Re: Languages

En réponse à DOUGLAS KOLLER <LAOKOU@...>:

>
> This is an interesting argument which I've never heard before, but it
> raises
> as many questions as it purports to explain away.
>
> Seems like you have to allow a special dispensation for nasals and
> liquids.
> Why, for example, isn't it
>
> FEM                                MASC
> belle /bEl/  drop the "l" for */bE/
> (that masculine is /bo/ to me indicates there was a dark "l" thing going
> on,
> meaning it retained the "l")
>
> FEM                                  MASC
> finale /final/ drop the "l" for */fina/ (no, it, too, is /final/)
> (masc. pl. also has that dark "l" thing, as above)
>
> FEM                                   MASC
> fière /fjER/ drop the "r" for */fjE/ or */fje/ (no, it's /fjER/)
> (noir, noire; cher, chère work the same way)
>
> FEM                                                 MASC
> quotidienne /kotidjEn/ drop the "n" for */kotidjE/
> (if the "n" is dropped, why is there nasalization of the correct masc.
> /kotidjE~/?)
>
> How 'bout these?
>
> FEM                                      MASC
> brève /bREv/ drop the "v" for */bRE/
> (masc. is /bREf/ -- a special devoicing rule for adj. ending in "v"?)
> (fautif, fautive acts similarly)
>
> What about adj. that always end in "e" in the orthography?
>
> "sage", "inefficace", "chauve", "riche" don't go to /sa/, /inEfika/,
> /So/,
> and /Ri/ as masculines. The "add -e" argument can simply say that these
> already end in a mute "e", so you can't add another "e", hence forms
> don't
> change, ergo MASC and FEM are the same in these cases. The "drop -e (and
> final consonant)" argument now has to explain why there's an entire
> class of
> adjectives that don't do that.
>
Well, the main problem about the "add -e" argument is that it's a description of
the spelling system used to mark feminines in French. My concern here is to
describe spoken French without having to refer to its spelling. In this case,
adjectives would just be put in three groups: the adjectives which follow the
dropping rule, the invariable adjectives, and the others (it's exactly how verbs
are grouped in French: 1st group: verbs in -ER, 2nd group: verbs in -IR that use
the addition -ISS, 3rd group: all the other verbs). Of course, the third group
of adjectives would need more careful explanation, but still there are only a
few really irregular adjectives, the other ones follow easily recognized
patterns. Of course, this wouldn't be simpler than the usual way of describing
adjectives, but what I'm aiming to is an accurate description of adjectives in
spoken French, and the "add -e" rule has nothing to do with the spoken language.

> What about past participles (particularly of irregular verbs).
>
They are an impersonal mood of verbs, which can be used as adjectives, but
that's not their underlining nature. So it's normal that they are described
differently. Moreover, when they are used adjectively, they behave just like
normal adjectives, of the second group of my description for past participles of
verbs of the first and second groups, of the first one (generally speaking) for
the others. So nothing is really difficult in that.

> "mis" is normally pronounced /mi/. The only time it manifests itself as
> /miz/ (spelled "mise" or "mises") is when a feminine direct object
> precedes
> it  (la clef que j'ai _mise_sur la table) or when the feminine noun is
> used
> in a passive construction with "être" (la clef a été _mise_ sur la
> table).
> Elsewhere, it's /mi/ (J'ai mis la table -- I set the table). Are we to
> say
> that the form which occurs in only one instance is the "underlying" form
> and
> the form that occurs everywhere else is the "transformed" form?
> Counterintuitive?
>
No, but it's counterintuitive to consider that the underlying nature of past
participles is adjectival. They are first a verbal form. It just happens from
their meaning that they can be used adjectively.

> Finally, when masculine adj. occur in elision environments, their final
> consonant often (albeit often optionally) resurfaces: mauvais
> appartement
> /mOvEz apaRtma~/, grand appartement /gRa~d apaRtma~/, bel appartement
> /bEl
> apaRtma~/. If it were truly dropped, why is it cropping up here? I would
> find it easier to explain that /mOvEz/, /gRa~d/, and /bEl/ are the
> underlying forms and that it surfaces when there's a following vowel
> (like,
> say, a feminine "-e").
>
Well, this is not a difficulty, as the liaison form is regularly derived from
the feminine form, and doesn't concern the adjectives of the second group of my
description. The only difficulty is adjectives like /gra~/ - /gra~d/ whose
masculine liaison form is /gra~t/. But that's regular for all adjectives ending
in /d/ in feminine. Really, adding a third form, which is most often identical
to the feminine form of the adjectives is not adding any difficulty to the
rules...

> Having learned it the old-fashioned way (affreux, affreuse; brun,
> brune....), I can certainly appreciate that it looks capricious at
> times.
> But reversing the argument and starting with the feminine form as the
> springboard, I think, creates its own set of seemingly capricious rules.
>
The problem of the old-fashioned way is that it explains quite well how to form
feminine adjectives from masculine adjectives in written form, but it has no
validity for the spoken language. And of course the rules I explained are quite
as complex as the ones going with the "add -e" rule, but they were not meant as
pedagogical instruments, but simply as an accurate description of the adjective
in _spoken_ French. And I think you'll agree that my rules are much more
accurate to explain the phenomenon in spoken French than the "add -e" rule which
only works when the written forms are at hand.

Christophe.