Re: Languages

From: "jesse stephen bangs"

> Christophe Grandsire sikayal:
> > En réponse à Nik Taylor:
> > > Arguably, French has something like that at the end of adjectives,
fem.
> > > /gra~d/ masc. /gra~/, IIRC.  Essentially, it could be argued that the
> > > rule is "to form the masculine, drop the final consonant".
> > I think there's nothing to argue about that! Even if in written language
the
> > rule is "add an -e to form the feminine", in spoken language the rule
"drop the
> > final consonnant to form the masculine" holds quite well (other examples
than
> > /gra~d/ vs. /gra~/ are /p@'tit/ vs. /p@'ti/, /vERt/ vs. /vER/, /mov'Ez/
vs.
> > /mo'vE/, etc...). I once saw this rule taken as an example that
grammatical
> > rules of "deleting something" instead of "adding something" were
possible and
> > actually existed in languages, contrary to what was thought before. But
of
> > course, the written form of French long hid the actual rules...
> Besides, saying that there's a grammatical rule of "drop final
> consonant" is just so much more interesting!
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.

What about past participles (particularly of irregular verbs).

"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?

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").

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.

Kou