imperceptible. It is only when we attempt to produce the exact sounds of the English language less than three centuries ago that we realise the fact that if Shakspeare could now stand on our stage he would seem to us to speak in an unknown tongue; though one of his plays when written is as perfectly full of intelligence now as then. Such changes of sound are most developed in countries where many different dialects, through conquest, immigration, or otherwise, exist side by side; they are checked by the increase of education, and by facility of locomotion, both of which causes tend to assimilate all dialects to that one which by some lucky chance has become the literary speech of the nation."-Encyclopedia Britannica. Alphabet.' § 55. Division of Syllables. In the rules given for the division of syllables the etymological division has of necessity been sacrificed to the merely syllabic division. In theory, no doubt, the pronunciation ought to be subordinate to the components of which the word is built up: in practice the etymology may or may not coincide with the pronunciation. A compromise is the only way out of the difficulty for the purposes of pronunciation, let the word be divided according to the undoubtedly artificial, but correct and convenient, method given; for other purposes let the etymology be followed. It will be found that accents are employed in strict accordance to the rules given. Compare respecter and réfléchir, etc., etc. (see also §§ 67, 83).* In addition to the case in which a desire to display the etymology of a word may render it advisable to neglect this rule, we find in verse a frequent use of diphthongs as dissyllables: it is evident that here again the syllable must begin with a vowel, and that the general rules are not applicable. This subject is treated in greater detail in the Prosody. § 56. Graphic Accents.- i. The Graphic Accents were adopted from the Greek, but they have not in French the same meaning as in Greek. ii. They were introduced in the sixteenth century, to help learners to pronounce correctly, and were at first only employed for that purpose in elementary works. iii. Till the present century they were employed with little or * Diez recognises this formal division. 'The grave accent must be employed when e (according to the usual division of syllables) occurs at the end of a syllable or before s final. Compare mè-ne, rè-gne, rè-gle, dès, procès; and terre, appelle, coquette, aspect, secret, fer, etc.'-Grammatik, vol. i., p. 419. no regularity.* Authors seem to have allowed the printers to put them or to omit them as they liked. Hence the subject is full of inconsistencies and contradictions; definite rules for their use are impossible. iv. The accent may show that there has been contraction in comparatively recent times.† This is especially true of the circumflex : 1. The acute over e may have this meaning : 2. Many recent contractions exist, where no accents are employed (§ 426, C). v. The accent may show that the vowel on becoming tonic or semi-tonic has needed strengthening (see § 353). This is particularly true of the grave: je lève (tonic) je lèverai (semi-tonic) je répète (tonic). 1. The acute may be added with no other meaning: 2. Double consonants may be preferred (see § 353, b): 3. If the circumflex is present already for other reasons, the tonic syllable is sufficiently marked by it : mêler je mêle. 4. If the acute is present already for other reasons, the tonic syllable may perhaps retain it (see § 353, a) : abréger j'abrége (tonic) vi. The accent may show that the vowel has a sound when *Any one can convince himself that they were not much used by Racine, Boileau, Corneille, Voltaire, etc., if he examine the letters written by these authors, which are exposed to view in the British Museum :Predictions; entierement a vous; apres; preface (RACINE). Privilege, interesser; Art poetique (BOILEAU). Tres, assurement, d'etre (VOLTAIRE). (Accents have been put, however, according to modern usage, in quotations after 16th century.) See Appendix, A. †Thus the accent is put over maître, not because it is a contraction of magistrum, but of maistre. accented, different from what it has when unaccented. This is only true of e, a, o (see § 79). 1. The accent over e may only show that it is not 'mute.' This the acute shows over atonic and therefore short syllables; the grave over tonic and therefore long syllables (§ 78). But not always (see § 79): général, espèce, après. 2. The circumflex over a, o, alters the pronunciation of the Vowels tache, tâche, mode, côte (see § 79, iv.). vii. The accent may be used to distinguish one word from another. * This only occurs in a few words: But many words of similar spelling, but of different meaning, have no accent to distinguish them : plat, flat plat, dish tu, past part. of taire. viii. "The present system of French accentuation is scarcely a hundred years old, and has been of very slow growth. The Neufchâtel Bible of 1535 has not a single accent. The acute accent on the final e seems to have been the first written accent used. Towards the end of the sixteenth century the grave accent is used as a mark of distinction over à, où etc. The use of the circumflex over e instead of es (même instead of mesme) is severely censured by the Academy in the preface to the first edition of its Dictionary. Jacques Dubois † (sixteenth century) was