Part V

En réponse à Oskar Gudlaugsson <hr_oskar@...>:

>
> I don't know particularly well how French is formally taught (though
> I've
> had 5 years of formal teaching), but I've always considered there to be
> 4
> conjugations: -er (from L -are), -oir (from L -ére), -re (from L -ere),
> and -ir (from L -ire and seemingly also -ére). Ok, those are just my
> observations/conclusions - I've usually been too put off by French
> (that's
> what happens when you learn the langs at school!) to bother studying its
> history well.
>
In French, we learn that there are 3 groups: verbs in -er, verbs in -ir like
finir, and all the others.

> >- the auxiliaries stêre /stEr/: to be and avôre /a'vor/: to have,
> >- the verbs in -ôre (like pôre /por/: to be able to),
>
> stêre...no descendant of CL esse? Oh yes, that's true; French être is a
> descendant of CL stare as well, with stare and esse suppleting each
> other
> criss-cross in the conjugation. Correct? And BTW, why spelled with ê and
> not, say, ai? Would seem more etymological to me. But then, false
> etymology
> is also quite realistic, hehe ;)
>
Yes indeed! :) Stêre is indeed the result of a fusion between esse and stare.
Those two verbs have been fused so much (you'll see that when I post the
paradigm for it) that the result can be seen in the infinitive itself :) . As
for why it has been written with ê instead of ai, the reason seems to lie in a
kind of analogy with the other verbs which (with the exceptions of the ones like
volle) all end in "vowel + ^ + RE". As there is a very big interdiction in
written "Roumant" to write diphtongues with accents, ê seems to have been
retained over the more etymologically correct ai.

> >- the verbs whose infinitive is marked by doubling the last consonnant
> of
> the
> >radical + e (like volle /vOl/: to want),
>
> You're kidding!? Isn't that way arcane? I mean, wasn't that 'volére'
> back
> in VL? Does 'esse' exist at all in Roumant?
>
You're right indeed, but you're wrong in considering that "Roumant" "kept" the
CL forms (it was velle anyway). Rather the evolution of the VL volére (which is
in itself quite mysterious, but it's the same with for instance sapére which
gave savve: to know) led to the form volle /vOl/ through an evolution which
seems to have featured loss of final /r/ (why it did that with only some verbs
and not all of them is still researched...) and it's only a coincidence that the
CL form velle looks like the modern "Roumant" "volle" ("Roumant" spelling has
been standardized by scholars not very long ago -one century ago I think-. Those
scholars seemed to consider Latin othrography as a "superior" form of
orthography, so it may have triggered the use of double <ll> in volle, and of
double consonnants in all other verbs of the same kind, like savve. The fact
that it followed the rules of pronunciation already settled - like o->/O/ in
front of two consonnants - only helped it I think). Yet if the evolution of
verbs like volére and sapére had been normal, we should have forms like volôre
and savôre (like habére -> avôre). The reason why they didn't follow a normal
evolution (and why avôre, irregular verb as it is, didn't become avve) is still
a point of research by linguists. There are only a few verbs with this pattern,
but they are very much used and their conjugations follow quite the same
pattern. Maybe it's an effect of group (like the fact that English modal verbs
like can, may, shall come from plain normal verbs - and are plain normal - even
if irregular - verbs in other Germanic languages - but in English have had quite
a different evolution in their use, like the loss of an infinitive and
participles).

> >- 1st group verbs: -e, -as, -at, -ams, -és, -am
> >- 2nd group verbs: -e, -es, -et, -ems, -és, -em
> >- 3rd group verbs: -ie, -ies, -iet, -issims, -issés, -issim
>
> Shudder. That orthography continues to give me the creeps! ;)
>
:)) Yet if you looked the paradigms, you should have seen some patterns :) .

> >The indicative imperfect:
> >It's also formed from the radical to which special endings are added:
> >- 1st group: -àv, -àvs, -àvt, -âvams, -âvés, -âvam
> >- 2nd group: -èv, -èvs, -èvt, -êvams, -êvés, -êvam
> >- 3rd group: -issìv, -issìvs, -issìvt, -issîvams, -issîvés, issîvam
>
> What's with the circonflexes anyway? In French they serve a dubious
> etymological role (with plenty of false appearances), but that doesn't
> seem
> to apply here...I think it's just me not remembering your pronunciation
> guide well enough. So I guess â actually has a different quality to á.
>
In fact, for the letters a, i and u, the rules of use of ^ and ` (grave) is
quite simple: they both serve to mark stress, but the grave accent can only be
used with the last written vowel of the word, while the circumflex is used
otherwise. It becomes more complicated when you see that stress is not always
regularly marked, that accents can be there only for etymological reason, and
that for the letters e and o, they also mark (and for those letters the acute '
can also be used) the quality of the vowel (that's to say /e/ or /E/ for e, and
/o/ or /O/ for o, with the complication for e that it can also mark /@/ when it
doesn't bear an accent, or when it's followed by one consonnant or none).

