The French Language

2nd pl 3rd sing accent adjectives adverb analogy apophony assimilated autre became become bien c'est cheval clause common countertonic dative Declension denote dialectal diphthongs disappeared dist distinction elimination etymological fait favour feminine fifteenth final consonant flexional forms French language French period function Gallo-Roman gerund grammarians graphy hesitation hiatus homme indicative infinitive influence intervocal Langue d'oïl later Learned words literary language Low Latin masc meaning Middle French Mod.F Modern French nasal neuter O.F. period Old French originally orthography palatal participle perfect persisted phonetic plural popular speech Popular words preceding prepositions pres present preserved proclitic pronoun pronunciation qu'il Raynaut re-modelled rendered result rien s'en seventeenth century Similarly sixteenth century sometimes spelling stem stress subjunctive subjv substantival substantives suffix survived syllable tendency thirteenth century tion tonic tout twelfth century unaccented usage verbs vocabulary vowel Vulgar Latin whence