Colloquial French Substantive Inflection

Colloquial French Substantive InflectionAuthor(s): Robert A. Hall, Jr.Source: The French Review, Vol. 19, No. 1 (Oct., 1945), pp. 42-51Published by: American Association of Teachers of FrenchStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/380928 .

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COLLOQUIAL FRENCH SUBSTANTIVE INFLECTION

ROBERT A. HALL, JR.

Brown University

This paper describes the grammatical inflection of substantives (nouns and adjectives, and certain prefixes always used with substantives) of colloquial French. In accordance with the methods of descriptive linguistics,' the discussion and classification are based on spoken, rather than written, forms. This procedure has the major advantage of coming closer to the facts of the present-day language than does traditional grammar based on conventional orthography. In the present case, the picture we get of the substantive system of French is somewhat more complicated (especially with regard to sandhi and its grammatical function, cf. ?1.1) than it is usually thought to be. It is essential for us to recognize the com- plications involved, however, and to base our analysis and teaching on such recognition, if we wish our students to acquire proper habits of liaison and grammatical inflection in speaking French.

In transcribing the spoken forms, the IPA phonetic alphabet is used,2 and a few additional symbols indicating grammatical relationship:

-indicates that the form it precedes or follows is an inflectional suffix or prefix (is INFLECTIONALLY BOUND): [-z] "-s," plural suffix.

I indicates that the form it precedes or follows is used only as part of a larger breath-group (is PHRASALLY BOUND): [plyzl] "more," always used in such combinations as [plyzone:t] "more honest," etc.

+ indicates that the form it precedes or follows occurs only before or after another element in word-formation (is DERIVATIONALLY BOUND):

1 Especially as set forth in Bloomfield's book Language (New York, 1933); Bloch and Trager, Outline of Linguistic Analysis (Baltimore, 1942); Z. S. Harris, "Mor- pheme Alternants in Linguistic Analysis," Language, XVIII (1942), 169-180.

The material presented in this paper has been obtained from my informants, Messrs. Francois Denceu and Albert Salvan; from numerous other French speakers whose usage I have observed; and from my own study of French for the last twenty years. The analysis has been made independently and then checked against the discussion in Damourette and Pichon, Des Mots d la Penste: Essai de Grammaire de la Langue Frangaise (Paris, n.d.); G. Gougenheim, Phonologie frangaise (Paris, 1935); and Gougenheim, Systyme grammatical de la langue frangaise (Paris, 1938). Thanks are due to Professors Leonard Bloomfield, Pierre Delattre, and Hunter Kellenberger for discussion of the paper in earlier drafts and for suggestions.

2 French forms are cited only in phonetic transcription; the conventional spelling has been omitted on purpose, as it is best for the reader to approach the subject with as fresh a viewpoint as possible, uninfluenced by traditional spelling or grammatical analysis.

42



COLLOQUIAL SUBSTANTIVE INFLECTION 43

thus [sabot+ "wooden shoe" occurs only in derivatives such as [sabotas] "sabotage."

* indicates a hypothetical form, which does not occur separately but must be posited as a basic form which would be used in derivation. The word for "collaboration" appears separately only as [kolaborasj5], but, on the analogy of such derivatives as [fasone] "to fashion" (based on [fasoni, [fas5] "fashion"), the hypothetical form [kolaborasjon*] would have had to be assumed, even before its appearance in such derivatives as [kolabo- rasjonist] "collaborationist."

- means "alternating with": thus [plyzt] k- [plys] k- [ply] = "[plyzj] alternating with [plys] alternating with [ply]."

The customary grammatical abbreviations are used: f., m., sg., pl.; fm means "feminine and masculine."

Certain sounds do not occur in the final syllable of a breath-group, and are in this position automatically replaced by other sounds; these alternations will therefore not be considered irregularities:

1. [a] and [ce] do not occur in a free final syllable, and in such position are replaced by [o] and [0]: [sot] f. "foolish" - [so] m.; [cej] "eye" - [ji] "eyes."

2. [0] does not occur before final [r], and is replaced by [ce]: [flatoz] f. [flatcer] m. "flattering."

Vowel length is indicated only when its occurrence is not conditioned by phrase-final position; thus we transcribe [movez] "bad," [blaf] "white" instead of [move: z], [bla: f], but [be: t] "foolish," [me: tr] "master."

