# French verbal forms and orthography



## missmillies

Looking at a French paradigm sheet you'd think that French verbs have 50 distinct forms but if you actually pronounce them there's only about 10 which is no more than most Germanic languages. 

I.e:

1) chant, (written as _chante, chantes, chantent_)
2) chantan, (written as _chantons, chantant_)
3) chanté, (written as _chanter, chantez, chanté, chantés, chantée, chantées_)
4) chantian, (written as _chantions_)
5) chantié, (written as _chantiez_)
6) chantè, (written as _chantais, chantait, chantaient_)
7) chantrè, (written as _chanterai, chanterais, chanteraient_)
8) chantrian, (written as _chanterions_)
9) chantrié, (written as _chanteriez_)
10) chantra (written as _chantera, chanteras_)

btw I'm not counting _pass_é _simple_ and imperfect subjunctive since they're dead tenses i.e not a native part of the language anymore because children don't learn them from their parents. 

So why is the French orthography so pretentious?


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## effeundici

In my opinion they *are* 50 distinct forms. The right question should be: why is French pronunciation so poor!

I suspect that we have a different approach to languages.


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## missmillies

No no no no! A language is first and foremost spoken. It's only written down later.


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## mugibil

missmillies said:


> Looking at a French paradigm sheet you'd think that French verbs have 50 distinct forms but if you actually pronounce them there's only about 10 which is no more than most Germanic languages.
> 
> I.e:
> 
> 1) chant, (written as _chante, chantes, chantent_)
> 2) chantan, (written as _chantons, chantant_)
> 3) chanté, (written as _chanter, chantez, chanté, chantés, chantée, chantées_)
> 4) chantian, (written as _chantions_)
> 5) chantié, (written as _chantiez_)
> 6) chantè, (written as _chantais, chantait, chantaient_)
> 7) chantrè, (written as _chanterai, chanterais, chanteraient_)
> 8) chantrian, (written as _chanterions_)
> 9) chantrié, (written as _chanteriez_)
> 10) chantra (written as _chantera, chanteras_)
> 
> btw I'm not counting _pass_é _simple_ and imperfect subjunctive since they're dead tenses i.e not a native part of the language anymore because children don't learn them from their parents.
> 
> So why is the French orthography so pretentious?



French orthography is to a large extent historical, like English. But there are quite a few problems with your pairings. Nasal a as in <ant> and nasal o as in <ons> are not the same sound, so chantons is not pronounced like chantant. The mute final sounds indicated in the orthography often show up in so-called liaisons (before vowels), which prove that pairs like chantez, chanté aren't really the same verb form either. And many of your pairings coincide only in certain verbs, but not in others: chanter-chanté but vendre-vendu.


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## missmillies

mungu said:


> French orthography is to a large extent historical, like English. But there are quite a few problems with your pairings. Nasal a as in <ant> and nasal o as in <ons> are not the same sound, so chantons is not pronounced like chantant. The mute final sounds indicated in the orthography often show up in so-called liaisons (before vowels), which prove that pairs like chantez, chanté aren't really the same verb form either. And many of your pairings coincide only in certain verbs, but not in others: chanter-chanté but vendre-vendu.


Actually you're right about the -ons and -ant being distinct. But are you seriously telling me that you'd pronounce the -z in _chantez_ if it came before a vowel?

_Vous chante*z* une chanson_* - *I've never, ever heard that before. 

And yes -ir and -re verbs do have more distinct forms, but not that many more though.


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## mugibil

missmillies said:


> Actually you're right about the -ons and -ant being distinct. But are you seriously telling me that you'd pronounce the -z in _chantez_ if it came before a vowel?
> 
> _Vous chante*z* une chanson_* - *I've never, ever heard that before.



I'm not a native speaker of French and I don't remember the exact rules for it, I believe there is some variation, but I'm pretty sure that for example combinations such as "allez-y", "parlez-en" are pronounced with liaison.



missmillies said:


> And yes -ir and -re verbs do have more distinct forms, but not that many more though.



When only _some_ of the forms coincide, one usually must conclude that even the forms that sound the same are really distinct. For example, English is considered to have a present tense form separate from the past tense form separate from the past participle: set-set-set and ask-asked-asked count as three forms each, because paradigms like begin-began-begun do exist. Not to mention that when the forms clearly have completely different syntactic functions, as in this case, they can't be considered to be the same form either.


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## berndf

missmillies said:


> No no no no! A language is first and foremost spoken. It's only written down later.


This is not quite what happened. French once did indeed distingish all these forms phonetically. The spelling reflects an older development stage of the language.


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## sokol

missmillies said:


> So why is the French orthography so pretentious?


It isn't, it is just historical, as has been mentioned.

Just look on the bright side: as a speaker of Spanish it should be fairly easy for you to learn and use French paradigms correctly.


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## Frank06

Hi,

A general note: I think the level of the discussion would be a bit higher if we'd manage to leave out vacuous and unproductive epithets as "pretentious" and "poor" in connection with a language, its orthography or pronunciation.

Frank


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## CapnPrep

Frank06 said:


> A general note: I think the level of the discussion would be a bit higher if we'd manage to leave out vacuous and unproductive epithets as "pretentious" and "poor" in connection with a language, its orthography or pronunciation.


So then what's left of the original question?

I just wanted to point out that officially (i.e. in standard northern metropolitan French), _chanterai_ and _chanterais_ are not pronounced alike. So the list is missing two forms (in missmillies's notation, "chanton" and "chantré"). Also, if you're only taking into account present indicative and subjunctive, imperfect, future, conditional, plus imperative, participle, and infinitive, there are only 36 between 35 and 40 forms, not 50.


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## missmillies

berndf said:


> This is not quite what happened. French once did indeed distingish all these forms phonetically. The spelling reflects an older development stage of the language.


