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

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thus trassest and sostraest, disest and diest (though Dardel would say the former represents *dicisset; sostraest and diest seem to follow the pres. subj. stems), and this not only in the arrhizotonic forms but where the traditional forms are rhizotonic, as ardet/arst, matet/mist, quaret/quist; enleisest is a further example of a strong arrhizotonic form. Franco-Provençal also has many similar forms: Dardel (p. 125) quotes modern pwišo, deišo, vališo, ulišo, šaešo, piaizisse and old aest, while the texts printed by Bec have preterites venit, veniront, tenit, ayit, muit, and subjunctives puit, volit, volissant. On the other hand there are the strong forms (condit.) ore, deuperant, souran (Dar., p. 88), ot, ouront, ousso, usse, (condit.) auret, por(r)et, pourret (Bec), u, dyu/devu, pu, su/sapu (Wahl., pp. 220-1). Cf. also biuront (Bec) as against bevešo/beišo (Dar., p. 125) from boire. While there is not a clear-cut contrast here between strong rhizotonic forms and weak arrhizotonic ones, as Dardel would like it, still the fact that there has been such a swing here over to weak forms, with the use of the vowel e (which later gave way to i in some areas), makes me wonder whether there were not perhaps weak arrhizotonic forms in use in this area from earliest times, alongside the strong ones. It will be seen that this area is contiguous to Italy and the Rhaeto-Romance-speaking area, and we shall find that the latter agrees with Italy in the use of weak arrhizotonic forms, so it may be that Dardel’s conception holds good for just this part of France, which is further linked to Italy and Switzerland by the preference for e over i. (The south-western dialects also have e, but in this they resemble Provençal, and they do not show the same extension of weak forms.) d) Provençal. When we come to Provençal we find that nearly all these verbs have the perfect in -c, -guist, -c etc., which the grammarians seem to agree in attributing to phonetic development from *-ww- (or *-γw-) < -cu-, extended to all the verbs of this class; so ac (and aic), aguist, ac, 26
aguem, aguetz, agron, and similarly plac, jac, dec, moc, noc, poc, lec/lic, valc, volc, and tinc, tenguist, tenc, vinc, venguist, venc, with the same stem consistently throughout the paradigm. In the case of tazer, Wahlgren gives tac, but Anglade gives tais and queries tac; this verb was not so common anyway, being challenged by calar. The verbs without -c, -g- are caber, saber, which have caup, caubist etc., saup, saubist etc., with anticipation of the u but no absorption of the consonant. The p.ps. similarly end in -gut, inherited in some cases, as plagut, jagut, nogut, and then extended to the others, as Wahlgren says, on the proportion plac:plagut, ac:agut; traces of earlier forms are found, as avut, mentabut, parut, venut, and, for another verb, (es)molut. Parec, paregut have been mentioned above. Saber makes sabut, also saubut under the influence of the perfect; for caber Anglade only gives cabit, from the inf. cabir (cf. It. capere/capire), but the modern dialects have ca(u)bu(t) and similar u-forms. For the -c, -g-verbs, the modern dialects have forms developed out of the old, with perfect -guère, p.p. -gut and similar forms, though sometimes the stem of the present has intruded, as in plaseguère, plaiguère beside plaguèri. Poder is interesting in having modern pousquère/pousquèi, p.p. pouscu, with the stem of the present subjunctive, beside regular pouguère, pougu; this, and similar Gascon and Catalan forms, will be examined later (§23). The remarkable thing to note about Provençal is the lack of forms based on the root of the verb; Dardel has, it is true, dug up an isolated imp. subj. tenes, but this is not a representative Provençal form. He also quotes sabes and sabessa, which seem allied to the Gascon and Catalan forms, but otherwise the uniformity is almost monolithic, until we come to Gascon. e) Gascon. Here the position is somewhat confused by a special phenomenon peculiar to Gascon, which is the use of the vowels o or u to 27
Page 1 and 2: THE STRONG PERFECTS IN THE ROMANCE
Page 3 and 4: paradigm — a very curious and, on
Page 5 and 6: according to the perfect stem, and
Page 7 and 8: the same one as is seen in the old
Page 9 and 10: described as “long by position”
Page 11 and 12: seized on a point of truth, but the
Page 13 and 14: (de)sinuerit, desinuisse, disserui
Page 15 and 16: vincisti, convincerunt, confringera
Page 17 and 18: 6. The verbs with -ēre infinitives
Page 19 and 20: alternation in Italian after we hav
Page 21 and 22: like portai, portas etc. with p.p.
Page 23 and 24: The -lēre verbs basically have wea
Page 25: (see §§12, 31). Also, as we have
Page 29 and 30: verbs, a comparison with Catalan be
Page 31 and 32: next line), while a document from t
Page 33 and 34: other hand, given the antiquity of
Page 35 and 36: apparent when we study other classe
Page 37 and 38: áp(p)idu, déppidu, bénnidu/benn
Page 39 and 40: also has an inf. creher (B.-M., 153
Page 41 and 42: 1 creí, 2 creiste, 3 creyó (credi
Page 43 and 44: seems to me the -tt- might be a sou
Page 45 and 46: eminiscent of that with parec, corr
Page 47 and 48: pareü, coreü and Prov., Cat. pare
Page 49 and 50: in other perfects, though we cannot
Page 51 and 52: -mut, with a Lat. infremuerit, and
Page 53 and 54: antscheiver < incipere), retschet (
Page 55 and 56: survived, and even one more, *rumps
Page 57 and 58: older language, and the change of t
Page 59 and 60: underwent the same development), na
Page 61 and 62: tesquei/teissei, tescut/teissut/tes
Page 63 and 64: Portuguese (if we suppose It. nacqu
Page 65 and 66: How vivere was attracted to this -s
Page 67 and 68: of Tours (6th c.), nor are there an
Page 69 and 70: from *exvellere, evidently popular,
Page 71 and 72: the Romance languages with two stem
Page 73 and 74: cloert ‘closed’ (a good example
Page 75 and 76: verbs), and the confusion began wit
Page 77:
were limited to the arrhizotonic on
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