Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 9.djvu/672

 636 FRANCE [LANGUAGE. ways been distinct from their singular mal ; in those whoso singular ends in s there never was any distinction, Old French laz (now spelt lacs) corresponding to Icujvcus, laqrcum, laqvcl, and laqvcos. in. Adjectives. (1.) The terminations of the cases and numbers of adjectives are the same as those of substantives, and are treated in the preceding paragraph. The feminine generally takes no c if the muse, has none, and if there is no distinction in Latin fern, sing, fort (fort-cm), grant (grandcm), fern. plur. forz (fortes), gram (grander), like the ace. masc. Certain adjectives, which in Pro ve 11911! take an a not existing in Latin, take the corresponding e in Old French fern, dnlce (douce, dulciani for dulccm, Provenjal doha), mase. duh (dulccm). In the llth century some other fenii- nines, originally without c, begin in Norman to take this termina tion grande (in a feminine assonance in the Alexis), plur. grandcs ; but other dialects generally preserve the original form till the 14th century. In the 16th century the c is general in the feminine, and is now universal, except in a few expressions grand mere (with erroneous apostrophe, grandcm mdtrem), lettrcs royaux (lltcras re/ales), and most adverbs from adjectives in -ant, -ent couram- ment (currantc for -ciit-c mcntc), scicmment (scicnte mcntc). (2.) Several adjectives have in Modern French replaced the masc. by the feminine Old French masc. roil (rig id um), fern, route (rigi- dam); Modern French roidc for both genders. (3.) In Old French several Latin simple comparatives are preserved maiur (majorem), nom. mairc (major); graignur (grandiorem), nom. graindre (gran- dior) ; only a few of these now survive pire (pejor), mcilleur (mc- liorem), with their adverbial neuters pis (pcju.i), mieux (mclius). The few simple superlatives found in Old French, as mcrme (mini mum), proismc (proximum), haltisme (altissimum), are now extinct. (4.) The modern loss of many final consonants when not before vowels, and the subsequent loss of final 9, have greatly afi ected the distinction between the masc. and fern, of adjectives fort and forte are still distinguished as/6; 1 and fort, but amer (amdrum) and amerc (amdram), with their plurals amers and amercs, have run together. (/) Derivation. Most of the Old French prefixes and suffixes are descendants of Latin ones, but a few are Celtic (et ittum) or Teutonic (ard = hard), and some are later borrowings from Latin (arie, afterwards aire, from drium). In Modern French many old affixes are hardly used for forming new words ; the inherited ier (drium) is yielding to the borrowed aire, the popular contre (contra) to the learned anti (Greek), and the native ee (dtam) to the Italian ade. The suffixes of many words have been assimilated to more common ones ; thus sengler (singu- Idreni) is now sanglier. (g) Syntax. Old French syntax, gradually changing from the 10th to the 14th century, has a character of its own, distinct from that of Modern French; though when com pared with Latin syntax it appears decidedly modern. (1.) The general formal distinction between nominative and accusative is the chief feature which causes French syntax to resemble that of Latin and differ from that of the modern lan guage; and as the distinction had to be replaced by a comparatively fixed word-order, a serious loss of freedom ensued. If the forms are modernized while the word-order is kept, the Old French I arcJicvesqiie no puct Jlechir It rcis Hcnris (Latin archicpiscopum non potcst flcctcre rex Hcnrlcus) assumes a totally different meaning Farcheo&fue ne pcut ftechir le roi Henri. (2.) The replacement of the nominative form of nouns by the accusative is itself a syntactical feature, though treated above under inflexion. A more modern instance is exhibited by the personal pronouns, which, when not immediately the subject of a verb, occasionally take even in Old French, and regularly in the 16th century, the accusative form ; the Old Frenchyc qui sui (ego qvl sum) becomes moi qui suis, though the older usage survives in the legal phrase jc, soussigne, ... (3.) The definite article is now required in many cases where Old French dispenses with it jo cunquis Eiifjlcterrc, suffrir mort (as Modern French avoir faiiti); Modern French I Angldcrrc, la mort. (4.) Old French had distinct pronouns for &quot;this&quot; and &quot;that&quot; ccst (eccc istum) and eel (ecce ilium), with their cases. Both exist in the 16th century, but the present language employs cct as adjective, eel as substantive, in both meanings, marking the old distinction by affixing the adverbs ci and hi cet hommc-ci, cct hommc-la; cflui-ci, cclui-ld. (o.) In Old French, the verbal terminations being clear, the subject pronoun is usually not expressed si ferai (sic faccre habco), est durs (durus est), que ferns (qvidfaccre habs)$ In the 16th century the use of the pronoun is general, and is now universal, except in one or two impersonal phrases, as n importe, pen sen faut. (6. ) The present participle in Old French in its uiiintlected form coincided with the gerund (amant = amantem and amando), and in the modern language has been replaced by the latter, except where it has become adiectival; the Old French com- plaingnans Icur dolours (Latin plangcntes) is now plaignant Iciirs douleurs ( Latin plangcndo). The now extinct use of cstre with the participle present for the simple verb is not uncommon in Old French down to the 16th century sont disanz (sunt dlccntfs) Modern French if.