§ 409. Etre (strong verb).

The Latin esse is formed from two roots:

(1) es, from which come sum, es, est, sumus, ero, esse, etc. (2) fu, from which come fui, forem, etc.

These two roots remain in French 'être,' and, with perhaps one exception, furnish all the tenses.

1. Etre is from esse, through Low Latin essere, estěre, and Old French estre.

2. Etant is probably formed directly from estere and estre, like Imperfect étais.

3. Eté is probably from Old French verb ester (stare).*

4. Sum, es, est, sumus, estis, sunt, have given sui(s), es, est, sommes, êtes, sont.

5. The Past Imperfect j'étais (Old French, estais) is probably the regular Imperfect of Old French estre.

6. The Past Simple fui, etc., has given fu(s), etc.

7. The Future and Present Conditional are derived in the usual way from the Low-Latin Infinitive essere + ai and ais (§ 368). The Old French forms were esserai, esserais, etc., whence serai, serais.

*It is this early mixture of the forms of esse and stare which has rendered impossible the separate existence of ester (see § 411), and has made it barely possible to say with certainty whether we have stare in étant, était, and été, or in été alone.

Brachet derives étant, étais, directly from estre, and été from status. He makes no attempt at explaining the introduction of été. If étant and étais come directly from the Infinitive être, why may not a past participle have been so formed?

Bourguignon thinks that estre had a past participle estu, and says that it remains in the patois of Lorraine. This estu he thinks was rejected for été (stare).

The derivation from status leaves the impression that status has been added to the different parts having forms of esse, because esse has no past participle. This is doubtful.

Littré derives étant, étais, été, from stare. But he gives no reason for the neglect of the Old French forms from esse, and the adoption of others from stare.

↑ G. Paris and Brachet derive soyons, soyez, from siamus, siatis. Are they not rather of French formation from stem soi ?

$410. Defective Verbs (§ 360).

Verbs are defective from one of two reasons:

(1) The part is wanting because, from the very nature of the verb, it could not be employed. Ex., falloir, pleuvoir, neiger, etc., to which it is scarcely possible to conceive an Imperative Mood, or the usual first and second persons of any tense.

(2) The parts wanting have been superseded, either entirely or partially, by those of some other verb: as, chu, which has given way to tombé; clore to fermer, etc.*

Many of the forms possessed by these verbs are only found in some isolated phrases or technical expressions, while others, although not thus restricted in their use, are more or less abandoned, and are only kept from becoming utterly obsolete by the remonstrances of grammarians,† etc., and the occasional use to which they are put by modern writers. Those forms only are given in §§ 411—420, which are tolerably common in modern works. Grammarians differ very much about the less common ones. In some grammars may be found parts long superseded; and on the contrary, forms are declared to be obsolete which are necessary, and therefore justifiable.

§ 411. Ester (stare).

Ester remains only in ester en jugement, to stand either as plaintiff or defendant in a suit. This verb is chiefly interesting because it seems to have furnished the past participle of être (see § 409). In Old French the verb ester was conjugated in full, but many of its parts resembled those of être (see Burguy, vol. ii. pp. 276-302), and this may possibly have much to do with its having been gradually dropped. Rester, arrêter, where no such confusion was possible, remain.

§ 411A. Férir (ferire).

Férir remains only in sans coup férir, without striking a blow. Till the sixteenth century it was conjugated throughout:

INDICATIVE.

je fiers nous ferons

tu fiers vous ferez

il fiert

ils fierent

La ou le soleil feroit.

(JOINVILLE, 13th cent.)

Et pour ce que je vous vois plus feru (épris) que la chose

ne vaut.

(Louis XI., 15th cent.)

* For general causes of the death of words, see Trench's English Past nd Present, Chapter 'Diminutions of the English Language.'

† See, for instance, La Bruyère,

It is thus employed even by Molière.

Peut-être en avez vous déjà féru quelqu'un.

(Ecole des Femmes, i. 6.)

§ 412. Gésir (strong verb) (jacere).

Most of the Old French forms employed indifferently e or i:

gesir or gisir, gesant or gisant, etc.

Modern French have i. They are

Ci-gît

nous gisons

je gisais

nous gisions

All the forms remaining in

hic jacet, here lies, is in common use on tombstones. The noun gîte, home, shelter, from Low Latin gistum (same root), is in full use. It has a corresponding verb gîter.

§ 413. Ouïr (weak verb) (audire).

