Questions tagged [french]
Romance language, official in 29 states, including France, Belgium and Côte d'Ivoire.
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46 views
Is “bien décidés” an adjectival phrase?
Mais il me faut quelques volontaires bien décidés.
in that sentence, décidés is considered as an adjective right? So does the phrase bien décidés an adjectival phrase or adverbial phrase?
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1answer
73 views
What type of stress does French have
So I know that there are on the one hand pitch-accent languages (like South-Slavic languages, Greek, Norwegian, etc.) where the accentuated syllable is indicated by a particular pitch contour/tone ...
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0answers
50 views
Origin of the negative connotation of “boy” [migrated]
Recently I stumbled on a discussion where the word "chico" in Spanish is translated to "boy". To my knowledge, using "chico" to refer to someone younger is considered normal. But in English, calling ...
1
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3answers
162 views
Free variation in French
In French, some speakers differentiate between the pronunciation of maître /mɛ:tʁ/ and mettre /mɛtʁ/ - that is, in the first case the /ɛ/ is long and in the second it's short, but that ...
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0answers
43 views
Rhotic gutturalization in French
While reading my tutor's paper I came across a term which I would like to understand better.
Uvular trill [R] appears in certain French dialects. That sound often
changes into a voiced uvular ...
-1
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2answers
119 views
Why is there an x in French deux?
The Latin from which French evolved has duo, duorum/duarum, duos, and so on, while the contemporary French pronunciation also omits the 'x'. Why did Middle French spell deux with an x?
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3answers
100 views
Textbook suggestions for French phonology
I need to write a paper on French phonology for my Phonology class so I was wondering if you could give me some advice on where to start? I'm mainly looking for textbooks either in English or in ...
0
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1answer
121 views
Stark differences in French and German
Both the German and French languages, along with English, evolved from the same roots. This is reflected in some of their words and grammatical structures. So then why are the pronunciations of both ...
2
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0answers
38 views
Pronunciation of Fermat in Gascon/Occitan
A math professor mentioned that the final segment of Fermat's name would probably have been pronounced [t] because of "where he was from." She didn't clarify further but I looked up where he's from ...
1
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1answer
92 views
Language in England during 1066
For how many years after 1066 did we speak French in England? I tried looking this up on many sites, but I couldn’t find anything. I'm hoping someone knows their history and can tell me when people ...
7
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3answers
330 views
Does the English “Garden” come from the French “Jardin” or the German “Garten”?
I always assumed that the English word "Garden" was similar to the German "Garten" due to the Germanic roots of English.
But according to Wikipedia, "Garden" in English is related to the French "...
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1answer
70 views
Does “Je n’ai jamais vu personne” truly have triple negatives? Isn't 'ne' the only negative?
John McWhorter PhD Linguistics (Stanford). The Power of Babel (2003).
Left to its own devices, Standard English would most likely
allow double negation as an emphatic strategy, along the lines ...
2
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1answer
113 views
French - when is 'r' pronounced as /x/ and when is it pronounced /ʁ/?
I'm a Hebrew speaker, and in Modern Hebrew, there is a distinction between /ʁ ~ ɣ/ and /x/.
When I hear French, I recognize that 'r' isn't always pronounced as /ʁ/ but in many times, as /x/.
I tried ...
1
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1answer
62 views
How did « admettre » semantically generalize to signify 'confess'?
McWhorter, J. PhD Linguistics (Stanford). The Power of Babel (2003). p. 32 Bottom.
Semantic drift has an especially visible effect on combinations
of roots and prefixes or suffixes, and this ...
1
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3answers
140 views
Gold in French, light in Hebrew
I am fascinated by questions of linguistic relation between Hebrew and the Romance Languages, but I feel here I may have stumbled on a false connection and would like to be properly put in my place.
...
4
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3answers
247 views
As French is a so-called Roman language, where are the cases? [duplicate]
French language is known to be a Roman language, just like Spanish, Italian, Swiss Roman…
Those Roman languages are told to be originating from Latin language.
When I learnt Latin, one of the first (...
2
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2answers
278 views
Does the French word for Friday, “vendredi”, come from the Latin “Veneris” or the old Norse “Vanadis”?
