In Text: Branche
Latin: Branca ; /ˈbran.ka/
- Branca > Brancha due to epenthesis of “h” in the final syllable
/ˈbran-ka/ > /ˈbran-tʃa/, /-ka/ in the final syllable becomes /-tʃa/
- Brancha > Branche (Old French) due to evolution of final vowel, the low, mid, unrounded /a/ to the high-mid, front, unrounded vowel /e/
/ˈbran-tʃa/ > /ˈbrãn.tʃə/
- In Old French, final syllable ”-che” is pronounced as an affricative, alveolar, voiced consonant /tʃ/. In Modern French, the final syllable in /ˈbrãn.tʃə/, which is a ‘labial + j’ sound palatalizes to an /ʃ/ sound. This is pronounced as the fricative, lingua-[alatal, voiceless consonant /ʃ/ Additionally, there is nasalization of the consonant “n”, leaving the final Modern French pronunciation as /bʁɑ̃ʃ/.
In Text: Autre
Latin: Alter; /ˈal.ter/
- Alter > Altre due to metathesis of the high-mid, front vowel /e/ (grapheme “e”) and the consonant “r”.
/ˈal.ter/ > /ˈal.tɾe/ or /ˈal.tɾə/; The word-final, high-mid, front, unrounded vowel /e/ is pronounced as such, or as the mid-central schwa /ə/.
- Altre > Autre after the consonant “l” in the penultimate undergoes lenition, becoming the high, back, unrounded vowel represented by the grapheme “u”.
/ˈal.tɾe/ > /ˈawtɾe/;
- At this stage, in Old French, the grapheme “au” is pronounced as the dipthong /aw/. The word-final vowel represented by the grapheme “e” continues to be pronounced, as previously mentioned.
- At this point, the word is at its final spelling, relevant to Modern French, however, there is one more change it must undergo to reach a modern pronunciation.
/ˈawtɾe/ > /otʁ/; The grapheme “au” evolves in pronunciation to the high-mid, back, rounded vowel /o/. The final vowel is disappears in pronunciation, possibly due to some lenition, but the grapheme is maintained.
In Text: Espee
Latin: Spatha; /ˈspa.tʰa/
- Spatha > Spada after lenition of the consonant cluster “th” to “d”, in its unprotected, intervocalic position.
/ˈspa.tʰa/ > /ˈspa.da/
- Spada > Speda in a typical evolution in French, the low, mid unrounded vowel /a/, “a”, to a high-mid, front, unrounded vowel /e/, “e”.
/ˈspa.da/ > /ˈspe.da/
- Speda > Spede, repeating the process from the previous step, but this time in the penultimate syllable.
/ˈspe.da/ > /ˈtspe.de/; this is an Old French form typically used in the 9th century. The “s” at this stage would be pronounced as the affricative, alveolar, voiced consonant /ts/.
- Spede > Espede after addition of the prosthetic high-mid, front, unrounded vowel /e/, “e”.Because of this prosthesis, the word becomes trisyllabic.
/ˈtspe.de/ > /ˈets.pe.de/
- Espede > Espee, a later form of the word in Middle French, after complete lenition of the consonant “d” in the weak, intervocalic position, in an unstressed syllable.
/ˈets.pe.de/ > /ˈets.pe/
- Espee > Épée, as is typical for French, the “s” is dropped (complete lenition), leaving just the “e” in the penultimate syllable. The diacritic (accent aigu) marks the deletion of the consonant <s>
Pronunciation: /ˈets.pe/ > /e.pe/
In Text: Roi
Latin: Regem; /re.gem/
- Regem > Rege after lenition of the word-final consonant “m”
/re.gem/ > /re.ge/
- Rege > Roie, as a /g+e/ sound, in this case, palatalizes to the palatal, approximant /j/
/re.ge/ > /roj/
- Roie > Roi; the word-final, high-mid, front, unrouned vowel /e/ is not pronounced and thus, is deleted.
- While “Roi” is the final spelling in Old and Modern French, there is additional evolution of pronunciation from /roj/ > /ʁwa/, as the grapheme “oi” is pronounced /oj/ in Old French, but /wa/ in Modern French.
In Text: Argent
Latin: Argentum; /arˈɡen.tum/
- Argentum > Argent, after syncope and deletion of /-um/ in the unstressed syllable-final in the coda position.
/arˈɡen.tum/ > /ar’dʒen/ > /ar’ʒɑ̃/
This change occurs as a “g + e” palatal cluster would have been pronounced as the affricate, lingua-alveolar, voiced consonant /dʒ/ in Old French, but after palatalization, “g+e” is pronounced as the fricative, lingua-palatal, voiced consonant /ʒ/. Additionally, the final syllable is nasalized, so /-en/ > /ʒɑ̃/.