You know what, I hear this all the time. But could someone please tell me how _amabam_ evolved into _aimais_. Where the hell did the -s come from?


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## CapnPrep

missmillies said:


> You know what, I hear this all the time. But could someone please tell me how _amabam_ evolved into _aimais_. Where the hell did the -s come from?


Simply put, it came the hell from analogy with other 1st person forms.
In more detail:
amaba(m) > ame(b)a > amea > ameie > amoie → aimois/aimais
But to understand each step requires a bit more effort and background. If you are sincerely interested in learning about this, there are many books available about French historical morphology.


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## missmillies

CapnPrep said:


> Simply put, it came the hell from analogy with other 1st person forms.
> In more detail:
> amaba(m) > ame(b)a > amea > ameie > amoie → aimois/aimais
> But to understand each step requires a bit more effort and background. If you are sincerely interested in learning about this, there are many books available about French historical morphology.


Interesting - thanks for that. After I posted that message I got thinking about it and I thought analogy might've had something to do with it!

Yes I am interested. What books might you recommend?


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## Nanon

missmillies said:


> So why is the French orthography so pretentious?


Some French linguists (not all) would agree with that statement. Spelling has been used as a social marker. If you have a good spelling, you are supposed to be or have been a good student, thus with favourable conditions for studying, thus probably from the _upper _layers of the society, or at least you have done some _effort _to manage such a good spelling. That (rather simplified) vision prevailed for a long time.
The problem is that nowadays French spelling is probably beyond any serious reform. Like English spelling, by the way. And if the French orthography is "pretentious", the English orthography should be characterised in the same way.



missmillies said:


> I'm sure an illiterate Parisian tramp wouldn't bother with liaison.


Who tells you all Parisian tramps are illiterate? Unfortunately, nowadays, they are not...



ireney said:


> No, they would pronounce them properly without knowing what they're called.


With or without knowing, for what matters. If you have gone to a French-speaking primary school, you are likely to have heard the word _liaison_ many, many times.



missmillies said:


> But are you seriously telling me that you'd pronounce the -z in _chantez_ if it came before a vowel?
> 
> _Vous chante*z* une chanson_* - *I've never, ever heard that before.


I have. 
That's how we are taught to read and to recitate poems. Of course, it doesn't sound natural.



mungu said:


> I'm pretty sure that for example combinations such as "allez-y", "parlez-en" are pronounced with liaison.


Definitely. In all speech registers from the most informal to the most formal.

To see things on the bright side and to play Devil's advocate: can't we agree on that these different spellings are marks of gender, person and number that make reading a text easier? We can put it this way: French verbs are loaded with information about what (whom) the verb refers to.


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## missmillies

Nanon said:


> Some French linguists (not all) would agree with that statement. Spelling has been used as a social marker. If you have a good spelling, you are supposed to be or have been a good student, thus with favourable conditions for studying, thus probably from the _upper _layers of the society, or at least you have done some _effort _to manage such a good spelling. That (rather simplified) vision prevailed for a long time.
> The problem is that nowadays French spelling is probably beyond any serious reform. Like English spelling, by the way. And if the French orthography is "pretentious", the English orthography should be characterised in the same way.


I wouldn't say the French orthography is beyond reform. Vowels in French are pronounced more or less the same everywhere and there have been many proposed alternative systems : www . ortograf . net. It would be however very hard to reform English because vowels are pronounced so differently from one area to the next. The English is orthography is doubtlessly just as conservative as the French one, but dead inflections aren't still written. It would be pretentious if for example there was a rule which said you had to write the _-en_ ending in the first person plural, but you don't pronounce it; _We haven_ (silent -en). 



> I have.
> That's how we are taught to read and to recitate poems. Of course, it doesn't sound natural.


Exactly. It's only in poetry which is hardly a natural part of the language. The -z ending isn't a native part of the language unless it comes before _y_ or _en _as has been mentioned. Children don't learn that from their parents; you have to go to school to learn it. 



> To see things on the bright side and to play Devil's advocate: can't we agree on that these different spellings are marks of gender, person and number that make reading a text easier? We can put it this way: French verbs are loaded with information about what (whom) the verb refers to.


Grammatical rules that are only written are pretentious imo.


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## berndf

missmillies said:


> The English is orthography is doubtlessly just as conservative as the French one, but dead inflections aren't still written. It would be pretentious if for example there was a rule which said you had to write the _-en_ ending in the first person plural, but you don't pronounce it; _We haven_ (silent -en).


That is not quite correct. Firstly, the plural present indicative never had a final _-n_ but a final _-__þ_. The ending _-en_ was a subjunctive marker and in Middle English this had largely been simplified. In Middle English it was already "we have".

But there was an infinitive _-en_ in Middle English so the infinitive form was _to haven_. The _-n_ of _-en_ was already lost at the end of th 14th century while the _-e_ was still pronounced. The current spelling "to have" corresponds to the 15th century pronunciation which was the time when English spelling was fixed. Until that time, English spelling was phonetic, i.e. changes in pronunciation was reflected in spelling. Endings which became mute after that time are still spelled today, like _to hav*e* _or_ thou*gh*_.

So, the difference between English and French is the timing of the changes relative to the point when spelling became fixed.


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## missmillies

berndf said:


> That is not quite correct. Firstly, the plural present indicative never had a final _-n_ but a final _-__þ_. The ending _-en_ was a subjunctive marker and in Middle English this had largely been simplified. In Middle English it was already "we have".
> 
> But there was an infinitive _-en_ in Middle English so the infinitive form was _to haven_. The _-n_ of _-en_ was already lost at the end of th 14th century while the _-e_ was still pronounced. The current spelling "to have" corresponds to the 15th century pronunciation which was the time when English spelling was fixed. Until that time, English spelling was phonetic, i.e. changes in pronunciation was reflected in spelling. Endings which became mute after that time are still spelled today, like _to hav*e* _or_ thou*gh*_.
> 
> So, the difference between English and French is the timing of the changes relative to the point when spelling became fixed.


