Questions tagged [french]
Romance language, official in 29 states, including France, Belgium and Côte d'Ivoire. For non-linguistic questions about the French language, visit our sister site French Language Stack Exchange.
173
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How verb tenses evolve
I have two questions on this topic. The firstmay be too general, but basically, I am curious as to how tenses evolve and whether tenses between languages can be used to help find out whether languages ...
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Weekday Abbreviations in multiple languages [closed]
I am working on designing a piece of software that must support multiple languages. There is a design scheme in English at the moment that displays weekdays using a single character (ie: "S M T W T F ...
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Does Japanese have as many English-derived words as English has French-derived words?
According to current corpora and other tools used by language researchers, does the current vocabulary of Japanese already contain as many words borrowed/derived from English as the number of English ...
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French Pronunciation Dictionary
Is there a French pronunciation dictionary on the web like CMU English dictionary?
Thanks.
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How does 'envisager de' presuppose nothing situational, but 'hésiter à' does?
Source: p 177, French prepositions à and de
in infinitival complements,
A pragma-semantic analysis (2008) by Lidia Fraczak, as part of Adpositions ; Pragmatic, semantic and syntactic perspectives (...
user5306
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« essayé de s’évader » : How does « essayer de » not presuppose « s'evader »? [closed]
Source: p 175, French prepositions à and de
in infinitival complements,
A pragma-semantic analysis (2008) by Lidia Fraczak, as part of Adpositions ; Pragmatic, semantic and syntactic perspectives (...
user5306
3
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Why is the French accent so different from other Romance accents? [closed]
In terms of pronounciation, the general French accent is very different from the Italian, Spanish or Romanian ones.
For example: many conventional sounds in Romance langauges (i.e. /r/ or /j/) are ...
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How did 'of' absorb so many meanings?
[OED:] The primary sense was ‘away’, ‘away from’, a sense now obsolete, except in so far as it is retained under the spelling off (see off adv., prep., n.1, and adj.). All the existing uses of of are ...
user5306
7
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906
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Why do many French and Spanish noun cognates have opposing grammatical gender?
While most French/Spanish noun cognates share the same gender (both descending from the same vulgar latin root), there are many exceptions having opposing genders (e.g. la couleur / el color; la ...
user5306
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4
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554
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For adjectives which change meaning by position: why are they subjective before nouns but objective after?
Meaning-changing adjectives
[Source:] Some adjectives can mean different things depending on their placement around the noun they modify.
When placed after the noun like normal, the adjective carries ...
user5306
2
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637
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How do you articulate the uvular trill, when you can already articulate the uvular fricative?
Key Assumptions:
1. My uncle speaks only General American English
(so he cannot resort to other languages' phonetic inventories).
Whenever he tries to phonate the uvular trill [ʀ], he fails and ...
user5306
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How was the Anglo-Norman spelling of 'demesne' 'merely graphic'?
[OED:] The Anglo-Norman spelling demesne of the law-books, and 17th cent. legal antiquaries, was partly merely graphic (the quiescence of original s before a consonant leading to the insertion of a ...
user5306
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Slip of the meaning of expressions
Numerous expressions get their (popular) meaning largely or totally changed with time. Sometime it is in one language and not the others. Sometimes changes go different ways (cf. formidable or ...
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Does the French word [fij] (fille) consist of a single open syllable?
For an assignment in one of our classes, our teacher had directed us to analyze a set of french words, which included the word [fij] (fille). However, later, she instructed us not to analyze that word....
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What explains the sound development from Latin -vi- to French -dg- ?
abridge (v.) [...] from Old French abregier "abridge, diminish, shorten,"
from Late Latin abbreviare "make short" (see abbreviate).
The sound development from Latin -vi- to French -dg- is ...
user5306
6
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1
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Was the change in spelling from "cw" to "qu" in English associated with any difference in pronunciation?
I always thought that "cw" in Old English represented /kw/, and the same for modern English "qu", and that the change from one to the other was purely orthographic, since the "qu" digraph was more ...
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What explains the differences between doublet verbs that differ by a prefix?