1. The older form of this Infinitive was oir.

Et qu'il vous plaist a oïr ma priere. (Couci, 12th cent.) For au o, compare causa, chose; clausus, clos; aurum, or. For o ou, compare laudare, Old French loer, Modern French louer.

2. Except our and out, the various forms are more or less comic.

Till lately the verb was employed throughout. It was thus conjugated:

* Littré gives j'oirai, j'oirais, but this form is not later than the sixteenth century. Compare j'asseoirai, je pourvoirai, etc., (§ 408,) which, like j'oirai, are etymologically incorrect.

=

The O yes listen, of the English cricrs and law courts, is from the Anglo-Norman infinitive oyer. Oyer is also employed in oyer et terminer, another of the numerous law phrases which have been handed down unaltered from the Norman,

In the seventeenth century there is no trace of degradation in the word:

Si j'oïs maintenant quelque bruit, si je vois ce soleil.
(DESCARTES, 16th century.)
Son sang criera vengeance, et je ne l'orrai pas.

(CORNEILLE.) Et je vous en conjure de toute la dévotion de mon cœur, que nous oyions quelque chose qu'on ait fait pour nous.

(MOLIÈRE.)

On vit souffrir Madame d'Aiguillon, mais on ne l'ouït pas sc plaindre. (BOSSUET.)

Des terres presque inconnues ouvrent la parole de vie.

(MASSILLON.)

Even so late as Chateaubriand we haveOn n'oyait dans ce gouffre de vapeurs, que le sifflement du vent. (Italie, Le Vésuve.)

§ 414. Chaloir (strong verb) (calère).

Chaloir, to matter, to be of importance, is almost obsolete. It was in use till the seventeenth century. It has always been impersonal.

(BOILEAU.) (ID.)

Il ne vous doit chaloir, ni de qui, ni combien. J'en suis d'avis pourtant qu'il me chaille. (LA FONTAINE.) Nonchalant, nonchalance, nonchalamment, are in common use; the two first even in English.

Souloir (solere).

La Bruyère (17th cent.) includes souloir in a long list of words which in his time were archaic.

"L'usage a préféré dans les verbes travailler à ouvrer, être accoutumé à souloir, convenir à duire; faire du bruit à bruire; injurier à vilainer," etc.

It occurs occasionally in authors of the seventeenth century, but in the Imperfect tense only.

Chateaubriand employs it in this tense.

§ 415. Choir, échoir, déchoir, méchoir (strong verbs).

1. Choir was in full use till the sixteenth century.

Si un aveugle mene un autre, tous deux cheent en la fosse.

Les resnes lui cheurent des mains.

Au pis-aller n'y cherroit qu'une amende.

(CALVIN.)

(AMYOT)

(MAROT.)

In the seventeenth century, choir and chu seem alone to have been common. Littré only gives one other example, viz., the Past Simple (Passé Défini). It is from Bossuet: Cet insolent chut du ciel. He calls attention to the fact that the purists of the time, to whom we owe the loss of so many useful words, had in the end of the seventeenth century rejected it from their Vocabulary:

'Prenez garde de choir:' façon de parler bourgeois, dit de Caillères, 1670.

2. The Future, cherrai, écherrai, décherrai, mécherrai, are of regular formation according to the principle explained in §§ 392, 398. Compare verrai. Littré also gives choirai, échoirai, déchoirai, as available forms, but they are modern, and strictly speaking, irregular. The only example he gives under choir, échoir, or déchoir, is one from Diderot, 1767. Je crois que l'école a beaucoup déchu, et qu'elle déchoira davantage. Compare asseoirai, pourroirai, etc. (§ 408).

3. To meschéant, the now obsolete Present Participle of méchoir, to have ill luck, we owe méchant. The sense is: (1) to have bad luck; (2) to be good for nothing; (3) to be wicked. (See Position of Adjectives in SYNTAX.)

§ 416. Bruire (weak verb), (to) rustle.

The existing forms, bruyant, il bruit, ils bruyent, il bruyait, ils bruyaient, etc., are being rapidly superseded by bruissant, il bruisse, ils bruissent, il bruissait, ils bruissaient, etc. (See faillir, vêtir, etc., § 388.) Compare:

Les serpents à sonnettes bruyaient de toutes parts.

(CHÂTEAUBRIAND.) La ville bruissait à ses pieds comme une ruche pleine.

(LAMARTINE.) Bruyant, noisy, is common as an adjective. Compare also bruit, noise.

$416A. Braire (weak verb), (to) bray.

Braire, bryant, je brais, —, brait.

The tenses are formed regularly from the existing principal parts.