In Text: Prendre
Latin: Prehendere; /pre.hen.de.re/
- Prehendere > Prendere; because “h” is in a weak, intervocalic position, this made it susceptible to lenition. This would leave the word as “Preendere”, causign degemination of /-ee-/ to /-e-/ in the antepenultimate syllable.
/pre.hen.de.re/ > /pren.de.re/
- Prendere > Prendre
/pren.de.re/ > /pʁɑ̃dʁ/
- The last grammatical change we see in this word is syncope of the high-mid, front, unrounded vowel /e/ in the penultimate syllable. This is a standard change from Latin to French. /-dere/ > /dre/. In addition, the initial high-mid, front, unrounded vowel /e/ underoes nasalization to /ɑ̃/.
In Text: Bouche
Latin: Bucca; /ˈbuk.ka/
- Bucca > Bucce; common evolution of the word final vowel low, center, unrounded vowel “a” to the high-mid, front, unrounded vowel “e”
/ˈbuk.ka/ > /’buk.ke/
- Bucce > Buce; degemination of the consonant “c”
/’buk.ke/ > /’bu.ke/
- Buce > Buche (Old French); epenthesis of the consonant “h”. At this point, the graphemes “c +i” would be pronounced as the affricative, alveolar, voiced consonant /tʃ/. Additionally, the word-final vowel “e” would be pronounced as the high-mid, front, unrounded vowel /e/.
/’bu.ke/ > /ˈbaw.tʃe/
- Buche > Bouche; prosthesis of the mid, back, unrounded vowel “o”. The addition of this vowel causes dipthongization and the grapheme “ou” is pronounced /aw/ at this stage.
/ˈbaw.tʃe/ > /buʃ/
- though the word is at its final Old French and Modern French spelling, it must undergo three more phonetic changes to evolve to its Modern French pronunciation. The grapheme “ou” changes pronunciation to become the high, back, rounded vowel /u/. The grapheme “ch” evolves in pronunciation from /tʃ/ to the fricative, lingua-palatal, voiceless consonant /ʃ/. Finally, the word-final high-mid, front, unrounded vowel /e/ is maintained in written form, but deleted completely in pronunciation.
In Text: Jor
Latin: Diurnum; /diˈur.num/
- Diurnum > Jurnum, after palatalization of a /d+j/ sound to a /dʒ/
/diˈur.num/ > /dʒur.num/
- Jurnum > Jurn (Old French), after complete lenition (deletion) of the unstressed syllable-final /-um/
/dʒur.num/ > /dʒur/
- Jurn > Jorn (Old French); evolution of the high, back vowel “u” to the high-mid, back vowel “o”
/dʒurn/ > /dʒorn/
- Jorn > Jor (Old French); lenition of the syllable-final consonant “n”
/dʒorn/ > /dʒor/
- Jor > Jour (Modern French); prosthesis of high, back vowel “u”. Additionally, as this word transitions from Old French to modern, the affricative, lingua-alveolar, voiced consonant /dʒ/, represented by the graphemes /j+o/, becomes a fricative, lingua-palatal, voiced consonant, pronounced /ʒ/.
/dʒor/ > /ʒur/
In Text: Cité
Latin: cīvitātem; /ki.wi.ta.tem/
- Cīvitātem > Cīvitāt, after loss of word final “m” (/m/) and deletion of the mid, front, unrounded vowel “e” (/e/) in the final, unstressed syllable.
/ki.wi.ta.tem/ > /ki.wi.tat/
- Cīvitāt > Civtāt, after syncope of the high, front, unrounded vowel
/ki.wi.tat/ > /kiwˈtat/
- Civtāt > Ciutat (10th century Old French), Note: the evolution of the grapheme “v” to “u” does not change pronunciation. The voiceless velar plosive /k/, represented by the grapheme “c”, with the addition of the high, front, unrounded vowel “i” (“c + i”), palatalizes to the affricate, alveolar, voiced consonant /ts/ in Old French.
/tsiwˈtat/ > /tsiwˈtet/
- Ciutat > Ciutet; evolution of the low, back, unrounded vowel /a/ to the high-mid, front, unrounded /e/ in the syllable final. Typically, this change would not take place, as the vowel /a/ in a blocked syllable in Latin would remain the same in French, unlike an /a/ in a free syllable, which would evolve to /e/.
/tsiwˈtet/ > /tsiˈtet/
- Ciutet > Citet (11th and 12th centuries Old French); this change is a result of syncope of the high, back, unrounded vowel /u/ the penultimate syllable.
/tsiwˈtet/ > /tsiˈtet/
- Citet > Cité, after lenition of the word final voiceless alveolar stop /t/
/tsi’tet/ > /tsi’te/
- There is an additional change as the word transitions from Old French to Modern French. The affricate, alveolar, voiced consonant /ts/ represented by the grapheme “c (+ i)” evolves in pronunciation to the fricative lingua-alveolar, voiceless consonant /s/.
