Re: French verb conjugation: "je harcèle"? or "je harcelle"?

On Mar 26, 9:48 am, Oliver Cromm <lispamat...@xxxxxxxx> wrote:
* Peter T. Daniels wrote:
On Mar 26, 8:44 am, Oliver Cromm <lispamat...@xxxxxxxx> wrote:
* /r Peter T. Daniels wrote:
On Mar 25, 7:30 pm, Oliver Cromm <lispamat...@xxxxxxxx> wrote:
* /r wugi wrote:
"Christian Weisgerber" :

- appeler, rappeler, chanceler, renouveler, ruisseler, jeter and their
family double the consonant;
- celer, geler, peler, acheter and their family use the grave accent;

How do you get into one family or the other?

Derivation by prefix or compounding.

I'm sure Peter meant, eg : how did appeler get in one family and acheter in
the other?

But that may not be how "family" is used in the above quotation. As
there is the third group of "the other verbs", I understand the lists to
be exhaustive, and Christian's interpretation of "family" as correct.

Anything that enumerates a few items and continues with "and their
family" is not an exhaustive list.

<klonk>

(Forehead, meet desk - desk, meet forehead)

Ok, so when you wrote "these lists," you weren't talking about these
lists, but some master lists somewhere in the sky that include all
French verbs, assigned arbitrarily to either the grave-family or the C-
doubling family?

Your question how the two groups are distinguished is perfectly valid,
and so far, it sure looks arbitrary.

But this is a sideline about the meaning of "family". We shouldn't use
"family" in two different senses in this discussion, if we want to get
anywhere.

I read it like this:

Group 1: A, B, C and their *respective* family
Group 2: D, E, F and their *respective* family
Group 3: others

The claim was that some verbs take e-grave and some verbs take C-
doubling, but neither list was complete (that's what "and their
family" indicated -- it was a wordy way of saying "etc."). Whoever
said "by derviation or compounding" appeared to be providing a
criterion for membership in Group 1 (derivational prefix; I see no
compounds there) -- but at least one non-derived item, jeter, is
listed in Group 1, so that's not a valid criterion.

If membership in Group 1 or Group 2 is in fact arbitrary and
unpredictable, then it is indeed impossible to know how to spell the
3sg. of Brel's nonce verb "bruxel(l)er." If, however, French-speakers
agree on whether it's bruxelle or brux`ele, then there is _some_ rule
operating, which it is possible to determine -- given a fuller list of
the membership in Groups 1 and 2.

(What is Group 3?)

The lists for groups 1 and 2 are exhaustive ignoring isomorphy (i.e.
being in the "family" of derivations with the same base verb).

?
.

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