que vous vouliez qu'ils veuillent Conjugate as above apprendre, to learn, &c. § Conjugate as above équivaloir, to be equivalent. Conjugate as above devenir, to become; se souvenir, to remember, &o. Conjugate as above survivre, to survive. **Conjugate as above revoir, to see again. A SHORT CHAPTER FOR THE INQUISITIVE. 1. Whence is the French alphabet derived? It is derived from the Latin, and it follows the same order. The Latins borrowed their alphabet from the Greeks, and the Greeks took theirs from the Phoenicians. 2. What is the origin of the French accents? The signs called accents come from the Greek, but are not used for the same purpose as in Greek. They were introduced into the language by the grammarians of the sixteenth century. 3. Does the spelling of a language ever change? Yes; it is constantly changing; for instance, the words tête, head, bête, beast, in the first half of the eighteenth century, were spelt teste, beste; the s not being pronounced, was suppressed, and a circumflex accent was placed over the e to show that the vowel must retain the peculiar sound which the presence of the s gave to it: tête, bête. 4. Does the circumflex accent take the place of any other letter besides s? - Yes; for instance, age, age, was spelt in Old French aage; sure, sure, was written seür, etc. 5. Why is the letter s the sign of the plural? The French language has borrowed from the Latin accusative both its singular and its plural; the letter s being, generally the sign of the accusative plural in Latin, became the sign of the plural in French. 6. How is it that some nouns take a instead of s in the plural? - In the Middle Ages, the distinction between %, x, and s was not strictly adhered to, particularly for the plural in which s is always silent; when, later on, more accuracy and fixed rules were introduced, certain words retained the exclusively, as: chapeaus, hats; bijoux, jewels, etc. 7. The above explains the a in chevaux, horses; travaux, works; but how does the u come in here ? The following are only a few of the many examples which might be given of the change of l into u; chevaux, horses, cou, neck fou, mad ceux, these, were spelt in Old French: chevale, eol, fol, cels. 8. Longue and publique, the feminine of long, long, and of public, public, seem to be very irregular; can this irregularity be explained? The irregularity is not so great as it appears; an e mute has been added to form the feminine; g has become gu, and c has become qu before e, so as to preserve the hard sound these letters had in longus, publicus, the Latin words from which long and public are derived. 9. Do all the French numeral adjectives come from the Latin? All come from the Latin, except zéro, zero, which is Arabic. 10. Soixante-dix, quatre-vingts, quatre-vingt-dix are not formed like cinquante, soixante, etc.; where do they come from? They are remains of the system of counting by ten and by twenty, which was extensively used in Old French. Formerly, septante, octante, nonante (formed like cinquante, soixante, etc.) were also used, and it is strange that they should have become obsolete, and that soixante-dix, etc., should have survived. 11. Do the four conjugations contain an equal number of verbs? No; out of about 4018 "simple" verbs, 3600 end in -er, 330 in -ir (with the imperfect in issais), 28 in -ir (with the imperfect in ais), 10 in -oir, and 50 in -re. The first conjugation (-er) forms new verbs with substantives, the second (-ir, having the imperfect in issais) with adjectives; these two conjugations are called " living" conjugations, the others, which do not form any new verbs, are called "dead" conjugations. 12. Why should the letter t, which is not particularly pleasant to pronounce, be used to prevent the hiatus in aime-t-il, va-t-il, etc., rather than any other consonant? A consonant was necessary to prevent the hiatus, and t was chosen, because it is the sign of the third person; il aime, il va was spelt in Old French: aimet, vat; aime-t-il, va-t-il, in Modern French, simply take back the consonant they had dropped. 13. How is it that voici, voilà, with a substantive, can form a sentence without the addition of any verb? Is there anything understood? There is nothing understood; voici and voilà are compounded of the adverbs ci (ici), here, and là, there, and of voi, the old imperative of voir, to see, so that voici la plume, voilà la plume is equivalent to: see here the pen, see there the pen. THIRD PART. -:0: READING LESSONS. RÉPONSE DE DIÉNÉCÈS. Lors de l'invasion de la Grèce par les Perses, on rapporta au Spartiate Diénécès, pour l'effrayer, que l'armée ennemie était si nombreuse que le soleil serait obscurci par la grêle des traits et des javelots. "Tant mieux!" dit-il "nous combattrons à l'ombre." L'HEURE DU Dîner. Quelqu'un demanda à Diogène à quelle heure il devait dîner. Celui-ci lui répondit: "Si tu es riche, quand tu voudras; si tu es pauvre, quand tu pourras." LE GRAND MALHEUR. "Faites-vous des thèmes, madame?" demanda un jour un prince, qui était encore enfant et un peu paresseux, à une dame de la cour qui se plaignait des malheurs de sa vie. -"Non, monseigneur. "Eh bien, si vous ne faites pas de thèmes, madame," répliqua le petit prince, "votre malheur n'est pas encore à son comble." |