Re: Origins of French partitive, pas, etc.
- From: mb <azythos2@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 31 Dec 2007 13:34:37 -0800 (PST)
On Dec 31, 9:18 am, kj <so...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
I'm learning French and I'm mystified by several syntactic features
of French that have no counterpart in any other language I know
(not that I know that many, but still), certainly not in any other
Romance language I know.
I am most intrigued by the French so-called "partitive article"
(J'ai bu DU vin. Literally "I drank OF THE wine."),
ho bevuto del vino [standard it.]
as well as
the use in French of particles like "pas", "plus", "personne",
"rien", etc. in negative constructions (Elle ne supporte PAS le
brocoli), which has become essentially mandatory.
a podi *minga* sopportà i bròcol (only negative is the "pas"-like
"minga" [=mie], alternative construction "podi nó" is rarer)
[Galloromance]
for neg. pronouns, it is general Romance: non posso mangiar niente /
no puedo comer nada / etc.
In particular, I would like to know WHY these peculiar constructs
arose in the first place.
It is my understanding that they were not present in ancient French
(say before the 10th c. AD). When exactly and, most importantly,
WHY did the speakers of French feel the need to use these novel
forms?
Not only French. For the added negative particle (which now is the
only obligatory one), from "not even a step/crumb/etc" it went to "not
[even] a step". For the negative pronouns, it was there.
As for the partitive, it is also regular.
...
I wonder if the origins of the partitive and the negative particles
like "pas" can be traced to similar compensations of phonetic
developments in the evolution of French.
No, but the newer fact of "ne" becoming optional and redundant could
well follow the fact that it is unaccented and generally vowelless.
A good place to start is the very old and very easy to find Bourciez,
Eléments de linguistique romane, last print 1967 or so. Solid basis,
every used bookshop should have it.
.
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