(B) Faire, voir, envoyer, etc., hold an intermediate place; in some tenses the diphthong has been consistently rejected, in others it is retained. Compare faisons and ferai, voyant and verrai, envoyer and enverrai. See each of these verbs for details.

(y) The following verbs vary the tonic syllable in Modern French much as in Old French. But the exact form in modern use depends upon the dialect chosen, or upon the period.

eu is now in reality less sonant than ou, but it must be recollected that it has arisen from ue, which once was a diphthong. (See § 82.)

eu (ue) and ui are merely variations.

peux
pui's, puisse

In puisse the attraction of the strengthened syllable has apparently been too great. The diphthong is carried through the tense.

(8) In the three following verbs, it is probable that the introduction of i was only intended originally to symbolize the mouillé l, and not to strengthen the tonic syllable. But the two motives were not distinctly separated, and confusion was the result. This confusion is most strikingly seen in valoir and vouloir. For further details see each verb.

(e) Fragmentary remains of diphthonged forms are seen in ris (sapes), vais (vado), ai (habeo), sois, soit (sis, sit), suis (Old French, sui, Lat. sum).

S

§ 393. Verbs in 'oir.'

All verbs in -oir resemble each other in one respect, they are derived from weak Latin Infinitives in ere. Most were weak in classical Latin, but some were strong, and underwent a change in conjugation from ĕre to ere in Low Latin. It has been explained above, how the tonic stem was often strengthened by 'diphthongaison.' If for “stem" we read ending," we have at once explained the origin of the syllable -oir.

§ 394. Boire (strong verb), bibère.

The Infinitive boire is a contracted form of the Old French boivre, the regular resultant of the Latin bibere. The medial b of the Latin has, as usual, become v. Compare habere, avoir; scribentem, écrivant, etc. Boire is one of the few verbs which has the strengthened form oi in the Present Infinitive stem; recevoir, concevoir, decevoir, etc., had it once, reçoivre, conçoivre, deçoivre.

$394A. Prendre (prehendere).

In Modern French the d is regularly dropped in all the weak forms of the Present stem: prenant, prenons, prenais. We doubtless owe the absence of d in some forms, and its presence in others, to a mixture of the dialects. The d was maintained in Picardy and Normandy: prendre, prendons, prendant. In Burgundy the d was dropped: je pren, prenant. In some strong forms of the Present stem we find double n: je prenne, tu prennes, il prenne, ils prennent. For this spelling in Old French no object is apparent. It seems to have been a mere variation in the orthography. But it has been utilized in Modern French to strengthen the tonic syllable as in jette, ancienne, etc.

§ 395. Tenir, Venir (strong verbs).

(a) Je tiens, je viens:

tiens, tient, are forms strengthened according to the principle explained in § 392. The forms tienne, tiennent, are only variations in the spelling of this strengthened tonic syllable. Compare prenne, § 3941.

(B) je tiendrai, je viendrai :

In this form two things claim notice :

(1) The d.

(2) The diphthong -ien.

1. The d in tiendrai, viendrai, was inserted between the liquids, as in voudrai, vaudrai, faudrai, etc., to give more substance to a weak word (§ 40. d).

2. With d inserted, the two words appeared thus: tendrai, vendrai. This no doubt caused confusion with tendrai, vendrai, the future of tendre and vendre, and the i of the diphthonged tonic stem was superadded.

§ 396. Quérir (strong verb), and compounds (Lat. quaerere). (a) In all the dialects till the end of the thirteenth century, the Infinitive was regularly querre from quaerere. (Compare courir, $389.)

Then the form quérir, from Low Latin querere, appears side by side with querre.

This querre is used by La Fontaine :

Messieurs, dit-il, en ce lieu n'ont que querre.

But he never hesitated at making use of an archaic form, if he found it expressive or convenient, and in his time querre may be said to have been already superseded by quérir.

. (B) In quérir, the Infinitive alone remains. The compounds acquérir, requérir, conquérir, have, on the contrary, all their forms. (7) The Future and Present Conditional forms acquerrai, conquerrai, etc., are obtained regularly from the old Infinitive acquerre, conquerre, etc.

(8) The tonic syllable is still strengthened as in Old French :

-quier
-quiez, -quiers
-quiert

querons

querez
quierent

The addition of an accent is of course modern (see § 56).

§ 397. Mourir (strong verb) (Lat. mori, through moriri). (a) Je meurs: eu, as explained in § 82, was originally ue and a diphthong.

(B) Je mourrai: mourrai unlike courrai, acquerrai, etc., seem to be a contraction of mourir and ai. But apparently mourirai does not occur, the contracted form seems to have been always in use:

Murrez vous a honte.
Dont je mourrai.