Wow, interesting. Middle English was so different to German!

Ok so I'll eat my words, it's not pretentious, but just conservative, like English. But the effect of this is that the there's a lot of dead inflections that still have to be written - and that's obvious, so there's nothing more to say really.


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## mugibil

> Exactly. It's only in poetry which is hardly a natural part of the language. The -z ending isn't a native part of the language unless it comes before y or en as has been mentioned. Children don't learn that from their parents; you have to go to school to learn it.



There isn't necessarily a principal difference. It's just that as a child, you learn one domain within which the liaison rule applies (in this case, only between the verb and a subject or object pronoun: venez-ici, nous achetons, achetons-en), and school teaches you a slightly greater domain (also between a verb and a following indefinite article: achetons une X). But in both systems, the phantom consonant is native - it is obviously somehow present in the lexical form of the ending (perhaps as what they call "underlying form" or perhaps as part of a special alternative form that occurs in certain contexts). If it's present, one may as well write it.


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## sokol

Actually, even phonologists writing strictly phonologically _*would have to write*_ those consonants which appear only in liaison.

A possible solution of the problem would to write the consonant pronounced in liaison between parenthesis. Take "ils ont", an interesting one as either the last consonant of the personal pronoun or, in "ont-ils", the one of the verb appears in liaison; phonologically this would be:

/ils õ/
/õt il/

Thus, in phonology one can safely analyse <ont> as /õ(t)/, and the same goes for all other words having liaison.

So there is nothing illogical about this one, not even in phonology. Of course there are other parts of French orthography which are historical writings and no longer relevant to the phonology of the language.
And as far as verb paradigms are concerned each verb form where the last consonant is mute usually but may appear in liaison is phonologically different from a homonymous verb in non-liaison-position only - even though not all French native speakers apply liaison in the same way: this fact is well-known and defined in French grammar, some kinds of liaison are obligatory while others are facultative.


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## CapnPrep

sokol said:


> Thus, in phonology one can safely analyse <ont> as /õ(t)/, and the same goes for all other words having liaison.


I would avoid this notation, because parentheses usually indicate optionality, which is not the correct characterization for liaison consonants. It is clear, though, that the /t/ must be included somewhere, somehow, in the phonological representation of _ont_.


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## missmillies

Yes I see what you all mean. To be honest, I hadn't realised the full extent of liaisons, so perhaps half these inflections aren't dead afterall. Liaisons are odd things though, it's like remnants of older inflections that still hang on. Perhaps in a reformed orthography they could be written with a dash, so _Nous sommes ici _could be written _Nou som-z isi_, and _Nous sommes grands_ as _Nou som gran_.


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## berndf

missmillies said:


> Liaisons are odd things though, it's like remnants of older inflections that still hang on. Perhaps in a reformed orthography they could be written with a dash, so _Nous sommes ici _could be written _Nou som-z isi_, and _Nous sommes grands_ as _Nou som gran_.


Or you regard the old endings still as present but sometimes pronounced NULL. And that's what French is doing. Liaisons are not the only problems which would arise from a reformed spelling. If you spelled _nous sommes grands_ as _nou som gran_ then you had to explain the unmotivated "d" in _el son grand_ which would be the reformed spelling for _elles sont grandes_.


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## missmillies

^^ Just add the -d for feminine noun agreement (since that's the actual rule these days, not -e, and it's not liaison but an acual inflection that's always pronounced). I don't see what the issue is. 

So masculine form _gran_ and feminine form _grand, peti_ and_ petit,_ _fransè _and _fransèz. _That's not liaison because these adjectives do still inflect, just not by adding an -e anymore, but by extra consonants. 

_Mon frèr è peti mè ma ser è grand. Ma mèr è petit mè mon pèr è gran. _

Nice!


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## berndf

missmillies said:


> So masculine form _gran_ and feminine form _grand, peti_ and_ petit,_ _fransè _and _fransèz. _That's not liaison because these adjectives do still inflect, just not by adding an -e anymore, but by extra consonants.


But which extra consonant? Why "d"? The answer is obviously because the "d" is part of the word root which is mute in masculine but not in feminine. Your modernized spelling would completely obscure this.

I am not saying you can't reform French spelling but there are properties of French phonology which let etymological rather than phonetic spelling appear particularly well suited for this language.


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## CapnPrep

missmillies said:


> _Mon frèr è peti mè ma ser è grand. Ma mèr è petit mè mon pèr è gran. _


This is fine if you believe that the main or sole function of orthography is to represent pronunciation. But I would say that the main function of orthography is to facilitate reading (and to a lesser extent, writing), and for most languages this requires a considerable degree of abstraction away from pronunciation.

Anyway, this is a huge topic which goes well beyond the scope of your original question/complaint.


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## missmillies

Those are good points CapnPrep and berndf. For me personally, I do prefer languages that are written phonetically (like my native Spanish <3), because if that's how the language is pronounced, that's how the language is, and that's how the language should be written. I find that more important than etymological spelling because you can read about that in history books. But I can see what you're saying though. I guess we shall have to agree to disagree.


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## TitTornade

*[Off topic parts snipped]*
*Frank, moderator*

Else, I think you consider that French is the standard language that is spoken in Northern France (to simplify).
"Je chante" can be said "je chant", but also "ch'chant'", "jeu chant", "jeu chan'nt'", "je chan'nteu"... 
Which one to choose to write phonetically ? "Je chante" seems to be better than "je chant"... 



> Exactly. It's only in poetry which is hardly a natural part of the language. The -z ending isn't a native part of the language unless it comes before _y_ or _en _as has been mentioned. Children don't learn that from their parents; you have to go to school to learn it.