&amp;lt;s disent (as English they arc spying). (7.) In present Modern French the preterite participle when used with avoir to form verb-tenses is invariable, except when the object pre cedes (an exception now unknown to the conversational language) fai ecrit Ics leltres, les lettrcs qncfai ecritcs. In Old French down to the 16th century, formal concord was more common (though by no means necessary), partly because the object preceded the parti ciple much oftener than now ad la culur mute (luibct colOrcm miitdtam), ad faitc sa vcnjancc, les turs ad rcndncs. (8.) The sentences just quoted will serve as specimens of the freedom of Old French word-order, the object standing either before verb and participle, between them, or after both. The predicative adjective can stand before or after the verb halt sunt li put (Latin podia), c tencbrus c grant. (9.) In Old French ne (Early Old French ncn, Latin non) suffices for the negation without pas (passiun], point (puiictum) or mie (ml cam, now obsolete), though these are fre quently used Jo nc sui tis sire (jc nc suis pas ton seigneur), autrc feme nen ara (il n aura pas autrc fcmme). In principal sentences Modern French uses ne by itself only in certain cases jc nc puis marclier, jc n ai rien. The slight weight as a negation usually attached to ne has caused several originally positive words to take a negative meaning, rien (Latin rcm) now meaning &quot;nothing&quot; as well as &quot;something.&quot; (10.) In Old French interrogation was ex pressed with substantives as with pronouns by putting them after the verb est Saul cntre les prophctest In Modern French the pro nominal inversion (the substantive being prefixed) or a verbal periphrasis must be used Saul cst-il, or cst-ce quc Saul est. (ft) Summary. Looking at the internal history of the French language as a whole, there is no such strongly marked division as exists between Old and Middle English, or even between Middle and Modern English. Some of the most important changes are quite modern, and are con cealed by the traditional orthography; but, even making allowance for this, the difference between French of the llth century and that of the 19th is less than that between English of the same dates. The most important change in itself and for its effects is probably that which is usually made the division between Old and Modern French, the loss of the formal distinction between nomina tive and accusative; next to this are perhaps the gradual loss of many final consonants, the still recent loss of the vowel of unaccented final syllables, and the extension of analogy in conjugation and declension. In its construction Old French is distinguished by a freedom strongly con trasting with the strictness of the modern language, and bears, as might be expected, a much stronger resemblance than the latter to the other Romanic dialects. In many features, indeed, both positive and negative, Modern French forms a class by itself, distinct in character from the other modern representatives of Latin. IV. Bibliography. The few works which treat of French philo logy as a whole are now in many respects antiquated, and the important discoveries of the last few years, which have revolu tionized our ideas of Old French phonology and dialectology, are scattered in various editions, periodicals, and separate treatises. For many things Diez s Grammatik der Jlomanischcn Sprachen (4th edition a reprint of the 3d Bonn, 1876-77; a French translation, Paris, 1872-75, is to be followed by a supplementary volume by G. Paris) is still very valuable ; Burguy s Grammaire de la Languc d o il (2d edition a reprint of the 1st Berlin, 1869-70) is useful only as a collection of examples. G. Paris s edition of La Vie de S. Alexis (Paris, 1872) was the pioneer of, and retains an; important place among, the recent original works on Old French ; Darmesteter and Hatzfeld s Le Seizieme Siecle (Paris, 1878) contains the first good account of Early Modern French. The leading periodicals now in existence are the JRomania (Paris), founded (in 1872) and edited by P. Meyer and G. Paris; and the Zeitschrift fiir Romanischc Philologic (Halle), founded (in 1877) and edited by G. Grbber. To these reference should be made for information as to the very numerous articles, treatises, and editions, by the many and often distinguished scholars who, espe cially in France and Germany, now prosecute the scientific study of the language. It may be well to mention that, Old French phonology especially being complicated, and as yet incompletely investigated, these publications, the views in which are of various degrees of value, require not mere acquiescent reading, but critical study. (H. N.)