Re: Languages

En réponse à Nik Taylor <fortytwo@...>:

> Christophe Grandsire wrote:
> > /gra~d/ vs. /gra~/ are /p@'tit/ vs. /p@'ti/, /vERt/ vs. /vER/,
> > /mov'Ez/ vs. /mo'vE/, etc...).
>
> Right.  There's no way of predicting from the masculine form what the
> feminine form would be (going solely by phonetics), but you can predict
> the masculine from the feminine.  I've read of other languages that had
> deletion rules, I would suspect that they all have a similar origin to
> the French alternations.
>
In French, the reason was deletion of _actual_ coda consonants. As at the time
of this deletion, the -e of the feminine was still clearly pronounced (like
final -e in German) and when the following word began with a vowel, in speech
the last consonnant of the preceeding word was really pronounced as part of the
following word, thus in onset position. That's where the modern difference
between masculine and feminine and the liaison phenomenom come from.

Christophe.