 
??? Chrildren have to go to school to learn to write, I think... Do you meant that: all you don't learn from your parents is not good? 

French orthography is not pretentious, French orthography IS! Why to change it?


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## missmillies

*[Part about Passé simple snipped]*
*[Off topic remark about other writing systems deleted. Inapporpriate language snipped. Once again.]*
*Frank, moderator EHL*



> Else, I think you consider that French is the standard language that is spoken in Northern France (to simplify).
> "Je chante" can be said "je chant", but also "ch'chant'", "jeu chant", "jeu chan'nt'", "je chan'nteu"...
> Which one to choose to write phonetically ? "Je chante" seems to be better than "je chant"...


Perhaps it should be optional, you can write it in your own dialect. 




> ??? Chrildren have to go to school to learn to write, I think... Do you meant that: all you don't learn from your parents is not good?


Yes - all that you learn from your parents or your environment and that you use in natural spoken speech is native, anything else isn't really. 



> French orthography is not pretentious, French orthography IS! Why to change it?


Because it's fossilised as it was centuries ago. It would mean that French schoolchildren wouldn't have to spend hours in dictation and it would free up time for more valuable activities. Not to mention the ecological benefits; apparently books would have a third less pages without the mute endings.


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## CapnPrep

*<Reaction to deleted text deleted>
*
There are already several existing threads discussing the use of the passé simple in current French (spoken and written). See for example this thread, and this message. But I don't understand what this has to do with orthography and orthographic reform.


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## Welshie

I think people get a little wound up by your comments, missmillies, because you seem to say that the only purpose of a writing system is to reflect the pronunciation of words in the language. While this may have been its original purpose, and some might argue its primary, the fact of the matter is that French orthography as it stands today (like English orthography) is a rich tapestry of history and development of the language.  To start making value judgements on the writing system because there are some idiosyncrasies that seem strange at first when considering only the pronunciation of a word is inflammatory. 

As for abjads, there is nothing "ridiculous" about them. They're even "more efficient" than Western scripts since they can write the vowels if needed and if not leave them out, and convey more words with fewer letters


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## missmillies

Welshie said:


> I think people get a little wound up by your comments, missmillies, because you seem to say that the only purpose of a writing system is to reflect the pronunciation of words in the language. While this may have been its original purpose, and some might argue its primary, the fact of the matter is that French orthography as it stands today (like English orthography) is a rich tapestry of history and development of the language. To start making value judgements on the writing system because there are some idiosyncrasies that seem strange at first when considering only the pronunciation of a word is inflammatory.


_*I*_ think the most important part of an orthography is to represent the spoken language as closely as possible. Many people think that. Throughout this thread, I've taken into account other people's opinions, but they still haven't changed my opinion. That seems perfectly reasonable to me. (apart from the first few posts I made, most of which have been deleted, I haven't been that unreasonable). 

*[Off topic part about other writing systems snipped*
*Frank, moderator]*


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## Frank06

*Hi,*


*- The original question is the main topic of this thread.*
*- It's very difficult to deal with French verbs, orthography and leave out the topic of liaison. But please, let's limit ourselves to elision in the context of verbs. There is a huge amount of threads about liaison in the various French forums.*
*- Minor sub-topics as Germanic verbal forms, other writing systems (adjabs, Chinese characters, etc.) which popped up in this thread are closed.*
*- Once again, adjectives as "pretentious" and "ridiculous" in connection with languages, scripts, orthography do not belong in any serious linguistic discussion. There are a lot of message boards where one could receive a dubious round of applause for using these "daring" epithets, but EHL is NOT one of them (or rather, WR in general is not one of them).*
*- We, the moderators of EHL, usually do not edit posts. We prefer to delete them completely. However, in this thread, we decided not to throw out the child(ren) with the bath water and we edited some posts (i.e. we snipped certain parts). We did our best to clearly indicate what and why. *
*- Questions about the moderation can be asked via pm. EHL has three moderators. None of us claim to be infallible, none of us are deaf to reasonable arguments. *

*Groetjes,*

*Frank*
*Moderator EHL*


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## xmarabout

I would like to add that the point 7 is not correctly explained:
7 is not _chantrè_ but well _chanterè_ and, except in part of France, we make a distinction between chanterai (_chanteré_) et chanterais (_chanterè_).

And I would like to insist again on the _liaisons_. If you do not prononce correctly the sometimes-hidden counsoun, I will ot understand you !!!


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## Meyer Wolfsheim

In some of your posts you seem a little angry but to answer your original question:

French orthography should not be described as "pretentious;" it is a writing system which suits the language.  French has the standard romance verb inventory, with all such tenses and distinctions in the language.  As pointed out before, if French were written using a "phonemic" alphabet, problems would arise and it would create more confusion.  Particularly because it would appear that consonants were coming out of nowhere in feminine forms and liason would become extra complicated and unpredictable.  

For example:

Il sé mi (Il s'est mis)

And the feminine:

El sé miz (Elle s'est mise)  The rule here is add a -z.  

Il sé di (Il s'est dit)

El sé dit (Elle s'est dite)  The rule here is add a -t.  

etc.  As you see, without the preservation of orthography, the rules regarding agreement in French become incredibly complicated.  The preservation of that historical orthography is actually a blessing and it helps among other things distinguish verb forms which normally orally do not have a difference.  This particularly helps in subjunctive forms.  

C'était la plus belle dame que j'ai*e* jamais vu*e*.  

These also help in distinguishing the past participle and imperfect:

Été vs étai-

Allé vs allai-

and so on...

Otherwise, it would appear that the imperfect construction in french is simply using the past participle without a helping verb and no agreement!  Imagine how confusing that would be considering past participles also act as adjectives and sometimes nouns!  