1. CATEGORIES OF INFLECTION are sandhi-alternation, gender, and number.

1.1. SANDHI-ALTERNATION. The term sandhi (an expression borrowed by linguistics from Hindu grammar, meaning literally "putting together") refers to the juxtaposition of two words or grammatical elements within a phrase. In many languages, a given word may have more than one form, depending on the phonetic nature of another word with which it is in sandhi, i.e. by which it is preceded or followed in the same phrase. Thus, the English indefinite article is a in a book, but an in an apple. The French word for "bad" appears as [movez] in [<emovezafa] "a bad child," but as [move] in [&movegarsS] "a bad boy." Such alternation as that between a and an, [movez] and move], is known as SANDHI-ALTERNATION, and forms which vary with each other in sandhi-alternation are termed SANDHI- VARIANTS.

The existence of sandhi-alternation is in general masked in French conventional orthography by the use of only one spelling for all sandhi- variants of a form, usually based on whichever is the longer variant:



44 THE FRENCH REVIEW

[sabot+] and [sabo] "shoe," both spelled sabot; [dizl], [dis] and [dil] "ten," all three spelled dix; etc. In traditional grammatical analysis, sandhi-alternation is treated only in connection with graphic signs which are silent in the isolated word; use of a sandhi-variant before a word beginning with a vowel is called liaison, and is usually considered a subdivision of phonetics.' We have chosen the term sandhi-alternation because it covers a wider range of meaning, including both liaison and linking (Fr. enchatnement). Sandhi-alternation is found in all parts of speech; it plays an important r'le in grammatical inflection and in the formation of syntactic patterns, and hence must be treated as an integral part of morphology, not of phonetics.

A French word may have a maximum of three sandhi-variants: 1. Normally occurring before a vowel (PRE-VOCALIC), e.g. [dizl]4 "ten,"

as in [dizom] "ten men." 2. Occurring before a pause (PRE-PAUSAL), e.g. [dis], as in [3dinedis]

"I have ten of them." 3. Occurring before a consonant (PRE-CONSONANTAL), e.g. [dijl, as in

[digars5] "ten boys." But as present-day use of these variants is often determined by other fac- tors than the purely phonetic positions in which they occur,5 it is better to refer to them only by the numerals 1, 2, and 3, as indicated above; these numerals, when used together with a letter indicating gender, will be written as superior numbers: m' = "masculine form, in its sandhi- variant number 1 (pre-vocalic)."

Any given word may have from one to three sandhi-variants. These variants may stand to each other in any one of the following relations, or alternation-types, which we have established with a view to their applicabil- ity to all parts of speech in French:

8 As in such treatises on phonetics as Passy, Les Sons du franfais: Grammont, Traitt de prononciation franfaise; Nyrop, Manuel phonetique du franfais parle; etc. Gougenheim (Phonologie frangaise, pp. 90-93; Systhme grammatical, ch. 1) is the only author to give proper emphasis to sandhi-alternation as a morphological phenome- non.

4 Variants 1 and 3 normally occur only before following elements in the same phrase, and hence, when cited separately, will be written followed by [1].

1 For instance, sandhi-variant 1 of nouns is normally used only in fixed locutions such as [pjetater] "pied-A-terre," [dotazata] "from time to time," etc., or as a base in word-formation, e.g. [Sapwin+] "shampoo" in the verb [Sapwine] "to shampoo," or [ferblat+] "tin" in [ferblatje] "tin-smith"; in ordinary syntactic combinations, sandhi-variant 3 ([pje], [t]a, [Sapwe], [ferbla] for the words cited above) is used even in pre-vocalic position. Likewise, sandhi-variant 1 of form Z of the plural suffix, [z] (?3), is used in set phrases, such as [Sazelise] "Champs-Elys6es," [etazyni] "United States," and in a few other cases.

On the other hand, in some words sandhi-variant 1 is used independently, in all




I. All three variants are the same, e.g. [drog] f. "drug"; [ami] fm. "friendly."

II. All three variants are different, e.g. [sizl] fm' "six" %- [sis] fm2 , [si] fm3. In this type of alternation, variant 1 ends in a voiced consonant,

variant 2 in the corresponding unvoiced consonant, and variant 3 lacks the final consonant.

III. Variants 2 and 3 = variant 1 minus its final sound. Under this head are two sub-types:

a. Without change in the word-root: [patitj] m' "little" m [pati] m2 3

b. With change in the word-root: [foll] m' "foolish" - [fu] m2, 3.

