Page:Grammar of the French language - De Vere - 1867.djvu/20

13 The Circumflex Accent gives it a very broad sound.

Ex. tête, head; même, same.

The absence of any accent produces in monosyllables the so-called indefinite sound of e.

Ex. me, me; te, thee; se, one's self; que, that; le, it; ne, not.

The absence of any accent on final e in other words, not monosyllables, leaves it perfectly silent.

Ex. vie, life; terre, earth; lune, moon.

It retains its silent character even, when in the pural an s is added.

Ex. vie, vies, lives; lunes, moons; armes, arms.

The letters es and ent, in the final syllables of verbs, are always silent.

Ex. vous dites, you say; il disent, they said.

E is also mute in dessus, above; dessous, below; ressort, spring, and all words beginning with ress; in degré, degree; denier, farthing; dangereux, dangerous; aboiement, barking; paiement, payment; tutoiement, calling others thou, and reniement, abjuration.

A mute e can never begin a word; but it can be found in the first syllable, in the middle and at the end of a word.

Ex. tenir, to hold; Samedi, Saturday; table, table.

In the very rare cases, when two or three syllables, each having a mute e, follow each other, the first one, when there are two such e's, and the first two, when there are three, are given the so-called indefinite sound as in monosyllables.

Ex. retenir, to detain; recevoir, to receive; redevenir, to become again.

In all other words the rule prevails that no two mute e's can follow each other in succession at the end of a word; and when this should happen as the effect of inflection, e. g., in conjugating verbs, certain orthographical remedies are prescribed, which will be mentioned in their appropriate place.

Vowels suffer certain changes of pronunciation,

2. When they are followed by n or m, in which case they have a nasal sound, inherited by the French from the Latin.

It is well-known that the Romans gave to the final syllables um, am, em and others, a nasal sound, which led to their frequent sup-