/tsi’te/ > /si’te/ (Modern French)
VERBAL MORPHOLOGY
Original Text: “Don jë ai puis aü grant dol…”
Latin: HABEO (Infinitive: habere)
Habēre is a regular verb. The simple first, present, indicative “ai” is derived directly from the Vulgar Latin /ajo/, which becomes /aj/ in Old French, which results in the regular Modern French [e] “ai”. It is common for the cluster /a+j/ to become /e/ or “ai” in Modern Frenhc. The graphemes do not change from Old French to Modern French.
Original Text: “Et verron com il est bendez.”
Latin: ESSE
This verb (“est”) is the third-person, present form of the verb “to be” stemming from the Latin infinitive esse. While the Latin esse is irregular, it evolved in Vulgar Latin, becoming the Class III /essere/. The verb is arhizotonic and the third person, present form “est” remains stable and does not evolve in spelling from Latin to Modern French. Though it is an irregular auxiliary verb, it is not irregular in evolution.
Original Text: “Sont decendu tuit troi a pié.”
Latin: DESCENDO
The verb “descendu” is the past participle of the Old French “descendere” (/desˈt͡sẽn.drə/, and later, /desˈt͡sãn.drə/). “Descendere” conjugates as a Class III verb and it is important to note that this verb varied in conjugation significantly depending on date and region. In this particular text, we can see this, as some lenition has happened to the fricative, alveolar, voiceless /s/. However, as this evolves to Modern French, the /s/ will return to become “descendu”. It undergoes regular change for Class III verbs and the past participle maintains the structure seen in Modern French that “-re” > “u” /u/ in the past participle.
Original Text: “Après manger deduire vunt…”
Latin: MANDUCARE, present active infinitive of MANDUCO
The verb “manger”, meaning “to eat,” comes from the Latin manducare. “Manger” is an irregular form of the verb, as during this time, “mengier” and the less common “mangier.” The Modern French “manger” is a descendent of “mengier.” Typically, mangier conjugates as a Class I verb ending in -ier, with a palatal stem. These verbs are conjugated similarly to -er verbs, except there is an extra i appearing before the e of some endings.
Original Text: “E partir vult ove Tristran…”
Latin: Partire
“Partir” conjugates as both a Class II or Class II verb (ending in -ir) depending upon circumstance. The Old French “partit” is derived from the Latin partire, which is the present active infinitive of partio. The structure of this verb is maintained through its evolution to a Modern French form “partir”.
NOUN AND ADJECTIVE MORPHOLOGY
Original Text: “Li rois pense que…”
The definite article “li” Old French is a definite masculine article and the equivalent of “le” in Modern French. Latin itself did not include definite articles, however “li” finds its origin in the Latin demonstrative ille (or ille). These demonstratives are responsible for giving rise to personal pronouns in French. The original role of ille as an adjective has since evolved to the position of a definite article.
Original Text: “Sire, mot t’ai por lui amé…”
The Modern French tonic third person pronoun “lui” stems from Vulgar Latin illūi, which is a form of Latin illī (the dative singular of ille). The -ui ending in Vulgar Latin illui is a result of the influence of cui (the dative singular of qui or quis). “Lui” is present in Old French, but in Modern French, it also takes the place of the Old French “il” and the dative singular “li” (both from Latin illi).
Original Text: “Ne ruis que de mei li sovienge !”
The Old French “mei” (pronounced /mej/ originates from the singular, first, non-subject form of the Latin me (/me/). This form undergoes normal transition and the dipthong /ej/ evolves into the Modern French “oi” /wa/. Thus, it arrives at its final form of the Modern French “moi” (/mwa/).
Original Text: “Ja n’i eüsent vestement.”
The Old French “ja” [dʒa] is derived from the unstressed form of the first person singular reflex ego in Latin. The first singular subject “ja” is the equivalent of the Old French “je”, which evolved to the Modern French “je” /[ʒə]/.
Original Text: “De son mantel que vos diroie ? ”
The Old French “vos” /vots/ is a personal pronoun in the accusative or dative form in Latin. “Vos” stems from the first, plural, non-subject Latin vos. In the evolution of “vos” /vots/ into Modern French, the fricative alveolar voiced /ts/ becomes the voiceless /s/ seen in the Modern form, and is later reduced to zero yielding “vos” /vo/. The word-final “s” /s/ is pronounced if there is a vowel immediately following it.
Original Text: “Dunt il a de bons e de bels…”
The Old French “bons” is the singular masculine nominative form of “bon”, derived from the Latin bonus. “Bon” /bõn/ is a Class I adjective, which requires a feminine singular form (nominative and oblique) ending in “e” and a masculine nominative singular ending in “s”. In Modern French, the /o+n/ causes nasalization and the word-final “n” is lost in pronunciation, except when followed by a vowel (/bõn/ becomes /bɔ̃/).