When looking up the etymology of the French vendredi online, I can only find the suggestion that it comes from the Latin Veneris (Venus).
However, the English, German, Dutch, Norwegian, Danish and ...
4
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0answers
41 views
Looking for a thorough comparison of French and Spanish
Either in English, Spanish or French.
I haven't found a comparative grammar but I got pretty excited with this monograph:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_Portuguese_and_Spanish
I'm ...
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1answer
133 views
What are the theories for Spanish and French/ Romance languages not coming from Latin?
I know Yves Cortez came up with theories suggesting that French and Spanish/ Romance languages came from old Italian instead of Latin. He argued that this is because Latin was only the written ...
2
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0answers
47 views
How much of a difference does vowel mergers make to perception of fluency?
Listening to some example French conversations between an experienced, fluent speaker and an inexperienced learner, I noticed by chance that the experienced speaker differentiates between similar ...
5
votes
2answers
133 views
How do we get from Greek τρόπος to French trouver?
The French verb trouver (to find/think) can trace its ancestry back to the Greek word τρόπος, which means a turn, manner, style, or figure of speech. Is there any logic to this seemingly disconnected ...
4
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1answer
69 views
Why use “être” with pronominal verbs in complex tenses in french?
While some verbs in french with intransitive sense use "être" for complex tenses (Je suis entré), other verbs with transitive sense use "avoir" to show subject-object relations: Je les ai vus. ("Je" - ...
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1answer
128 views
Why the writing and reading in English are different?
I do not encounter so big problems with the English language although I'm not a native English speaker. But I'm curious why some languages (like English or French) are written different from the way ...
8
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2answers
218 views
What came first: «starboard» or «estribor»?
In English, the right side of a ship (and everything beyond said side) is called «starboard». I know enough about sailing and about stars to know that stars can't have anything to do with that name, ...
7
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1answer
273 views
French dialects from west to east: no distinct breaks, blend into German?
A long time ago, I remember reading about a work that showed that there were no distinct breaks in the local dialects as one travelled from west to east across France, and how at the easternmost areas,...
2
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1answer
158 views
How did the Latin past participle suffix -atus develop into modern French -é?
How did the Latin past participle suffix -atus develop into modern French -é?
Considering the two following examples: modern French état ("state; status") and été ("been"). Both derives ultimately ...
5
votes
1answer
95 views
Is there any case which we need to care about stative verbs in French grammar?
It seems that in context of French grammar (at least in traditional grammar) talking about stative and dynamic verbs is not relevant.
because there is no real progressive aspect in french and there is ...
1
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1answer
122 views
Comparison between Ido, Esperanto and French
I read somewhere this assertion:
Ido is a try to make Esperanto looking more like French.
Can someone explain me in which extend Ido could be closer than French than Esperanto, in which fields?
(...
6
votes
2answers
578 views
Substitution of w for g between certain words in French and English
A few words/names in French strongly resemble their English equivalents but with g substituted for w:
Guillaume ~ William
guêpe ~ wasp
guerre ~ war
I'm curious as to how this came about. Is there a ...
7
votes
3answers
451 views
Did Latin “cum” get replaced in French by “avec” because “con” sounded obscene?
While the words for "with" in most Romance languages seem to be direct descendents from Latin "cum" (e.g. Spanish/Italian "con", Portuguese "com", Romanian "cu") it got replaced by "avec" in French. ...
2
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0answers
59 views
graphical representation that exemplifies the different between stressed-timed and syllable-timed languages
A student asked why English and French have different rhythms. luckily, I had an answer on hand:
English is a stressed-timed language - rhythmic beats align with stressed syllables
French is a ...
3
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1answer
209 views
Different assimilation directions
Here's a question I posed to a prominent researcher in French phonology during my undergrad. We didn't spend a ton of time on it, but we couldn't come up with a satisfactory solution. Now that I've ...
6
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1answer
454 views
Derivatives of Latin *mulier* in French
It is well known that the derivatives of Latin mulier and fēmina competed in Romance languages as the main word for `woman'. For instance, the former remained as Spanish mujer and Portuguese mulher (...
0
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2answers
303 views
Are most dialect in Flanders influenced by French?
