alexandrine would then contain two infractions of the laws of verse if the usual pronunciation of le were retained. "Chassons-le. Arrière tous, il faut que j'entretienne Cet homme." -V. Hugo, Cromwell. (Chassons-le should be pronounced fasõl and not sasõlœ, to make the line true.) N. B. The e of mute final syllables, preceded by a sounded vowel and followed by -s or -nt as in words like attachées, terminées, joies, assidues, rues, roues, dénouent, ennuient, emploient, can neither be pronounced nor elided. Although these forms are not allowable within the line, we find some rare cases where the mute e, though not elided, is yet not counted. Cf.: “En second lieu nos mœurs qui se croient plus sévères”. -A. de Musset, Poésies nouvelles, 195. "Pas un qu'avec des pleurs tu n'aies balbutié." "Les mondes fuient pareils à des graines vannées." -Sully-Prudhomme, ii. 63. "Avant que tu n'aies mis la main à ta massue." -Victor Hugo, Feuilles d'Automne. Having exhausted the cases where the mute syllable ends a word we come now to the alternative case. (2) Where the mute syllable is not at the end of a word. Three distinct cases occur. 1. Where the e mute stands between two consonants. In this case the mute syllable is always counted. Ex.: "Bientôt nous plongerons dans les froides ténèbres." Plon-ge-rons counts here as trisyllabic, although in colloquial French it is a dissyllable. 2. Where the e mute precedes a vowel or a group of vowels. Here it is not pronounced. Cf. eau, beau, geai, jeu. Consequently it is never counted as a separate syllable. Ex.: "Il neigeait. On était vaincu par sa conquête." -V. Hugo, Les Châtiments, l'Expiation. 3. Where the e mute follows a sounded vowel or a group of sounded vowels. Here it is not counted, and in poetry is usually replaced by the circumflex accent. Ex.: "Viens, je vais t'y conduire et tu les balaîras". -Sully-Prudhomme, Les Ecuries d'Augias. N.B. That which we now term the final mute syllable was always counted in Old French, save in some welldefined cases of elision (cf. chap. ii). As early as the sixteenth century, in the 3rd person plural of the imperfect and conditional tenses, and in the forms soient and aient, it was no longer counted. Ex.: "En ce lieu je my fin à mon triste langage, Car mille gros soupirs qui gardoient le passage -Desportes, Diane, i. "Francus en rougiroit et les neuf belles sœurs Apart from these cases, the mute syllable constituted a distinctly enunciated syllable, whether occurring within the word (this was especially the case up to the sixteenth century) or occurring as the final syllable of a word within the line (regularly up to the sixteenth century, and sporadically even later). Ex.: (i) Twelfth century: "Nicolete o le vis cler Fu montëe le fossé". (ii) Sixteenth-century: -Aucassin et Nicolette, iii. 1. "Le jeu lors et le ris, les libres chansonetes -Œuvres en rime de J. Antoine de Baïf. In scanning the second line of the above quotations it is seen that montëe counts as a trisyllable and gayes as a dissyllable. “Créon. Toy, toy, qui tiens penchant la teste contre bas Dy, le confesses-tu, ou nïes-tu le cas? Antigone. J'avouë l'avoir fait, et je ne le vous nie." -J. A. de Baïf, Antigone. Here nies counts as a dissyllable, and avouë as a trisyllable. There are also to be found some exceedingly rare instances of this usage in some of the plays of Corneille, Molière, and Rotrou, and in the works of La Fontaine. The instance quoted above (p. 4) is different. There the mute syllable is within the line, though it is not elided, and cannot be elided strictly speaking; but it is not counted. In order to be able to count the number of syllables in a line, it is necessary to know-and here another difficulty presents itself-how many syllables are formed by a group of vowels. The pronunciation of colloquial French is not to be relied on in these cases. As a matter of fact, there is in verse a certain rigidity of pronunciation nonexistent in prose. Further, spoken prose or colloquial French has a tendency to unify groups of vowels which verse subdivides. In prose one always says é-mis-sion (phonetically spelled emisjõ), in verse é-mis-si-on (emisijõ): the word con-sci-en-ci-eu-se-ment has seven syllables in verse, but only four in prose, con-scien-cieus'-ment. In gé-ni-eur has four syllables in verse and only three in the everyday pronunciation, in-gé-nieur. To accustom himself to counting correctly the number of syllables formed by groups of vowels, the student should practise reading alexandrines aloud, and should make use of the following table when a doubtful case occurs:— A. Vowel groups such as: ai, au, eu, oi, ou in words as: paix, faux, feu, loi, loup, are always monosyllables. B. Vowel groups where the last vowel is a sounded one and marked with a diæresis (tréma) are always dissyllables, haïr, hébraïque. C. 1. The following are generally dissyllables: ia, iai, ian, iant, ien, ient, ieux, io, oa, oè, oua, ouai, oui, ouer, ouet, ouette, uai, ué, uer, ueux. 2. The following are always dissyllables: aé, iau, oé. 3. Monosyllables as a general rule: ieu, ouen, ui, ya, ye, yi, yo. 4. Always monosyllables: oê, oel, ouin. Note (a). The groups (i + vowel) are dissyllables when they follow a group of consonants formed by a mute (pbt dkg) + a liquid (r), as: prière grief; criard, plier, tablier. Note (b). Ions and ies are likewise dissyllables when they constitute first or second persons of the present indicative, as: rions, riez. Note (c). Ien, ienne are monosyllables: (1) in the parts of verbs in -enir, as tenir, venir, &c.; (2) in words such as: mien, sien, tien, bien, rien, vaurien (where the ie comes from a single Latin vowel: mem1, sem1, tem1, rem1, &c.), and in chrétien, faubourien, plébéien. D. a. Ien, ienne are dissyllables; in the majority of adjectives and nouns designating nationality, profession, and sect, as: alsacien, prussien, physicien; ß. In certain nouns, in an apparently irregular way; y. In lien, Amiens, aérien. Note (d). Ieu is a dissyllable in nouns and adjectives ending in -ieur, and in adverbs formed from such adjectives: Ex.: ingénieur, antérieur, antérieurement. 1 Low Latin. It is monosyllabic in the plural of nouns in ieu: cieux, lieux, mieux, vieux, yeux, in which the group ie is derived from a single Latin vowel: celos, locos', melius1, vetlus1, oclos1. Note (e). y+a vowel is a dissyllable in: Dry-ade, hy-acinthe, Hy-ade, hy-ène, Ly-on, my-ope, my-osotis, Y-euse, Y-olande, Y-onne. Note (g). The word hier, a monosyllable in Old French, is monosyllabic or dissyllabic according to the requirements of the metre in modern poetry. I Ex.: "Hier j'étais chez des gens de vertu singulière.” I 2 -Misanthrope, iii. 5. -Boileau, Ep. vi. "Hier dit-on, de vous on parla chez le roi." In avant-hier, hier is a monosyllable. 4 I vant 5 6 "Le bruit court qu'avant-hier on vous assassina." -Boileau, Ib. The word poète may be either a monosyllable, and in this case is pronounced pwat, or a dissyllable, and is pronounced poet. Oui, adverb, is a monosyllable; ouï, past participle of ouïr, to hear, is a dissyllable. Ouest may be either monosyllabic or dissyllabic. We may conclude that the poet is allowed considerable latitude in doubtful cases. His taste in harmony and his knowledge of the language are his most trustworthy guides. 1 Low Latin. |