the first who had a regular, though somewhat whimsical, system of accentuation. Up to the end of the last century considerable diversity prevailed as to accentuation. In an edition of Crébillon (2 vols. 4to, Imprimerie Royale, 1750) every word appears accented as at present, with the additional use of the circumflex over vû, pû, aperçû, and so on. The Geneva edition of Rousseau, in thirty volumes of 1782, and a Paris edition of Montesquieu of 1782, have, as far as I have observed, the system now in use. Bayle and the Dictionnaire de Trévoux use accents with great carelessness in the commonest words. The grave accent on the penultimate is regularly discarded in *Several reasons may combine: thus dû (owed), sûr (sure), have accents both to mark contraction and to distinguish them from du (of the), sur (upon). † Silvius. an edition of Racine of as late a date as 1799 (Paris P. Didot l'aîné). "Who was the inventor of the present system? Not the Academy, which simply followed the received usage; nor Voltaire, who was notoriously careless as to spelling, but who, if he had invented it, would at least have laid down a guiding principle. Beza used accents, but I have no means of consulting his book. The plan of Du Guez (an Introductorie for to learn French trewly London, no date, probably published about 1550) of writing accents below the line, is evidently a mere device for the use of foreigners. "MEISSNER. § 57. Words in English with French Accentuation.—"Accent is the stress of the voice upon a syllable of a word. Syllabic accent is an etymological one, and in oldest English it was upon the root, and not upon the inflectional syllables. By the Norman Conquest a different system of accentuation was introduced, which towards the end of the twelfth century began to show itself in the written language."-MORRIS. "The vocabulary of the French language is derived, to a great extent, from Latin words deprived of their terminal inflexions. The French adjectives, mortal and fatal, are formed from the Latin mortalis and fatalis, by dropping the inflected syllable; the French words nation and condition, from the Latin accusatives, nationem and conditionem, by rejecting the em final. In most cases the last syllable retained in the French derivatives was prosodically long in the Latin original; and either because it was also accented, or because the slight accent which is perceivable in the French articulation represents temporal length, the stress of the voice was laid on the final syllable of all these words. When we borrowed such words from the French, we took them with their native accentuation; and as accent is much stronger in English than in French, the final syllable was doubtless more forcibly enunciated in the former than in the latter language.”—MARSH. "French accentuation even affected words of pure English origin, and we find in Robert of Gloucester wisliche (wisely) for wisliche; begynnyng', endyng', etc.; and Chaucer rhymes gladnes'se with distres'se, etc. * Palsgrave (1530) employs the acute to point out the tonic syllable: Apportez moi un fagót. Parainsi lheretique se convertíst. Beza (1533) employs with the same object. He points out the advantages of accents for the help of learners, but does not employ them like Du Guez. Pelletier (1555) suggests the use of an accent to show the omission of 8, and the length of the vowel. Henri Estienne employs accents as they were employed for a long time afterwards, on the final e only to show when it is not mute: verité. Spenser's accentuation exhibits the influence of French accent, and Shakespeare and Milton retain many words accented upon the final syllable, which are now accented according to the Teutonic method, as access', aspect', conver'se. As early as Chaucer's time an attempt was made to bring the words of French origin under the Teutonic accentuation, and in the "Canterbury Tales we find mórtal, tem'pest, sub'stance; and many words were pronounced according to the English or French accentuation, as pri'son and prison', tem'pest and tempest'. In the Elizabethan period we find a great tendency to throw the accent back to the earlier syllable of Romance words, though they retained a secondary accent at or near the end of the word, as na"ti'on, sta"ti'on. 1. Many French words still keep their own accent, especially (1) Nouns, in -ade, -ier (eer), -è, -ee or -ine (-in), as cascade', crusade', etc.; cavalier', chandelier', etc.; gazetteer', pioneer', etc. (in conformity with these we say harpooneer', mountaineer'); legatee', payee', etc.; balloon', cartoon', etc.; chagrin', violin', etc.; routine', marine', etc. Also the following words :-cadet', brunette', gazette', cravat', canal', control', gazelle', amateur', fatigue', anti'que, poli'ce, etc. (2) Adjectives (a) from Lat. adj. in us, as august', benign', robust', etc.; (b) in ose, as morose', verbose', etc.; (c) in -esque, as burlesque', grotesque', etc. (3) Some verbs, as baptize', cajole', caress', carouse', chastise', escape', esteem', etc., etc. In many words, mostly of Latin origin, a change of accent makes up for the want of inflectional endings, and serves to distinguish (a) a noun from the verb, (b) an adjective from a verb, (c) an adjective from a noun :— (a) aug'ment tor'ment (b) ab'sent fre'quent (c) a com'pact an ex'pert to augment', etc. to frequent', etc. to compact'. to expert', etc. (MORRIS.) |