A year ago, I went to Flanders, the Dutch speaking part of Belgium. Since I'm interested in languages, I did some research, so I could understand the differences between Dutch from The Netherlands and ...
3
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1answer
127 views
How does English 'lodge' come from Frankish *laubija by sound change?
lodge (etymonline)
(n.) Middle English logge,
mid-13c. in surnames and place names; late 13c. as "small building or
hut," from Old French loge "arbor, covered walk; hut, cabin,
grandstand at ...
7
votes
1answer
278 views
Earliest recognition that Romance languages are related
I don't know if this is a question for this Stack Exchange or for the History Stack Exchange, but I would like to know when people first understood that the Romance languages were related. I have ...
3
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0answers
55 views
French Auxiliary Selection. Theoretical explanations?
I've heard that Generative Approaches trying to explain Auxiliary Selection are mostly focused in Italian, because its a language which intransitive verbs respond pretty well to unaccusativity ...
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1answer
68 views
In the context of proper nouns, are there any examples in French where they are used as appellatives? [closed]
There exists many examples of this in English, for example 'there are 3 Carolines in my class' or 'there are several Aberdeens in Scotland' (not true of course..just for example!).
I was wondering if ...
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0answers
94 views
Relative Language Distances [closed]
Could someone compare the distance between Modern French and Middle French to Modern English and Middle English. In general which of these languages has diverged more over time?
6
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2answers
302 views
Why does French “cheveu(x)” have “eu” and not “eau”?
Many French words have lost etymological /l/. I have read that this occured due to a process of l-vocalization around the 10th-12th centuries which turned pre-consonantal l to u after any vowel aside ...
0
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1answer
125 views
Fronting of /u/ from Latin to French
When Latin evolved to French, the vowel /u/ fronted to become /y/... except in Latin "VRSVS" /ur.sus/ > French "ours" /uʁs/, in which the vowel /u/ was kept.
I do not think that the /rs/ environment ...
5
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1answer
1k views
How and why did so many French letters become silent?
It would seem that much ease of use must have been lost when a lot of French letters came to be silent - I never fail to be amazed that "il parle" and "ils parlent" are homophones, and it's very easy ...
2
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2answers
338 views
About Subjunctive/Konjunctive
What is the reason for the difference between German dass-Sätze (which are in the indicative mood) and French que-sentences (which are in the subjunctive mood)?
My German understanding is far better ...
5
votes
2answers
208 views
Historical development of English pronunciation(s) of “hygiene”
I have a two-part question about the pronunciation of hygiene in English. The usual pronunciation, as shown by a variety of online dictionaries accessible from OneLook Dictionary Search, is /...
4
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0answers
325 views
Past participle agreement in French
Background (skip if you know French)
In French, to generate the past tense, you use the past participle of the verb, attaching in front a conjugated form of avoir or être. For example:
J'ai mangé. ...
4
votes
1answer
190 views
Latin to French - evolution of certain forms of “FACERE > faire”
All forms of the Latin verb "FACERE" that went to French had a "c", but it has disappeared in all forms of the French verb "faire".
In FACIS > fais, the "c" completely disappeared.
In FACIUNT > font,...
2
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0answers
59 views
As of July 2016, is there any new improved research on predicting French grammatical gender?
Please advise me if there are better research methods; I only searched for Related Articles on Google Scholar to the only 2 recent papers that I know:
Cited Articles of French gender assignment ...
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2answers
169 views
Do English and French share the same international phonetic symbol?
[e] and [ε] are pronounced almost the same in English. But there is obvious difference between them in french , french [e] sounds like ‘ay’ in english ‘bay’, really close to the first English letter “...
1
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2answers
497 views
French corpus with frequency list of POS tagged words (not lemmas)
I'm trying to find a corpus (even purchase it) of French language that has these characteristics:
It should has a frequency list
List of words (not just lemmas) which are POS tagged
Preferably taken ...
7
votes
3answers
581 views
Why does French use “be” as the auxiliary for a few verbs? [duplicate]
In French, there are a set of 17 verbs lovingly called the Vandertramps:
Devenir (to become)
Revenir (to come back)
.
&
Monter (to climb)
Rentrer (to reenter)
Sortir (to exit)
...
