THE StUDY OF FRENCH IX FOREIGN r.NIVKkSITl r.s. ,V >' I 



made uniform by analogy in all parts of the verb. In the one 

 we rind carried ou throughout, in the other eu (similarity of 

 sound ). 



Sit gives soit, and habeat should give aiet, which, however, 

 becomes ait on analogy of soit, both being the present subjunctive 

 of an auxiliary verb. The present participles of all verbs now end 

 in ant, which properly belongs only to the first conjugation from 

 -ant em. The other conjugations had -entem or -ientcm (simi- 

 larity of function). 



Plico, plicamus should give: je ploie, nous ployons; on the 

 analogy of je prie, nous proyons, it became in Old-French: je plie, 

 nous ployons. Hence we have now two verbs : je plie nous plions 

 and je ploie, nous ployons (similarity of sound). It will be 

 observed from the above examples that analogy has been especially 

 busy in altering the conjugation of verbs. f Now that phonetics 

 and morphology have been seriously studied on scientific prin- 

 ciples, a stop has been put to the sad plight to which etymology 

 was at one time reduced by a number of would-be inventive 

 geniuses, who made it their sport and pastime. It was treated 

 as if it was some sort of divining art, a guessing at riddles, at 

 which Voltaire could sneer fairly cheaply, when he said: " Les 

 voyelle's n'y font Hen et les consonnes y font pen de chose" 

 Menage, the tutor of Mme. de Sevigrte, was a great sinner in this 

 respect. He derived the word haricot (kidney bean) from Latin 

 faba, via the following fantastic intermediate stages ; faba — 

 fabaricus — fabaricotus — aricotus — haricot. Aufaine. which 

 means a charger, he derives rightly from the Spanish (through 

 Arabic) : alfana=a horse. But to connect it with Latin equus, 

 he forges the following air-built filiation : equus — cqua — eka — 

 oka — haka — faka — facana — fana, and with the Arabic article 

 before it : alfana. Indeed, one of Menage's antagonists was right 

 when he sent him the following quatrain : 



Alfana vient d'equus sans doute; 

 Mais il faut convenir aussi. 

 Ou'en venant de la jusqu'ici, 

 II a beaucoup change en route. 



He derived the adjective jeune from the noun /VM//r(fast)because 

 he said, youth is the dawn of life, when man has not yet broken his 

 fast! At present we know that faba could never have resulted in 

 anything but feve\ that the sounded h in haricot is sufficiently 

 indicative of its non-Latin origin (there was an old verb of 

 unknown origin, haligoter=to chop up), and that the words 

 jeune and jeune, which make a rhyme in modern French, had 

 nothing in common in bygone ages, when the former was either 

 jovene or jucne (juvenem) and the latter jeune (jejunum). The 

 following example will prove the importance of morphology in 

 the etymology of words : — 



* Margaret S. Brittain. M.A., French Phonetics. Clarendon Efc^'-T 

 Oxford. /\> *>' ^ ^ {\ 



