Sources of Irregularity (was: Re: Isolating, Inflected, Word Building, ETC.)

Jim Henry Wrote:

> Something similar happened in French with three or
> more
> different verbs combining to be the different stems
> of "être" in various persons, tenses and moods.  But
> I can't
> recall what the specific Latin or Old French verbs
> were.
> I think one was related to "suivre" (to follow);
> indeed
> the first person singular present indicative active
> is the same for both "être" and "suive", "je suis".
> A quick Google search  didn't turn up anything.
Etre in French (with no accents):

 present
   suis, es, est, sommes, etes, sont
 imperfect:
   etais, etais, etait, etions, etiez, etaient
 past (simple)
   fus, fus, fut, fumes, futes, furent
 subjunctive
   sois, sois, soit, soyons, soyez, soient
 imperfect subjunctive
   fusse, fusses, fut, fussions, fussiez, fussent
 future
   serai, seras, sera, serons, serez, seront
 conditional
   serais, serais, serait, serions, seriez, seraient
 past participle
   ete
 present participle
   etant
 infinitive
   etre

Origin:

 1)  All of the present is from Latin: sum, es, est,
sumus, estis, sunt. The -s in "suis" is analogical,
Old French was "sui".
 2) Unsure where the Imperfect came from. The  Old
French imperfect had two variants, one survived in
Modern French, one did not: iere, ieres, iert/iere,
eriiens, eriiez, ierent. (from Latin: eram, eras,
erat, eramus, eratis, erant) The one that did survive
was: estoie (etc etc). This was from the imperfect of
the Latin verb: stare "to stand"
 3) Past Simple is from Latin: fui, fuisti, fuit,
fuimus, fuistis, fuerunt
 4) The subjunctive wasx some how derived from Latin:
sim, sis, sit, simus, sitis, sint.
 5) The impefect subunction derived from Latin's
Pluperfect Subjunctive: fuissem, fuisses, fuisset,
fuissemus, fuissetis, fuissent
 6) The future is from the Latin Verb: sedere "to
sit". In Old French, the Latin future of "esse"
survived: (i)er, (i)ers, (i)ert, (i)ermes, no 2nd
plural, (i)erent. This was from Latin erim, eris,
erit, erimus, eritis, erunt. Another future was, in
Old French, estrai, estras, estra (etc). This was the
future of the Vulgure LAtin verb "essere".
 7) The past participle is the past participle of the
Latin verb stare: statum
 8) The present participle is from Latin "stare" also:
stans
 9) The infinitive is from Vulgar Latin "essere" a
form build from Classical "esse" plus the usual
infinitive ending.

 So, there are 5 bases:
  esse   (present, OF imperfect, OF future,
subjunctive)
  essere (infinitive, OF future)
  sedere (Future, Conditional)
  fu-    (Indo-European -bhew-, English "be", past,
impft subj)
  stare  (imperfect, participles)

Of course, essere and esse are originally just one
Latin base.
-Elliott.


> Jim Henry
> http://www.pobox.com/~jimhenry
> ...Mind the gmail Reply-to: field
>

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