> >This formation is common to most Western Romance langs. Note that the
> verbs like
> >volle drop their -e and add an -r before the endings, so that the
> future
> radical
> >is for volle: vollr-. This tense is the most regular of all.
>
> That seems weird to me. Why no -t-, i.e. 'voltr-'? Hasn't separating
> liquids by stops always been a hallmark of Romance langs? I'm surprised
> by
> the regularity of Roumant conditional. Are there no, for example,
> weakenings of stem vowels by the final stress (as per French 'faire'
> > 'ferais')?
>
The weakening you're talking about happens regularly with the verbs in -êre:
comêre /ko'mEr/: to eat, comerè /kom@rE/: I will eat. As for "vollr-", it seems
to be a recent form made by analogy with savve (future /sa'vrE/ written
"savvrè"). Older texts had /vo'rE/ or /vu'drE/ generally. "Vollrè" seems to have
been first only a written form which became prononced as /vOlrE/ by
overcorrection (like in English "often" being more and more pronounced /Oftn=/).

> >The subjunctive future:
> >It is formed from the same base as the indicative future, to which are
> added the
> >endings of the verb avôre in subjunctive present (in fact the same
> endings
> as
> >the 1st and 2nd groups).
>
> Applause applause :) I forgot to mention above: the form 'avôre' strikes
> me. Did the ô develop from Latin é as in French é > ei > oi > wa (and
> then
> wa > o)? Or é > ei > oi > o? In short, what's with the ô!?
>
Indeed, one of the origins of the ô is the same that gave /wa/ <oi> (and /E/
written <ai>). I don't know the details of its evolution but it seems to be
quite parallel to the one of French until its form <oi> pronounced /oj/. There,
the glide seems to have disappeared. But again, "Roumant" needs a lot more
studying to know exactly how it derived from Latin. Also, ô seems to have other
origins, which blur all the picture.

> >The conditional present:
> >It is formed from the same base as the indicative future, to which are
> added the
> >endings of the verb avôre in the indicative imperfect:
> >- -èv, -èvs, -èvt, -êvams, -êvés, -êvam
>
> Oh joy, conjugations with ` ^ ´ interchanging :) What's the Roumant
> keyboard like? You're sincerely evil Cristophe, no need to deny it :)
>
In fact, only ` and ^ can interchange, as their role is identical, but in
different positions in the word. As for imperfects (and the conditional), the
only true evil thing is that 'v' in the singular persons which is never
pronounced, one of the irregularities of the "Roumant" orthography :) .

> >The past participle:
> >It's formed from the radical to which is added:
> >- 1st group: -àt
> >- 2nd group: -èt
> >- 3rd group: -ìt
> >It also can be used as an adjective, and also agrees in gender and
> number
> with
> >the noun it completes.
>
> Was there no lenition process in Roumant? Actually, I'm quite interested
> by
> now in establishing some equations between VL and Roumant. Perhaps
> you'll
> inform me.
>
Very difficult, I didn't make them. In fact, I would like to see some field
research to find out the derivations that led from VL to "Roumant" :)) . Also
another point about "Roumant" orthography: when the last letter of a word is a
consonnant, it is never pronounced, except in case of liaison with the following
word. This is kind of like in French, except that it's much more consistent (in
fact, it's one of the rare points in "Roumant" orthography which suffers no
exception).

> >It is also possible to form an infinitive perfect (avôre + past
> participle), a
> >perfect participle (eiyent + past participle) and a perfect gerund
> (eiyemmente +
> >past participle), but those forms are hardly ever used.
>
> The use of y for /j/ in Romance langs has always annoyed me. Especially
> in
> French. Not that I'm criticizing its use in Roumant; I choose to see
> Roumant orthography as a satire of the modern French one, an excellent
> joke
> really :)
>
I think it's one indeed, but not intentionnally made this way :)) .

> >the verbs not featuring the augment -i(ss) (for lack of a better name),
> the
>
> Is the same feature in French basically just an "augment"? Funny how a
> language like French could delete sounds and syllables to the point of
> having to reinforce them all back. Like the phrase 'qu'est que c'est?"
> so
> well illustrates.
>
:) Language is the field of battle between speed of speech and necessity for
understanding :) .

> >Right now I'm waiting for your comments on this part. If you want, I
> will
> post
> >more verbal paradigms, or I will go to other parts, like the
> prepositions,
> the
> >negation (a very interesting feature in "Roumant") and the numerals. Or
> I
> can do
>
> Negation sounds interesting to me. You could tell me BTW, about why
> 'non'
> doesn't feature as a negating adverb in French, but only 'ne', the
> archaic
> Indo-European word.
>
As I saw it already explained, "ne" in fact derives from Latin "non" in
unstressed position, while it became "non" /nO~/ in stressed position. In fact,
in Old French, both "ne" and "non" could be used to negate verbs. But when the
use of "helping words" for negation in French (like 'pas') became more
widespread, "non" lost this use and became confined in use for answer to a
question, like English 'no'.