Re: Christophe Grandsire on Tuesday, December 04, 2001 2:21 PM
> > Or would anyone on the list provide me the interesting examples of
> > languages
> > where inflection is done by changing the begining of words?
> >
>
> French! Yes, you were mistaken (like even the French are) by the
nature of the
> French orthography. But even though written French marks inflections
(like
> plurals or conjugations) by suffixes, the spoken language itself is
much
> different. Except for a few nouns which have a different spoken
ending in the
> plural, most nouns don't change in the plural (the plural -s is only
> orthographic, it's not pronounced). It's the article they get
stacked in front
> of them (which, since it has no own stress, can be considered as a
prefix) that
> marks number. As for conjugations, despite the fact that written
French
> persists in writing the subject pronouns as independent words, they
are
> absolutely not! "je" doesn't exist except as a prefix put in front
of verbs to
> indicate the first person singular. The independent form of the 1st
person
> singular is "moi". The French conjugation relies mostly then on
prefixes to
> mark person and number, and on suffixes to mark tense (those
suffixes agreeing
> partly in person and number with the subject). The written suffixes
are
> misleading, since they are nearly not pronounced anymore, or nearly
identical.
> Of course, the problem of the French conjugation (and all the
grammar in fact)
> when you analyse it like that is that it becomes partly
polysynthetic (forms
> like "je ne t'ai rien dit" can really be analysed as a single
polysynthetic
> entity, since it has only one stress), and it seems that French
grammarians are
> not yet prepared to accept that French has so much changed compared
to its
> illustre ancestor Latin.
>
> As a conclusion, when you study French, don't be misleaded by its
orthography.
> It gives the idea that French is an inflecting language using mostly
suffixes,
> while in fact French is a partly polysynthetic language using mostly
prefixes
> and a few suffixes.
Exxxtreeeeemly great!!!
That's what I heard from our Professor of General Linguistics 10 years
ago while I was studying at the University, but I have NEVER thought a
French-speaking person (Francophone? eh?) would have shared this idea!
Wow!
Yitzik