THE STRONG PERFECTS IN THE ROMANCE ... - Page ON

standard forms like poüs, poüst. But once again I cannot feel that his case
is necessarily indisputable. It is a well-known fact that beside pout,
pourent the forms pot, porent were found, and likewise ot, orent, sot,
sorent etc., and I would like to say that one should not exclude the
possibility of two complete inherited paradigms, one poi, poïs, pot, porent
etc. (NFr. the same) and the other poi, poüs, pout, pourent etc. (NFr. pou,
powis, pout, pourent, as given by Pope), which then got confused and set
the pattern for the change of out, ourent, sout, sourent etc. to ot, orent,
sot, sorent. (It is interesting that the Chanson de Roland has pout and
poüst throughout, whereas Chrétien in general uses pot, poïst. In the case
of forms like poüs, powis one has to suppose an intermediate *poðw-
which became *poww-, pow-, just as oüs, awis arose from *aβwis,
*awwis, and ploüs, plawis (attested?) from *plaγwis, *plawwis.) Once
again, I doubt if any clear case can be made either way, unless we can find
writers who consistently used either poi, poïs, pot or poi, poüs, pout, but
anyway there is a chance that pouvoir was like vouloir and tenir in
having paradigms with and without u (see below), though whether this
loss of u goes back to Latin forms like poterit, volerit, tenerit is another
matter. In the case of potui, potuisti the u could have been absorbed,
possibly, in a different way from that seen in the other verbs (that is, the
ones with Proto-Fr. *-ww- that I have just described), seeing that this is
the only verb in -tere (cf. the Spanish and Portuguese forms); clearly pot
(without diphthongisation), if inherited, could not have come from a form
*potit, and we would have rather to imagine *pottit or *poutit or Proto-Fr.
*poððit (cf. vouloir below). In conclusion, let me emphasise that French
usually has the same type throughout the paradigm, whether with or
without -u-, and does not follow the Italian pattern; we shall see a similar
parallel development of different types when come to vouloir, tenir,
venir.
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