And despite what many think, French orthography is quite phonemic and predictable if you have a good ear (eu vs e vs oe, etc.).


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## DenisBiH

Meyer Wolfsheim said:


> In some of your posts you seem a little angry but to answer your original question:
> 
> French orthography should not be described as "pretentious;" it is a writing system which suits the language.  French has the standard romance verb inventory, with all such tenses and distinctions in the language.  As pointed out before, if French were written using a "phonemic" alphabet, problems would arise and it would create more confusion.  Particularly because it would appear that consonants were coming out of nowhere in feminine forms and liason would become extra complicated and unpredictable.
> 
> For example:
> 
> Il sé mi (Il s'est mis)
> 
> And the feminine:
> 
> El sé miz (Elle s'est mise)  The rule here is add a -z.
> 
> Il sé di (Il s'est dit)
> 
> El sé dit (Elle s'est dite)  The rule here is add a -t.




I don't know much about French (I learned it only for a short time), but what you're describing seems a lot like what is actually present in BCMS (Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian and now Montenegrin).

bolest - illness, sickness
bolestan - ill, sick (masculine, indefinite)
bolesni - ill, sick (masculine, definite)
bolesna - ill, sick (feminine)

The -t- even appears and disappears during declension, so nom. bolestan but gen. bolesnog. Along with the -a- (_nepostojano a_ lit. "unstable a") appearing as a reflex of a Common Slavic yer in strong position (bolest*a*n) but disappearing where yer was historically in a weak position (bolesnog). 

That this is somehow more complicated to learn to write I would not agree, but I am a native speaker though. There have been proposals by some (mainly Croat, I think) linguists to reinstate a more morphological spelling (it was used in the past) such as bolestnog, bolestna etc (I think), but nothing has come out of it so far.

Again, I do not find this particularly confusing (it is after all, how it is spoken) nor does it lead to doubts about the same root being in bolestan/bolesna etc.

It may be more difficult for a non-native learner, but on the other hand, so is current French ortography for non-natives.



> 6) chantè, (written as _chantais, chantait, *chantaient*_)
> 7) chantrè, (written as _chanterai, chanterais, *chanteraient*_)


The pronunciation of the words in bold, if it is correctly suggested, equals to me starting to run and then suddenly falling off a cliff somewhere at the -ent part with a big question mark above one's head, cartoon style (figuratively speaking)

To make the long story short, there may be other valid reasons for keeping the ortography (the second part of your post, and not wanting to make a sharp break with the rich literary tradition, as well as non-linguistic reasons), but "randomly" appearing consonants don't seem to me to be such a strong reason against.

Just my two cents.


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## DenisBiH

Interesting.



> Many changes were introduced in the sixth edition of the Académie dictionary (1835)
> ...
> The spelling of some plural words the singular form of which ended in _D_ and _T_ was modified to reinsert this mute consonant, so as to bring the plural in morphological alignment with the singular...
> _parens_ → _parents_ (relatives)


So, if I understand this correctly, in the case of some mute consonants in written French, their presence does not represent preservation of an older, historical spelling, but rather the result of someone's ideas back in 1835 of how the language "ought to be" spelled and the historical previous version actually had the "randomly (dis)appearing t" as in parent/parens?


*<Deleted>*


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## xmarabout

Meyer Wolfsheim said:


> For example:
> 
> Il sé mi (Il s'est mis)
> 
> And the feminine:
> 
> El sé miz (Elle s'est mise) The rule here is add a -z.
> 
> Il sé di (Il s'est dit)
> 
> El sé dit (Elle s'est dite) The rule here is add a -t.


 

May I correct your pronounciation: _est_ is _è_ not _é_
Il s*è* mi (Il s'est mis)
El s*è* miz (Elle s'est mise)

etc.


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## DenisBiH

An interesting summary (search for grand and then click Formes de l'entrée) of the use of different forms of grand in Middle French, according to the online "Dictionnaire du Moyen Français (1330-1500)".

The plural (if I'm not mistaken) grans seems to have been preferred to grands/grandes back then. I believe the number to the right represents the number of occurrences of the word in the corpus used.



> grandes     18
> grands     4
> grans     97


An example:



> Nous lisons que ou diluge et en la subversion des V citez peccherresses les _*petis enfens*_ furent perdus avec les _*grans*_. (GERS., _Pent._, p.1389, 80).


There seems to have been a similar (search for petit and then click Formes de l'entrée) development regarding not writing -t- in the plural form of petit.



> petis     15
> petites     5
> petits     2
> petitz     1
> petiz     7


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## Hulalessar

If French were a language spoken by a small community in the Amazon Rain Forest it would be interesting to see how a linguist who had studied it would write it. He would surely not devise a system with silent consonants. Since he would not be influenced by a pre-existing system of writing the language his analysis may in fact not recognise a phenomenon of liaison. He would instead perhaps describe this as a feature of grammar, observing that many words in the language had more than one form according to the word that followed. He would also note that the formation of the feminine form of adjectives where the masculine ended in a vowel was unpredictable. If he set out to teach French his pupils would find such matters worrisome complications.

The fact is though that the way French is written no such complications are perceived. Noting exceptions and allowing for the required doubling of consonants and other orthographical rules, you can formulate the rule that the feminine of adjectives can be found from the masculine by adding an "e". It is of course a rule that only applies to writing. In many cases there is no change in pronunciation; in others the "e" has the effect of sounding the consonant written but not pronounced in the masculine form. If you know the written form of the masculine you know what consonant to sound when you pronounce the feminine. The orthography makes the feminine form predictable.

There is therefore some justification for the historical/etymological spelling of French. However, to suggest that French orthography somehow reflects the genius of the French language is to go too far. I once started to count the number of ways that /o/ can be written in French and stopped at twenty. Any system that allows that has to be capable of some simplification.

