C. H. Grandgent

“ In the diphthongs ue, uo (luec, fuoc) , [5] opinions disagree as to which vowel originally bore the stress; subsequent changes seem to indicate that in the 12th and 13th centuries the practice varied in the different dialects. Old Provençal must have had in some words a peculiar type of r, which was sufficiently palatal in its articulation to call for an i-glide before it (esclairar) ; we do not know precisely how it was formed; in most regions it probably was assimilated to the more usual r as early as the 12th century. ”

“ The Provençal domain embraces, then, the following old provinces: Provence, Languedoc, Foix, part of Béarn, Gascony, Guyenne, Limousin, most of Marche, Auvergne, the southwestern half of Lyonnais and the southern half of Dauphiné. The native speech in this region varies considerably from place to place, and the local dialects are, for convenience, roughly grouped under the names of the provinces; [3] it should be remembered, however, that the political and the linguistic boundaries rarely coincide. ”

“ We must recognize two classes of adjectives: (1) those which in Latin distinguish the feminine from the masculine; (2) those which do not.
1. Adjectives like acer, which, though inflected after the 3d declension type, could distinguish the m. from the f. in the nom. sg., fell into one or the other—usually the first—of the following classes (agre agra, alegre alegra; terrestre terrestre) .
(1) Masculine and feminine different:—
(2) Masculine and feminine alike:—
[96] 1. Some adjectives of the second class were attracted into the first either in Vulgar Latin or in Provençal ”

“ In the masculine nominative plural, however, we find oftener the forms tüch tüich tüit tüt tüti, which point to a Latin ✱tūctī (cf. Italian tutti) ; for this no satisfactory explanation has been discovered (see Nigra, Rom., XXXI, 525) . Hence we occasionally have in the singular tütz, tüt, and in the objective plural tügz tütz; the last form occurs also as a nominative plural. Tọt is frequently used as a neuter pronoun and as an adverb.
[114]
(29) Üs, ‘some’; from ūnus, used as an indefinite adjective or pronoun, we have the plural forms; ü (n) , ü (n) s; ünas. ”

“ E seems to have been inserted in the second person singular of some verbs, to distinguish it from the third person: co (g) nōscis > conọisses, co (g) nōscit > conọis.
52. When the fall of the vowel would have resulted in an undesirable consonant group at the end of a word, the vowel was retained as an indistinct e: dŭbĭto > dọpte, lŭcrum > lọgre.
[34]
The principal groups that call for a supporting vowel are: (1) a consonant and a liquid; (2) a labial and a dental; (3) in proparoxytones, a consonant and a c ́ or c originally separated by the vowel of the penult ”

“ I have confined myself to the old literary language, believing that to be of the greatest importance to a student of Romance Philology or of Comparative Literature, and fearing lest an enumeration of modern forms, in addition to the ancient, might prove too bewildering. I should add that neither my own knowledge nor the material at my disposal is [iv] adequate to a satisfactory presentation of the living idioms of southern France. These dialects have, however, been investigated for the light they throw on the geographical distribution of phonetic variations ”

“ In lunh = nulh < nullum, on the other hand, the palatalization remains at the end of the word, but the liquid and the nasal change places.
Dissimilation.
87. Dissimilation, like the other irregular phenomena, affects mainly liquids and nasals, particularly r; it is not, however, entirely confined to these classes. The two nasals, m and n, are similar enough to undergo dissimilation. Some of the cases go back to Vulgar Latin, while others are peculiar to Provençal or to Provençal and French. In the table below, a dash indicates the total disappearance of the consonant in question. ”

“ The primarily tonic possessives come from the longer Latin forms. Mĕus mĕum mĕi mĕos > męus męu męi męus, which regularly became mięus etc. (§ 30) ; an analogical form mięu is found beside mięi. In the feminine of the first person we have, instead of ✱męa, mięua and mia: the first of these two forms is evidently made up from the masculine; the second may be due partly to the analogy of mi, partly to a proclitic use of the word (§ 44, 4) . ”

“ Most philologists explain the development of cl, gl into l ́ (cf. § 68) in a similar way. Inasmuch as Indo-European pt had also been changed to χt in Celtic, it is not unlikely that the Celts substituted χt, χs for Latin pt, ps in a few words; the χ replacing p may sometimes have been rounded.
1. To account for palatalization in the non-Celtic parts of southern Gaul, we may assume either that the spirant pronunciation spread from the Celtic to the other regions, or that in the latter the palatalization came about simply through the mutual attraction of the guttural and the dental. ”

“ An s that became contiguous to n was changed, in a few dialects, to r: almosna almorna, disnar dirnar. In modern Limousin and some of the dialects of Dauphiné, Languedoc, and Gascony, s has disappeared before nasals: asne ane, caresma carema, disnar dinar (so blasmar blamar, desma dema) ; the fall began during the literary period. S before a consonant in many of the modern dialects, and final s in some, has become i: asne aine, caresma careima (so perhaps desma deima, pruesme prueime) ”

“ Original lm, rm, sm required a supporting vowel in some dialects but not in others: hëlm > ęlme ęlm, ŭlmum > ọlme ọlm, palmum > palm; ✱ĕrmum ἔρημον > erm, fĭrmum > fẹrm, gĕrmen > gęrme; spasmum > espasme.
(6) Many verbs regularly have an -e in the first person singular of the present indicative: desire, dọpte, iütge, etc. By the analogy of these, -e often appears in the first person singular of verbs which need no supporting vowel: remīro > remir remire. By the analogy of the preterit (águi, füi, etc.) , -i is very often substituted for this -e: azọr azọri, cant canti, prętz pręzi, etc. ”

“ Düi < dūc may perhaps be explained as due to the analogy of düire and of fai. Cf. § 63, (6) .
D in apud fell early: see § 65, P, 2. In the proclitics ad, quĭd, the d disappeared before a consonant, and before a vowel became in most dialects ð > z (cf. § 65, D) : a, quẹ; að az, quẹð quẹz.
L fell in in sĭmul > essẹm. It remained in the learned Abęl, tribunal. It is believed by some that sivals, ‘at least’, comes from sī vel.
M fell in Vulgar Latin at the end of a word of more than one syllable (§ 55, M) : crēdam crēda > crẹza, dōnum dōnu > dọn, fŏrtem fŏrte > fǫrt; Adam is learned. ”

“ In some dialects, particularly in Rouergue, Limousin, Auvergne, and Dauphiné, a became ạ before a nasal, and at the end of a monosyllable or an oxytone: canem > cạn, grandem > grạnt, cadit > cạ, stat > estạ.
1. The conditions differ somewhat in the various dialects, according as the nasal consonant falls or remains, and is followed by another consonant or not. In Limousin the sound is ą before an n that cannot fall: see § 11, (5) . In Rouergue and in Dauphiné, ạ appears before all nasals. The poets generally follow the Limousin usage. ”

“ With the exception of dia (nearly always masculine) and of a few learned words, it contained only feminine nouns. As the nominative, accusative, and ablative singular early became identical, leaving only one form in the singular, the plural forms were reduced to one, the accusative crowding out the nominative; this substitution, which must have been begun before the Provençal period, was doubtless helped by the identity of nominative and accusative plural in feminine nouns of the third declension. Causa will serve as a model:—
1. ”

“ A number of cases of ię before r are doubtless to be explained by analogy. Hĕri > ęr; autre + er > autręr, which, through the influence of adjectives in -ęr -ięr, became autrięr: hence the form ięr. Fĕrio, mĕreo > fięr, mięr; hence, by analogy, the first person forms profięr, quięr, then the third person forms fięr, mięr, profięr, quięr, sięrf (but sęrvon, sęrva) , and the subjunctives ofięira, sofię (i) ra.
2. Ięsc (= ĕxeo) , ięscon, ięsca receive their diphthong either from earlier forms with s ́ or from ięis < ĕxit. ”

“ Diphthongs and triphthongs are included in the vowel list, compound consonants in the consonant table. For an explanation of the phonetic symbols, see p. vii. The variant pronunciations are discussed in § 8.
10. The Gascon group presents certain striking divergences from the other dialects: (1) it shows a b corresponding to Provençal v, as in be = ve < vĕnit, abetz = avetz < habētis; (2) it substitutes r for l between vowels, as in bera = bela < bĕlla; (3) it changes initial f to h, as in he = fe < fĭdem. Other Gascon [8] peculiarities are less ancient, less general, or less important. ”

“ Before u, v regularly disappeared, but it was restored by analogy in many words: flavus > flaus, ōvum > ŏum, rīvus > rīus; but also ŏvum, rīvus, by the analogy of ova, rivi. In the greater part of the Empire v apparently fell also before an accented o: pavōnem > paōne, pavōrem [40] > paōre. Cf. W. When a β, representing either b or v, became contiguous to a following consonant, it changed to u: ✱avĭca > aβĭca > auca, gabăta > gaβata > gauta, ✱flavĭtat > flaβĭtat > flautat. In several words rv became rb in Latin: vervēcem > berbēce berbīce, cŏrvus > cŏrbus, cŭrvus > cŭrbus. ”

“ Learned words have ri: bori < ebŏreum, contrari.
1. Adjectives in -er (-ier) and -or, coming from -arium and -ōrium, regularly have feminines in -eira (-ieira) and -oira. By the analogy of the masculine, there is a feminine in -era in parts of the west; by the analogy of the feminine, there is a masculine in -eir in Auvergne. The i of vair probably comes from the feminine vaira and from the verb vairar. The noun feira sometimes becomes fiera like a feminine adjective. ”

“ P. Marchot, Phon., pp. 51-53; W. Meyer-Lübke, in Bausteine zur romanischen Philologie, 313. Cf. G and X. [38]
G between vowels, before the accent, disappeared in some words in at least a part of the Empire: le (g) ālis, li (g) āmen, re (g) ālis, (realis is attested for the 8th century) ; ĕgo, generally used as a proclitic, everywhere lost its g; on the other hand, g was kept in castigāre, fatigāre, ligāre, negāre, pagānus. G before a front vowel (e, i) , by the 1st or 2d century, was pronounced g ́ (cf. C) : gĕntem > g ́ĕnte, fragĭlis > frag ́ĭlis. ”

“ The most important morphological developments are common to all, or nearly all, the Romance languages. They may therefore be ascribed, in their early stages, to Vulgar Latin, although direct evidence of their beginnings is scanty.
1. DECLENSION. NOUNS.
89. (1) During the late Vulgar Latin and early Romance period neuter nouns gradually became masculine; this change was doubtless due in part to phonetic developments which obliterated distinctive endings: dōnum > dọn, m.; nōmen > nọm, m. Mare, however, became almost always feminine in Gaul: la mar. ”

“ The breaking of ę, ǫ, under certain conditions, into diphthongs is not common to the whole territory, and the resulting forms show local differences: mĕum > męu mięu, fŏcum > fǫc fuǫc fuęc füc. Breaking is least common in the southwest.
[10] II. PHONOLOGY.
14. Inasmuch as Provençal, like the other Romance languages, grew out of the Latin commonly spoken under the Roman Empire, we must take this latter language as our starting-point. The transformation was so gradual and continuous that we cannot assign any date at which speech ceases to be Latin and begins to be Provençal ”

“ Conjunctive Forms.
122. Latin mē > mẹ, mī > mi, nōs > nọs; tē > tẹ, ✱tī > ti, vōs > vọs; sē > sẹ, ✱sī > si. Me mi, te ti, se si, used as proclitics before a vowel, or as enclitics after a vowel, were reduced to m, t, s: m’ama, t’apela, s’es; o͡m, be͡t, cosi͡s. Nọs and vọs, used as enclitics after a vowel, became respectively ns and us; que͡ns, no͡us; sī vōs > sius, later sieus (§ 32) . The forms (all objective) for the first and second persons and for the third person reflexive are, then:—
The pronouns of the first and second persons could, of course, be used reflexively. ”

“ Attracted by such words as these, arbor became masculine. There were some other less important shifts.
1. Juventus, passing into the second declension, became masculine (ioven) ; but we find also ioventut, f. Laus became masculine in Provençal; fin, on the other hand, is always feminine. Mĕrŭla > merle, m. Correitz, linh, both m., occur beside correia < corrĭgia, linha < līnea. Other similar changes might be noted. Pr. dia (also di) , like Latin dīes, is usually masculine.
90. Some nouns passed from the fourth to the second declension in the classic Latin period (dŏmus, fīcus) ”

“ From the spoken language the declension disappeared, in the west (as in Catalan) , before the literary period; in the centre and east, probably in the 12th century; in the north, in the 13th. The case preserved was usually the objective, but sometimes the nominative. Some nouns in -aire -adọr kept both forms, with a differentiation of meaning.
92. In the discussion of declensions some phonetic peculiarities must not be overlooked:—
(1) In the nom. pl. of the 2d declension, a stressed ẹ, followed in the next syllable by final -ị, would regularly give ị (cf. § 27, 1) ”

“ To the influence of the same ending -ier, as in carr (i) eira, is to be ascribed the diphthong in cad (i) eira < cathĕdra.
[21] The things just said of ę are true of ǫ: there is no breaking before u < l (tǫut = tǫlt) nor before ts, dz, s, z (nŏcet > nǫtz, ✱nŏptias > nǫssas) .
[22] The conditions are not quite the same as for e: an ę does not break before a labial (nęps) nor before n ́ (vęnha) . Breaking before g and k seems more general for ǫ than for ę.
[23] So the second person forms cuebres, uebres, uefres, and the third person forms cuebre, uebre, uefre ”

“ Whenever it is essential to distinguish spelling from pronunciation, italic type is used for the former, Roman for the latter.
· (under a vowel) : close quality. ̧ (under a vowel) : open quality. ̄ (over a vowel) : long quantity. ̆ (over a vowel) : short quantity. ̑ (under a letter) : semivowel, not syllabic. ́ (over a letter) : stress. ́ (after a consonant) : palatal pronunciation. ✱ (before a word) : conjectural, not found. > (between words or letters) : derivation, the source standing at the open end. ”