The differences in meanings of doublet verbs such as 3-6 below:
Are there any resources that investigate the big picture behind them?
I abhor to memorise, and prefer to understand, such differences. ...
user5306
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Does '-ous' imply no interruption, and '-al' the possibility of interruption?
I already know that 'continuous' is stronger than continual, but that both derive from the same Latin etymon continuus. These answers on ELU evidence this difference, but does not explain the cause.
...
user5306
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Why is the past participle of the French « lire » « lu », but « rire » « ri »?
Phonologically,« lire » and « rire » sound like a minimal pair, with the first letter as the only difference. So what might explain the difference between their « participes passé »?
Their etymons ...
user5306
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How does a rule explain how « à chef » evolved into « achever »?
Etymonline refers to the "An Etymological Dictionary of the French Language" by Auguste Brachet, translated by G.W. Kitchin, Oxford, 1878. Its entry for achever, on page 152 of 558, states:
For f =...
user5306
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Online etymology dictionaries for French, beyond CNTRL?
Are there etymology dictionaries for French available on the Internet? To wit, what's a French equivalent of http://etymonline.com/?
I already know about
TLF informatisé (TLFi), but often, it does ...
user5306
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How did French lose the Latin -v-? [duplicate]
[Source:] Loss of Latin -v- is regular in French in some situations (compare alleger from alleviare; neige from nivea; jeune from juvenis. A different sound evolution from the Latin word yielded ...
user5306
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How common are indefinite pronouns in creole languages?
I understand that creole languages from all parts of the world share many disparate features. Amongst them, how common are third–person, singular, indefinite pronouns (like the French “on”) in creole ...
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How to learn more about contradictory or superfluous affixes efficiently?
Instead of questioning each word's prefixes, how can I learn more productively?
E.g. I was researching the etymology of the French verb 'accabler':
[I quoted Wiktionary in French; the English ...
user5306
2
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987
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'penance' vs 'penitence'
penance (n.) [←]
late 13c., "religious discipline or self-mortification as a token of repentance and as atonement for some sin," from Anglo-French penaunce, Old French peneance (12c.), from ...
user5306
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Why were prefixes repeated as postverbal prepositions?
French: s'abstenir de Spanish: abstenerse de English: abstain [from] (v.)
[<--]
late 14c., "to withhold oneself," from Old French abstenir (14c.), earlier astenir (13c.) "hold (...
user5306
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Specifics about the impact of natural gender on pronunciation?
What is the difference in pronunciation between women and men when speaking a language, as opposed to the difference in the voice of men and women? The context for the question arises from my looking ...
user5119
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Did the English 'confer' evolve from the Middle French « conférer » ?
[Etymonline :] 1530s, from Middle French conférer (14c.) "to give, converse, compare," from Latin conferre "to bring together," figuratively "to compare; consult, deliberate, ...
user5306
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Why there are no grammatical cases in the French language?
As far as I know, the French language is considered as a Romance language, which is derived, in its turn, from the Latin language. The last one has a rich grammatical cases system.
I am interested to ...
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"come" in "become" (English) vs "venir" in "devenir" (French)
In both French and English, the word for become (devenir) includes the word for come (venir), even though the etymologies and words are very different. Why might this be?
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How did 'piety = piété' and 'pity = pitié' diverge and evolve?
This Quora question motivated this. Do the Etymonline entries below imply that the connotation changed in Old French (and so even before English)? I pose the question also for the equivalent French ...
user5306
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How did 'sensuality' evolve to connote lechery? Does 'sensualité'?
Is the French feminine noun sensualité asexual? The English noun is sexual. Why? I heed the Etymological Fallacy. But what are some right ways of interpreting the dchotomy, to make it feel reasonable ...
user5306
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3
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How does the prefix 'entre' in French's 'entreprendre' compare with the prefix 'under-' in English's 'undertake'?
enterprise (n.)
early 15c., "an undertaking," formerly also enterprize, from Old French enterprise "an undertaking," noun use of fem. past participle of entreprendre "...
user5306
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Etymology of Old French 'escorgier': How does 'bind' evolve to mean 'whip'?
scourge (n.)
c. 1200, "a whip, lash," from Anglo-French escorge, back-formation from Old French escorgier "to whip," from Vulgar Latin excorrigiare, from Latin ex- "out, off&...
user5306
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Where do the spelling rules for French imperatives come from?
