# Origins of French 'soit....soit'



## Beachxhair

Hi
I've always wondered what the origins of the French conjunction 'soit....soit' (either...or) are, especially since _soit _is also the 3rd person singular of the subjunctive of être. Did the conjunction _soit _develop out of the subjunctive verbal form _soit, _out of one (or several) subjunctive expressions where the relative pronouns preceding the verb came to be dropped for some reason? If so, at what stage in the French language did this start to happen?

If anyone knows anything about this, thanks for sharing any of your knowledge


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## fdb

In English too you can say "be it.... be it....".


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## Beachxhair

fdb said:


> In English too you can say "be it.... be it....".


True, but in English _be _is still considered a verb in subjunctive, one of the few fossilized forms. In French, _soit _is now analysed as a conjunction and/or adverbial in cases like 'soit rouge soit bleu'. I was wondering whether some kind of morphological reduction had taken place in certain types of clauses in an earlier stage of the French language, to produce the adverbial usage of _soit _meaning _either/or_.


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## Ёж!

But why do you think this use is in any way special, in the first place?


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## Beachxhair

Ёж! said:


> But why do you think this usage is in any way special, in the first place?


 I don't think that is _special, _I'm just interested in the origins of the word _soit _as a grammatical adverb, rather than as a verb in the subjunctive....It seems to me that some sort of morphological reduction of the verb form _soit _must have taken place in some contexts, to produce the adverb _soit. _I wanted to see whether my theory was correct or not.


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## luitzen

I think there's a similar situation in Dutch. In Dutch we can say _"hetzij... hetzij..."_ and it means exactly the same as _"be it... be it...". __Het_ is the same as English _it_ and _zij_ is the subjunctive singular of _zijn_ (to be). In Dutch, the subjunctive does not really exist anymore, only in what we would call a "fossilized expression". The subjunctive can no longer be used in daily language to create new expression, however, the expressions involving a subjunctive are allowed to stay around. I.e. until people forget the expression, or people forget it's a subjunctive, or the meaning slightly changes, or a combination of these things, leading to wholly new words which are no longer recognized as a combination involving a subjunctive, but as, for example, a conjunction (which is rather ironic btw).

Other fossilized expressions in Dutch which nobody recognizes as a subjunctive:
- god*verdomme
*- dank*zij*
- *Reed* dan ook niet zo hard! (People will often think *reed* is a past imperative -ikr?!-, but it's the simple past in the subjunctive mood.)
- _*Leve *_de koning en de koningin. (People usually wouldn't know that it should be *Leven*)
- en wat dies meer *zij *(Since it more or less means the same, most people will think it's just a fancy way of saying _etc._)


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## Beachxhair

luitzen said:


> I think there's a similar situation in Dutch. In Dutch we can say _"hetzij... hetzij..."_ and it means exactly the same as _"be it... be it...". __Het_ is the same as English _it_ and _zij_ is the subjunctive singular of _zijn_ (to be). In Dutch, the subjunctive does not really exist anymore, only in what we would call a "fossilized expression".
> 
> QUOTE]
> 
> It's the same in English - the subjunctive doesn't really exist except in fossilized expressions, like _so be it, __wish you were here, come rain or shine _and _God save the Queen. _In fact, most English speakers (apart from those of us who are interested in languages and linguists ) don't even know what the subjunctive is.


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## Beachxhair

I'm still interested in exactly how the French _soit _adverb developed though...


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## fdb

Beachxhair said:


> In French, _soit _is now analysed as a conjunction and/or adverbial in cases like 'soit rouge soit bleu'. I was wondering whether some kind of morphological reduction had taken place in certain types of clauses in an earlier stage of the French language, to produce the adverbial usage of _soit _meaning _either/or_.



The question is whether this analysis is correct. I would maintain that - at least historically - it is not.


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## Beachxhair

fdb said:


> The question is whether this analysis is correct. I would maintain that - at least historically - it is not.