Whether simplification is desirable is another question and the same question that can be posed in respect of English. The fact is that, despite appearances to the contrary, neither orthography is totally chaotic and broad rules emerge; people can on the whole cope. It may be that children would master writing quicker if both systems were more regularly phonemic, but in practice if you were to change the systems radically the old systems would still have to be taught to make older texts accessible.


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## missmillies

Meyer Wolfsheim said:


> In some of your posts you seem a little angry but to answer your original question:
> 
> French orthography should not be described as "pretentious;" it is a writing system which suits the language. French has the standard romance verb inventory, with all such tenses and distinctions in the language. As pointed out before, if French were written using a "phonemic" alphabet, problems would arise and it would create more confusion. Particularly because it would appear that consonants were coming out of nowhere in feminine forms and liason would become extra complicated and unpredictable.
> 
> For example:
> 
> Il sé mi (Il s'est mis)
> 
> And the feminine:
> 
> El sé miz (Elle s'est mise) The rule here is add a -z.
> 
> Il sé di (Il s'est dit)
> 
> El sé dit (Elle s'est dite) The rule here is add a -t.
> 
> etc. As you see, without the preservation of orthography, the rules regarding agreement in French become incredibly complicated. The preservation of that historical orthography is actually a blessing and it helps among other things distinguish verb forms which normally orally do not have a difference. This particularly helps in subjunctive forms.


Yes I see what you mean, but I actually think it would be easy for a French native speaker to agree adjectives and participles in a phonemic writing system since they (should) know already that in the spoken language that a -t is added in the femine past participle di*t* and an -z in the feminine mi*z*, etc. Though this would probably be harder for a second language learner because of the irregularity. So yes I can see that a more etymological orthography could suit French in this case. 



> C'était la plus belle dame que j'ai*e* jamais vu*e*.


Again I see what you mean but in the spoken language those two subjunctive forms aren't phonetically distinct from the indicative forms, in fact most subjunctive -er verbs are only distinct from the indicative in the nous and vous forms. 



> These also help in distinguishing the past participle and imperfect:
> 
> Été vs étai-
> 
> Allé vs allai-
> 
> and so on...
> 
> Otherwise, it would appear that the imperfect construction in french is simply using the past participle without a helping verb and no agreement! Imagine how confusing that would be considering past participles also act as adjectives and sometimes nouns!


I don't think this would be a problem at all since _allé_ is actually pronounced _alé _whereas _allais_ is pronounced _alè_, so the past participles are distinct from the imperfect forms.


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## Mauricet

xmarabout said:


> May I correct your pronounciation: _est_ is _è_ not _é_
> Il s*è* mi (Il s'est mis)
> El s*è* miz (Elle s'est mise)
> 
> etc.


Is it so in Belgium ? In France we pronounce _Il s*é* mis_ (il s'est mis) and _El s*é* miz_ (elle s'est mise) even if "Il est" is pronounced _Il *è*_. The same word "est" is pronounced these two different ways, a hard case for a would-be phonetic orthography, I guess ...


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## xmarabout

Mauricet said:


> Is it so in Belgium ? In France we pronounce _Il s*é* mis_ (il s'est mis) and _El s*é* miz_ (elle s'est mise) even if "Il est" is pronounced _Il *è*_. The same word "est" is pronounced these two different ways, a hard case for a would-be phonetic orthography, I guess ...


 
Yes, it is so in Belgium... There are a lot of threads in this forum about the difference of pronouciation between north and south of France 

Juste un exemple, parfois je dois lire les paroles des chansons de Francis cabrel pour comprendre exactement ce qu'il dit...


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## DenisBiH

Hulalessar said:


> If French were a language spoken by a small community in the Amazon Rain Forest it would be interesting to see how a linguist who had studied it would write it. He would surely not devise a system with silent consonants. Since he would not be influenced by a pre-existing system of writing the language his analysis may in fact not recognise a phenomenon of liaison. He would instead perhaps describe this as a feature of grammar, observing that many words in the language had more than one form according to the word that followed. He would also note that the formation of the feminine form of adjectives where the masculine ended in a vowel was unpredictable. If he set out to teach French his pupils would find such matters worrisome complications.



Is there any particular reason, other than perhaps historical, to derive the feminine from the masculine? I'd imagine (judging by the examples given so far) that his students would pretty soon realize that the masculine form can be easily arrived to from the feminine by dropping the last consonant.


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## bibax

Exactly! 

The students can remember all forms of an adjective (e.g. gran/grand).

Nobody wonders that in Latin the nominative of frontis (gen.) is frons (not fronts), and the nominative of frondis (gen.) is also frons (and not fronds).


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## DenisBiH

If I may offer some personal insight. I did try learning French once. Learning how to pronounce as the standard requires it was not really that difficult. Ok, there are rules that tell you how to "fast forward" through 3-4 centuries of evolution between standard written French and standard spoken French. I guess learning to write would have been a somewhat more difficult task.

But this was not what was so disheartening. Realizing that my spoken French after learning it would still be far removed from actual spoken French was.

It is like having an orthography representing the state of the language 800 years ago (A), the standard spoken French representing the state of the language 400 years ago (B), and then having modern spoken French (C). Now going from A to B, although cumbersome would have been doable with time, but then learning to go from there to C was what finally made me quit. Maybe being exposed to French every day negates some of the difficulties in this last stage, but I wasn't fortunate enough to be in such a situation.

What am I talking about? *[YouTube link removed]*.

I wonder, what are the common spelling errors French speakers make? I've noticed in my own language that much of the most common errors in fact arise from the written standard being less in tune with spoken language. There does seem to be somewhat of a spelling issue among the French today, according to this article.