French verbs are, for historical reasons, typically grouped into three classes. The loss of final consonants in French has resulted in a serious divergence, wherein the verb conjugation system of the ...
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'dispose' vs 'dispose of' & « disposer » vs « disposer de »
[Source:] [D1.] dispose (v.) - (a) to arrange in order; (b) to lean toward or incline (typically used as a past participle). ...
[D2.] dispose of (phrasal v.) - (a) to throw away or discard; (b) to ...
user5306
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1
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How to trace Proto-language roots towards English and French?
TL;DR: What resources tie Proto-language roots (eg Proto-Indo-European), to English and French, especially if spelling has changed? I always heed linguistic pitfalls, but I always try to find some ...
user5306
4
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2
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714
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Why is 'be' sometimes the auxiliary verb for the present perfect?
1. Why do these 16 verbs require être as the auxiliary verb, to form the passé composé in French?
2. Abbreviated as DMPRRS, these 6 (of the 16) are ambitransitive. When transitive, their auxiliary ...
user5306
5
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Latin's excrescent e- in English and French
Etymonline's entry on 'estate' broaches the excrescent e-. Is this excrescence called epenthesis?
the later Romans evidently found words beginning insc-, sp-, st-difficult or unpleasant to ...
user5306
4
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"h" in French words of Germanic / onomatopoeic origin
As I understand it, the [h]-sound in Latin words (habere, prehendere, etc.) was lost before French became a distinct language. But French also has many words of Germanic or onomatopoeic origin that ...
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Methods to dissect or parse long, difficult sentences
TL;DR: Only English and French can I manage and so ask for. Instead of repeating 'long, difficult' hereafter, denote it mazy. Mazy sentences still stifle my reading comprehension; so I was gladdened ...
user5306
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How to understand etymology derived from obscure languages?
This ELU answer corroborates the helpfulness of etymology while heeding the Etymological Fallacy. Since I'm interested in French (which is derived from Latin), I can sometimes apply it to help ...
user5306
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Why does 'gauche' connote negativity in English and French? [duplicate]
gauche = {adjective} unsophisticated and socially awkward:
1. Why does gauche connote negativity? I read but won't replicate Etymonline here because it doesn't explain its negativity in English, at ...
user5306
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2
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251
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Why aren't defective words perfected?
Since Académie française superintends French, a solution seems easier (at least to prescribe and enforce) in French; I exemplify with it. Yet I question the same for English.
Why hasn't French ...
user5306
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Is 'identity' a grammatical term?
Originally purposed for this ELL question, the following from this thread claims that which I've greyed.
I ask about such a claim for English and French.
[User 'RuthP' dated 2012 Dec 26:]
That is ...
user5306
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French letter closings in English?
When I first learned about the Closing Formula for French business letters, I had found them affected and foreign, especially since I haven't seen them in modern English (though I'm unversed in ...
user5306
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The French of Shakespeare -- why does it seem so modern?
In Henry V, Shakesperean English is difficult to understand (even for modern native English speakers -- at least for me) without a good amount of help.
However, there are a few scenes conducted ...
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Is this natural: gender concord of direct objects with the past participle in French?
Phrases in French like la photo que j'ai prise (instead of que j'ai pris) have always struck me as unnatural. I've heard a lot of French people who fail to follow this rule when speaking spontaneously,...
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Was there s-mobile in the PIE root for dog?
I have noticed a striking similarity between the French word chien meaning dog and Russian word щенок "puppy", the both words pronounced exactly the same way except the deminutive suffix -ок in the ...
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307
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How to work with an IPA chart?
I am trying to learn French vowel sounds using this IPA chart. My question is about this chart. I use it for the first time and I am interested how comprehensive it is. Does a position at this chart ...
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