(Chanson de Roland, 11th cent.) (Couci, 12th cent.)

$398. Mouvoir (strong verb) (movere).

Mouvrai: By the side of the Burgundian and Picardian forms in -oir, movoir and mouvoir, we find as usual Norman forms in -er: mover, mouver (see § 391). The latter forms may have given us mouvrai as recever, dever, veer, poer, etc., the Norman equivalents of recevoir, devoir, voir, pouvoir, etc., may have given us recevrai, devrai, verrai, pourrai. But as the Future in all the dialects varied but little in any of the verbs, it is almost certain that we owe these forms rather to a consistent rejection of the form in oi when the tonic accent changed its position (see § 392),

§ 399. Vouloir (strong verb) (relle, through L.L. volēre). (a) Je veux, tu veux, il veut, nous voulons, vous voulez, ils veulent.

Je veuille, tu veuilles, il veuille nous voulions, vous vouliez, ils veuillent.

In these tenses we have ou, a vowel, changed when it bore the tonic accent, into ue a diphthong, and eventually deadened into eu (see § 82, eu).

The of the strengthened syllable was often mouillé ; this the addition of i signified. Hence the forms with i and those without, were really identical in Old French :

Je veuil pour vous mon cors travailler et pener. (Berte, 13th cent.) Je veus par votre amour ici en droit vouer (faire vou). (Íd.) The Present Indicative has adopted the forms in which is not mouillé; the Present Subjunctive, the forms in which is mouillé.

(B) Veuillons, veuillez, and voulons, voulez compared. The forms veuillons, veuillez, in which we find strengthened syllables independently of any tonic accent, are more difficult to explain. They are old, whereas voulons, voulez, are modern.

Vueillez qui cors et ame et quont que j'ai soit vo (vôtre). (Berte, 13th cent.) The stem veuill- was in common use till the seventeenth century, not only in the Imperative, but throughout the Present Subjunctive.* (Compare puisse, § 403. 8.)

Ne croyez que nous veuillions vous effrayer. (FLÉCHIER.) Pourvu que vous m'en veuillez croire. (PIRON.) (7) To resume: the variations in Old French forms of this verb are so numerous, that it is impossible to speak with certainty, but the history of the forms above, seems to be this:

At first the tonic syllable was regularly strengthened, sometimes with, sometimes without mouillé 7. 2. The motive of the change was forgotten, and this strengthened form was given irregularly to an atonic syllable. 3. A gradual return to the original principle has for some time been going on unconsciously. Hence, whereas now the stem veuill- is confined to tonic syllables in the Present Subjunctive, it is found side by side with voul- in the Imperative. The double forms are utilized to

obtain a shade of difference in the meaning:

In voulons, voulez we have the genuine force of the verb to will. Voulez et vous réussirez

Have-the-will, and you will succeed.

In veuillons, veuillez, we have the softened meaning of (kindly) be willing.

* Bienveillant (well-wishing, kindly) is a corrupted form of bienveuillant.

§ 400. Devoir, recevoir, concevoir, etc. (strong verbs). The first thing to be noticed in these verbs is, that the usual mode of speaking of them as verbs ending in -evoir, is misleading and etymologically false. The ev is a part of the stem, and does not belong to the ending any more than av in avoir, savoir, etc. This once understood, the rest is easy enough.

There are two series of verbs:

1. Devoir and redevoir regularly obtained from debēre.

2. Recevoir from recipere, through recipere

apercevoir, a compound of percevoir.

In all these verbs may be seen the common strengthening of the e into oi when it bears the tonic accent (§ 392. 3).

In Old French, recoivre, apercoivre, etc., the regular resultants of the Latin, often occur.

As explained in mouvoir (§ 398), the oi has been logically discarded in the Future and Conditional; je recevrai, devrai, etc. But as with mouvoir, it may perhaps be owing to the influence of the Norman dialect, which had in Infinitive recever and recevre, that this form has not yielded to the artificial formation seen in surseoirai, prévoirai, pourvoirai.

§ 401. Valoir (strong verb).

(a) The old Present Indicative singular forms of this verb were val, vals, valt.

They remain with the usual change of l into u, and consequent change of s into x (see § 210).

In the latter part of the thirteenth century the 7 was mouillé, and i was added, as in vouloir, throughout the tense.* This form, vaill-, was employed eventually for the purpose of strengthening the tonic stem. With this object it remains in Modern French, but in the Present Subjunctive only. Compare vouloir.

(B) Prévaloir has discarded the mark of the mouillé 1, and has now in Present Subjunctive: prévale, prévales, prévale, prévalions, prévaliez, prévalent.

* Of the old forms, vaillant remains as an adjective.