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## missmillies

DenisBiH said:


> Is there any particular reason, other than perhaps historical, to derive the feminine from the masculine? I'd imagine (judging by the examples given so far) that his students would pretty soon realize that the masculine form can be easily arrived to from the feminine by dropping the last consonant.


Of course! I was in the mindset for some reason that masculine is the default, but of course is isn't. So that difficulty is avoided then!


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## Hulalessar

DenisBiH said:


> Is there any particular reason, other than perhaps historical, to derive the feminine from the masculine?



Not really.



DenisBiH said:


> I'd imagine (judging by the examples given so far) that his students would pretty soon realize that the masculine form can be easily arrived to from the feminine by dropping the last consonant.



Not necessarily. Compare _laid/laide_ with _aride_.


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## DenisBiH

Hulalessar said:


> Not necessarily. Compare _laid/laide_ with _aride_.



But your rule of deriving feminine by the addition of -e would also fail with aride if I'm not mistaken?

I may not know French, but my Spanish is somewhat better and I recall there being at least two classes of adjectives there, one with different forms for masculine and feminine (hermoso / hermosa) and one with the same form for both (caliente). Are French adjectives divided similarly?


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## Meyer Wolfsheim

DenisBiH said:


> But your rule of deriving feminine by the addition of -e would also fail with aride if I'm not mistaken?
> 
> I may not know French, but my Spanish is somewhat better and I recall there being at least two classes of adjectives there, one with different forms for masculine and feminine (hermoso / hermosa) and one with the same form for both (caliente). Are French adjectives divided similarly?


 
Yes, some adjectives in French do not agree for gender because it's impossible, like Spanish "caliente.", as the final "e" is like a neutral vowel sound. Any adjective already ending in an e will not carry any agreement for masculine or feminine because there is no consonant to force out (there may be some exceptions but very few!). Some adjectives are also indeclinable, like "bon marché" as the universal example. 

But how do you explain "beau" to "belle" but "faux" to "fausse?" There would be too many exceptions. 

However on other posts:

I have been learning standard French and the sound in "est" is definitely an é sound, like in "sais." I've never heard of a difference between allé and allai-, etc. and I have spoken with francophones before. 

I can see how the é sound might collapse into è but I believe it is best to stick to Standard French (Parisian dialect?), as anyone can find a number of exceptions if you allow any dialect or form of a language. 

And while the difference between some subjunctive forms and some agreement isn't alive orally anymore, it still creates a different effect and lessens ambuiguity in writing. I wonder though that it would be quite weird to be taught to add an -e for the subjunctive of the je form of avoir "ai" to "aie" as it would simply be a truly artificial marker (but allows analogy to other forms, aies, ait, aient, etc.). 

A transition to a phonemic script would be painful and disastorous and learning French as a foreign language would become much more difficult. A rare case I suppose where a historical orthography actually helps learners of the language!


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## DenisBiH

Okay, I did some quick French learning on the net.  So the rule would be.


One forms a feminine form of an adjective by adding an -e to the masculine form (joli / jolie) except

a) When the masculine ends in -e, in which case nothing is added (rouge / rouge)
b) When the masculine ends in -l or -n in which case the consonant is doubled prior to addind -e (bon / bonne)
c) When the masculine ends in -er or -et in which case an accent is needed along with -e (cher / chère)
d) When the masculine ends in -c the feminine is -che (blanc / blanche)
e) When the masculine ends in -eur the feminine is -euse ( flatteur / flatteuse)
f) When the masculine ends in -eux the feminine is -euse ( hereux / hereuse)
g) When the masculine ends in -f the feminine is -ve (neuf / neuve)
h) And there are other irregular formations ( beau / belle, nouveau / nouvelle , vieux / vieille)


With the addition of all the exceptions (which you also mentioned in your post), the simple rule seems somewhat less simple.

It would be interesting to see approximate figures on the distribution of French adjectives in these various groups. It would also be interesting to see where the revised spelling would exacerbate irregularities, and where it would maybe eliminate them (blanc / blanche ?)

Though, personally I think what bibax said has a lot of merit. Simply learn both forms in appropriate contexts. Isn't that what native speakers do prior to getting any education? I personally think that the method of teaching a language that consists primarily of grammar+dictionary is more suited for dead languages. And if it were not so, we would not have exchange / immersion programs, courses taught by native speakers, audio / video courses etc. Perhaps not even this forum.


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## DenisBiH

> But how do you explain "beau" to "belle" but "faux" to "fausse?" There would be too many exceptions.



But these are exceptions already. Wouldn't the spelling fo (faux) and fos (fausse) make them more regular, except in liaison maybe?


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## Welshie

Meyer Wolfsheim said:


> However on other posts:
> 
> I have been learning standard French and the sound in "est" is definitely an é sound, like in "sais." I've never heard of a difference between allé and allai-, etc. and I have spoken with francophones before.
> 
> I can see how the é sound might collapse into è but I believe it is best to stick to Standard French (Parisian dialect?), as anyone can find a number of exceptions if you allow any dialect or form of a language.



est is like sais, yes but that's not the same as é! 'Est' (verb form, not "East") and 'sais' are pronounced as an "open mid-front unrounded vowel":ɛ

http://fr.wiktionary.org/wiki/est#Forme_de_verbe

Whereas é is pronounced as a "close mid-front unrounded vowel": e
http://fr.wiktionary.org/wiki/joué

In practice the difference can be hard to hear in speech but it is there


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## missmillies

Meyer Wolfsheim said:


> But how do you explain "beau" to "belle" but "faux" to "fausse?" There would be too many exceptions.


But these are already irregular, they don't need to be explained. 



> I have been learning standard French and the sound in "est" is definitely an é sound, like in "sais." I've never heard of a difference between allé and allai-, etc. and I have spoken with francophones before.
> 
> I can see how the é sound might collapse into è but I believe it is best to stick to Standard French (Parisian dialect?), as anyone can find a number of exceptions if you allow any dialect or form of a language.



I think "est" is _-è_ in a lot of places, like in Quebec (I'm not sure though). I know that _-ais_ and  _-aient,_ are pronounced _-è_ in the French I've heard. But even if they weren't would it really matter that the past participle is exactly like the imperfect? If the spoken language gets by fine, then the written language will too. 



> And while the difference between some subjunctive forms and some agreement isn't alive orally anymore, it still creates a different effect and lessens ambuiguity in writing. I wonder though that it would be quite weird to be taught to add an -e for the subjunctive of the je form of avoir "ai" to "aie" as it would simply be a truly artificial marker (but allows analogy to other forms, aies, ait, aient, etc.).


Whilst I agree that the -e endings in subjunctive gives consistency, how on Earth would it cause ambiguity? If the lack of distinction doesn't cause ambiguity in the spoken language then it won't cause any ambiguity in the written language. Sorry if I'm repeating myself. 



> A transition to a phonemic script would be painful and disastorous and learning French as a foreign language would become much more difficult. A rare case I suppose where a historical orthography actually helps learners of the language!


Possibly.


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## missmillies

DenisBiH said:


> Okay, I did some quick French learning on the net.  So the rule would be.
> 
> 
> One forms a feminine form of an adjective by adding an -e to the masculine form (joli / jolie) except
> 
> a) When the masculine ends in -e, in which case nothing is added (rouge / rouge)
> b) When the masculine ends in -l or -n in which case the consonant is doubled prior to addind -e (bon / bonne)
> c) When the masculine ends in -er or -et in which case an accent is needed along with -e (cher / chère)
> d) When the masculine ends in -c the feminine is -che (blanc / blanche)
> e) When the masculine ends in -eur the feminine is -euse ( flatteur / flatteuse)
> f) When the masculine ends in -eux the feminine is -euse ( hereux / hereuse)
> g) When the masculine ends in -f the feminine is -ve (neuf / neuve)
> h) And there are other irregular formations ( beau / belle, nouveau / nouvelle , vieux / vieille)
> 
> 
> With the addition of all the exceptions (which you also mentioned in your post), the simple rule seems somewhat less simple.
> 
> It would be interesting to see approximate figures on the distribution of French adjectives in these various groups. It would also be interesting to see where the revised spelling would exacerbate irregularities, and where it would maybe eliminate them (blanc / blanche ?)
> 
> Though, personally I think what bibax said has a lot of merit. Simply learn both forms in appropriate contexts. Isn't that what native speakers do prior to getting any education? I personally think that the method of teaching a language that consists primarily of grammar+dictionary is more suited for dead languages. And if it were not so, we would not have exchange / immersion programs, courses taught by native speakers, audio / video courses etc. Perhaps not even this forum.


I agree with you. A reformed orthography would be problematic when it comes to adjectives because it would surely irregularise and complicate the whole situation. But the fact is that the situation is alreay complicated in spoken French and French speakers know what the actual forms are off by heart. So it would make second language learning harder but I don't see why it should cause native speakers any problems.


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## DenisBiH

missmillies said:


> I agree with you. A reformed orthography would be problematic when it comes to adjectives because it would surely irregularise and complicate the whole situation. But the fact is that the situation is alreay complicated in spoken French and French speakers know what the actual forms are off by heart. So it would make second language learning harder but I don't see why it should cause native speakers any problems.




Quite possibly, I'm unfortunately not in the position to fully understand the impact it would have. However, gran/grand and rouge/rouge (ruž/ruž, whatever it would be spelled) seems rather simple to learn for a non-native compared to for example Arabic broken plurals. But yes, maybe for the foreign speaker the time freed up by not having to learn one set of irregularities (written French vs standard French pronunciation vs modern colloquial French) would simply be taken over by the time needed to learn another set of irregularities.

But native speakers might find it easier to master. And for non-natives, modern spoken French forms might be easier to understand with a somewhat more modern spelling (and possibly reforms of grammar, say where ne...pas is concerned). _Je ne sais pas_ is rather far removed from _chépas,_ but _Ž se pa_ (or whatever it would be spelled) would make it easier to recognize the modern contractions _Ž'se pa_ and _chépas._


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## missmillies

DenisBiH said:


> Quite possibly, I'm unfortunately not in the position to fully understand the impact it would have. However, gran/grand and rouge/rouge (ruž/ruž, whatever it would be spelled) seems rather simple to learn for a non-native compared to for example Arabic broken plurals. But yes, maybe for the foreign speaker the time freed up by not having to learn one set of irregularities (written French vs standard French pronunciation vs modern colloquial French) would simply be taken over by the time needed to learn another set of irregularities.
> 
> But native speakers might find it easier to master. And for non-natives, modern spoken French forms might be easier to understand with a somewhat more modern spelling (and possibly reforms of grammar, say where ne...pas is concerned). Je ne sais pas is rather far removed from _chépas,_ but _Ž se pa_ (or whatever it would be spelled) would make it easier to recognize the modern contractions _Ž'se pa_ and _chépas._


Completely. I mean it would be more complicated than it is now, but not that much more complicated and I'm sure patterns would be found.


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## Pedro y La Torre

missmillies said:


> I agree with you. A reformed orthography would be problematic when it comes to adjectives because it would surely irregularise and complicate the whole situation. But the fact is that the situation is alreay complicated in spoken French and French speakers know what the actual forms are off by heart. So it would make second language learning harder but I don't see why it should cause native speakers any problems.



The moral of the story is, leave well enough alone.


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## missmillies

Pedro y La Torre said:


> The moral of the story is, leave well enough alone.


Well I wouldn't go that far, but almost everyone else seems to disagree with me, so I won't argue with you....


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