 I can't say whether this analysis is correct or not, but according to the Collins dictionary, the use of _soit....soit _to mean either...or is a conjunction, in contemporary French.  http://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/french-english/soit 


If this analysis is incorrect historically (or would you say....still incorrect with regard to modern French?), it'd be interesting to know why, and it'd shed some light on my question about the origins of _soit...soit. _


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## luitzen

I don't understand what's wrong with my example of _hetzij_ in Dutch if we're pondering the possibility _soit _might be derived from the French subjunctive. English has _be it_ which clearly still is in the 3rd person subjunctive and Dutch has _hetzij_ which is considered to be a conjunction by many people and derived from the third 3rd person subjunctive.

 So we have three examples, one language uses the third person subjunctive for a certain meaning and another language uses a word derived from the third person subjunctive for the same meaning while a third language uses a word which looks like the third person subjunctive, which is considered to be a conjunction, but without the pronoun. Maybe I misunderstood the thread, but to me it looks like the third person subjunctive certainly tends to pick up that meaning.


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## fdb

"soit" is of course etymologically a verb in the 3rd person sing. subjunctive.

http://www.cnrtl.fr/etymologie/soit


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## Beachxhair

fdb said:


> "soit" is of course etymologically a verb in the 3rd person sing. subjunctive.
> 
> http://www.cnrtl.fr/etymologie/soit



Thank you


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## Barsac

Beachxhair said:


> I'm still interested in exactly how the French _soit _adverb developed though...



Latin verb esse (to be), third person subjunctive : sit  [sim, sis, sit, etc...]


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## fdb

Although, as far as I can see, “sit …. sit ….” is never actually used to mean “either …. or .… “


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## bibax

Either/or in Latin: *vel ... vel ...*

vel bello vel paci = either (be it) for war or for peace;

vel is fossilized imperative of the verb velle = to wish, to want;

BTW in Czech we can use: buď ... buď ...
buď is 3rd pers. sing. imperative of the verb to be (Czech has no subjunctive/conjunctive).


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## olaszinho

Italian has the same conjuction as French: sia.... sia...( either ... or). As in French, it comes from the third person singular subjunctive.


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## Barsac

'soit rouge soit bleu' = 'qu'il soit rouge ou qu'il soit bleu'.


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## Dan2

Beachxhair said:


> It's the same in English - the subjunctive doesn't really exist except in fossilized expressions,


A tangential remark if I may:
Productive use of what is usually called the subjunctive is still quite common in the US.  Not _everyone _uses it, and alternative wordings are available, but sentences like the following are commonly heard in the US:
"Bob insists that she attend every meeting."
"Mary suggested that he be more flexible about attendance."
"It's essential that the US stop trying to ..." (note that "US" is singular).
(I heard a populist politician say the latter sentence, illustrating the fact that such constructions are not limited to academic discourse.)



Beachxhair said:


> In fact, most English speakers ... don't even know what the subjunctive is.


That's probably also true of those that use it.  Most people are unaware of most of what they do syntactically.


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## merquiades

Beachhair.  I don't think it's peculiar as it exists in other romance languages too... _sia, sea, seja_... and is used in similar ways.  I don't believe that when people say _soit...soit_ they totally disassociate it from being a subjunctive verb form.  In books they translate it as _either... or_ into English, but it might be better translated as _be it_ or _whether it be_.
Soit rouge soit noir... be it red or black, whether it be red or black


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## Beachxhair

merquiades said:


> Beachhair.  I don't think it's peculiar as it exists in other romance languages too... _sia, sea, seja_... and is used in similar ways.  I don't believe that when people say _soit...soit_ they totally disassociate it from being a subjunctive verb form.  In books they translate it as _either... or_ into English, but it might be better translated as _be it_ or _whether it be_.
> Soit rouge soit noir... be it red or black, whether it be red or black


  I think that _be it...whether it be _better captures the meaning.


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