All Questions
8 questions
3
votes
1
answer
333
views
When did people realize French has its root in Latin?
By investigating into historical documents like Oaths of Strasbourg
and applying the comparative method, modern linguists are able to know French is a Romance language. When the components of ...
- 159
6
votes
1
answer
807
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 (...
- 558
7
votes
1
answer
574
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 ...
- 238
8
votes
2
answers
682
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 ...
- 18.7k
4
votes
0
answers
2k
views
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 ...
- 41
9
votes
5
answers
11k
views
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 ...
- 191
10
votes
1
answer
517
views
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 ...
- 792
18
votes
5
answers
5k
views
When and how did French become a non-null-subject language?
First of all, what does "null-subject" mean? Taken from the Wikipedia page for "Null-subject languages":
[…] a null-subject language is a language whose grammar permits an ...
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