$136. Variations in pronunciation of 1 mouillé.In Paris the sound of the following i or y is alone heard in ordinary speech, the l sound has been absorbed fille is pronounced fi-ye; feuille, feu-ye; bataillon, bata-yon.

Against this pronunciation Littré protests with exceptional earnestness. He marks each word in his dictionary in this way: "barbouiller, bar-bou-llé, ll mouillés et non bar-bou-yé.” Bescherelle's observations on this point are worth quoting. They are true.

Dans l'état actuel de la langue française le l mouillé se prononce de deux façons. Dans les provinces du midi on prononce les deux ll de billet comme gl dans l'Italien biglietti. A Paris et dans d'autres localités ou les supprime dans la conversation et l'on dit bi-iet.

"Sur le Théâtre Français où se conserve la pureté de la diction française, on a toujours entendu les Talma, les Mars, les Duplessis articuler à la manière méridionale billet (bilyet), piller (pilyer), meilleur (meilyeur).'

After having given a number of reasons why the pronunciation of Paris should be preferred, Bescherelle adds :—

"Basant notre jugement sur ce point de vue et sur l'autorité des meilleurs grammairiens, nous dirons qu'il y a deux manières de prononcer le l mouillé, l'une propre au discours soutenu, l'autre à la conversation.

§ 137. Gn mouillé.-Gn is not always mouillé. The two consonants are sometimes separated:

1. At the beginning of words: gnomon.*

2. In stagnant, stagnation, agnat, cognat, diagnosis, igné, inexpugnable, magnat, magnificat, récognition.

§ 138. R.-The practice of leaving out the r altogether, or of pronouncing it deeply in the throat-the former common in the south-east of England, the latter a northern peculiarity,-must both be carefully avoided in the pronunciation of French.

Many adults even are unable to produce its proper effect, and in some parts this defect of utterance is not confined to individuals, but pervades whole districts. In England the trill is, at the best, very gently executed; while in Italy it becomes a source of roughness in the language, producing in the mouths of many speakers a degree of asperity which quite shames the much-abused German gutturals. It would be as well if pains were taken to inculcate the true sound of this letter, which otherwise bids fair to be ejected from our island. In the

* In English the g is dropped. In French, the sound of e mute is added to enable the two consonants to be sounded: gnomongue-nomon in French, and 'nomon in English. Compare psaume and psalm.

southern parts of the country the final has, indeed, almost vanished, being replaced by the natural vowel e. It is not such sentences as 'round the rugged rock the ragged rascals run their rural race' which occasion much difficulty. The initial value of r is easy: it is the final sound in which practice and instruction are most needed. After the vowels a, o, u, the substituted e is itself omitted; thus bar, lord, are scarcely, if at all, distinguishable from ba, lod (laud), as is frequently and painfully evident in such passages as 'Laud ye the Lord,' in which the first word is identical with the last."-ELLIS.

§ 139. Aspirate h.-As there is a great deal of misconception in regard to the meaning of the term ' aspirate h' as applied to French, it will be well to give the following observations of Max Müller, and apply them to French.

"If we breathe freely, the glottis is wide open, and the breath emitted can be distinctly heard. Yet this is not yet our h, or the spiritus asper. An intention is required to change mere breathing into h; ... the breath jerked out is then properly called asper, because the action of the abdominal muscles gives to it a certain asperity. If, on the contrary, the breath is slightly curbed or tempered by the pressure of the glottis, and if thus held in, it is emitted gently, it is properly called spiritus lenis, soft breath. We distinctly hear it, like a slight bubble, if we listen to the pronunciation of any initial vowel, as in old, art, ache, ear, or if we pronounce 'my hand' as it is pronounced by vulgar people, 'my and.""

In older French it was apparently the spiritus asper that was heard. Palsgrave seems to speak distinctly on this point. He says, "This letter h where he is written in French wordes hath somtyme suche a sounde as we use to gyve hym in these words in our tong: have, hatred, hens, hart, hurt, hobby, and suche lyke, and than he hath his aspiration and somtyme he is written in frenche wordes and hath no sounde at all, no more than he hath with us in these wordes "honest, honour, habundaunce, habitacion and such like, in whiche h is written and not sounded with us.' Still it may only have been the modern aspirate h. See Ellis, pp. 805 and 831, French Orthoepists of Sixteenth Century.

In the French of the present day it is only the spiritus lenis that is heard: le héros is pronounced le éros; le haricot, le aricot; les héros, lè éros; les haricots, lè aricots. Hiatus is allowed. The h is "dropped."*

Littré says that in certain provinces, and particularly in Nor mandy, the h is distinctly aspirated as in English. He adds, "Cela vaut mieux." In Paris, however, it is not thus aspirated-of this there is no doubt. Marsh's observations on h may be read with profit. Lectures, pp. 352, 353.

§ 177. Masculine Nouns ending in -ge.

(a) Almost all words in -age are masculine* : le courage, le fromage, le village, etc., etc.

(b) From Latin masculines and neuters are most words in -ége, -ige, oge, -uge. They are masculine in French: le college; le vestige; un éloge, praise; le déluge.

Feminines: la cage; la rage; la page; une image, picture; la plage, shore; la nage, swimming; la tige, stalk; la loge, lodge, box.

§ 180. Masculine Nouns ending in -le (§ 260).

(a) Many words in -le are diminutives, and follow the gender of their corresponding primitive. Some do not possess a French primitive, but only a Latin or Italian one.

un animalcule animalcule (animal)

un corpuscule corpuscule (corps, body)

BOOK III.-ACCIDENCE.

PARTS OF SPEECH.

§ 143. The Parts of Speech are of three kinds.

I. NOUNS.

II. VERBS.

III. PARTICLES.

I. The first kind consists of:

Nouns Substantive (or simply Substantives),
Nouns Adjective (or simply Adjectives),
Pronouns.

II. The second consists of Verbs only.

III. The third consists of:

Adverbs,

Prepositions,

Conjunctions,

Interjections.

Hence the Parts of Speech may be said to be eight: