Re: Ong Rokbeigalmki (A Rokbeigalmki Chant)

Don Blaheta wrote:
>
> Quoth Thomas R. Wier:
> > "From Http://Members.Aol.Com/Lassailly/Tunuframe.Html" wrote:
> > > 2nd pl. pers. of "aller" ("to go")
> > > je vais
> > > tu vas
> > > il/elle va
> > > nous allons
> > > vous allez
> > > ils/elles vont
> > > one french most regular verbs (future : "j'irai" etc.)
>
> Surely he meant "irregular".  This verb, along with jtre "be" and avoir
> "have", are among the most common and most irregular in French.
>
        It was a joke of course!

> > That looks to be an interesting example of suppletion
> > there.  Do you know anything about its origins?
>
> Larousse indicates that the all- forms (present tense allons and allez,
> infinitive aller, participle alli, and all the subjunctive and imperfect
> forms) derive from Latin *ambulare*, "to walk", while the va- forms
> (present tense vais, vas, va, and vont) are from *vadere* and the ir-
> forms (all future and conditionel forms) are from *ire*; both meaning
> "to go".  Iirc from my Latin class, vadere and ire were already
> suppleted by classical times, no?
>
        I think so, even if I can't even remember the present tense of IRE :( .
It is the same in Italian, were "to go" is 'andare' (but here, even the
future tense is taken from 'andare', the use of the forms from IRE has
almost disappeared). In Spanish however, "to go" is 'ir' and has forms
coming from *vadere* and IRE only. In that respect, it is the nearest to
Latin.

> > And what are the phonetic renderings of those forms?
> > (I'm a nonfrancophone here.)
>
> vais = /ve/
        Only in Montpellier and its region in the south of France. In other
places, we make a phonemic distinction between /e/ and /E/ and 'vais' is
better described as /vE/ (at least in my idiolect). /ve/ is exactly the
way we spell the letter 'v' and for me its pronunciation is different
from 'vais'.

> vas = va = /va/
> vont = /vu/
> allons = /a'lu/
> allez = /a'le/
>
> > > i suggest that - for the sake of mere regularity - "allez" be
> > > spelled "alez".  more scientific improvements welcome.
>
> I can't _imagine_ what the form "alez" buys you.
>
> > Well, that depends on a lot of things, on an (explicit) understanding
> > of the entire grammatical system of French.  For example, if French
> > pronouns really do act more like prefixes now on verbs than as
> > separate unbound morphemes, it might be better to accept this in the
> > official orthography.
>
> They're not quite there yet, although it is starting to seem like
> they're headed that way.  You can treat each of the nominatives as
> clitics ("Moi, je pense..."; "Marie, elle a dit..."; "Eux, ils sont...")
> by putting either an elabourated or pronominal subject before them
> (those translate directly as "Me, I think..."; "Marie, she said..."; and
> "Them, they are..."), but that can still sound a bit stilted at times.
> Who can say what direction that will eventually take, though?
>
        Definitely they will become simple prefixes. What you consider as
stilted is nearly the rule in Colloquial French nowadays. I even think
that we are in front of a seperation of Spoken French into two language
registers: a formal one, using the "short forms" ("je pense...", "Marie
a dit"), and a familiar one using the subject pronouns as clitics ("moi,
je pense..." -pronounced /mwa Sp'a~s/-, "Marie, elle a dit..." -I must
say that I find this form still awkward with compound tenses. But I'm
rather conservative as for French despite my young age :) -).

> --
> -=-Don Blaheta-=-=-dpb@cs.brown.edu-=-=-<http://www.cs.brown.edu/~dpb/>-=-
> If God had meant for us to be naked, we would have been born that way.
        Who said that? That's a funny one :)

--
        Christophe Grandsire

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