IV. Variant 3 = variants 1 and 2 minus their final sound: [tabl] 1, 2 "table" %^ [tab] 3.

V. Variants 1 and 2 = variant 3 minus its final sound, e.g. [inepta] fm3 "inept" %^ [inept] fm1'206

1.2. GENDER is the name given to the variation between forms used in a certain type of syntactical agreement or concordance. There are two concordance-classes or GRAMMATICAL GENDERS thus established, for which the traditional names of MASCULINE and FEMININE will be used here.7

1.3. NUMBER is the name given to another variation based on syntactical agreement. It is in general correlated with the meaning "one" for one variant and "more than one" for the other. The traditional terms SINGULAR

and PLURAL will be used for these variants. 2. GENDER-RELATION. French substantives' fall into two great classes:

those which belong to both grammatical genders, and those which be-

phonetic positions, as well as sandhi-variant 3, often with a different meaning, e.g. [kol] "neck; collar; mountain-pass," alongside of [ku] "neck"; or it may on occasion be used in word-formation even before a consonant, as in [dizncef] "nineteen."

The use of different sandhi-variants in certain phrase-types (e.g. ['fesavatetra)e] "a learned stranger" N [a'esavaetra3e] "a foreign scholar") is a matter of syntactic combination and its treatment belongs under phrase-structure.

6 Many words may belong to both IV and V, as in words ending in consonant + [1] or [r], e.g. [tabl] "table," with variant 3 [tab] in fast speech ([syrmatabdanqi] "on my night-table") but [tablo] in slow speech or certain combinations ([tabladot] "table d'h6te"). The reason for separating the two types of alternation is to provide for such cases as [la,] [ [1,] (?4.1), also [31,] '3 [1s] "I," etc., which have only alternation type V.

' As pointed out in Language XX (1944), 11, & propos of Italian gender-classes, the terms "a" and "b", or any other names, could be used just as well as "masculine" and "feminine"; but, as there is an extensive correlation between grammatical and biological gender in the use of words referring to animate objects, it is best to retain the traditional terms.

8 The terms substantive and noun are here used in their customary English meanings, with substantive referring to a wider range of forms than noun.




long to only one. The former we shall term ADJECTIVES; the latter, NOUNS.9

2.1. ADJECTIVES are to be classed according to the relation found between sandhi-variant 1 of the masculine and that of the feminine. There are two main types of adjectives: those in which ml is the same as fl (type A), and those in which it is not (type B). Under each type, there are two classes: 1) adjectives which have the same sandhi-alternation in f and m, and 2) those in which f and m have different types of sandhi-alternation. In the latter group, f has sandhi-alternation of type I (except in the definite article [?4.1] and possessive prefixes [?4.3]), and m has type III.

In the following paragraphs, the resulting types of adjectives will be discussed, with examples of the various types of sandhi-alternation found in each.

A (M1 = F1): A' (sandhi-alternation type same in f and m). All five types of sandhi- alternation are represented:

I: [nwar] "black"; [rif] "rich"; [P3li] "pretty"; etc. II: [sizl] "six"; [ncevj] "nine"; [dizt] "ten." IIIa: [dozl] "two"; [trwazl] "three"; [vEtl] "twenty "; [sats] "100." IV: [katr] "four"; [s Ek] "five"; [qit] "eight"; [notr-] "our"; [votr-]

"your"; [kapabl] "capable," etc. V: [inepta] "inept," etc.; also [la-], [la-] "the" (?4.1).

A2 (sandhi-alternation type different in f and m): IIIa in m, I in f: [patit] "little"; [movez] "bad"; [afroz] "frightful";

[s3tij] "nice"; etc.

IIIb in m, I in f, with the following alternations of sounds in the vowel of the final syllable of the masculine:

9 This use of the terms noun and adjective differs sharply from the traditional definitions of noun as "the name of a person, place or thing" and of adjective as "the name of an accidence or quality." It has long since been recognized, however, that the traditional definitions are insufficient (for instance, Eng. electricity and Fr. Blectricite are certainly nouns, but electricity is neither a person, a place, nor a thing), and that the definition of grammatical terms should rest entirely on grammatical facts. (Cf. most recently P. H. Furfey, Studies in Linguistics, II [1944], 56-66.) The inflection of nouns cannot be separated from that of adjectives in French, nor can nouns be distinguished from adjectives according to their syntactical behavior.

This approach also involves doing considerable violence to our traditional classification of certain words: not only must such words as [ami] "friendly," [fij] f. and [fis] m. "offspring" be considered as adjectives, but also such words (conventionally considered homonyms or entirely separate words) as [livr] f. "pound", m. "book", or [metsin] f. "medicine" and [metsE] m. "doctor". In these cases, we simply have adjectives whose two genders have widely divergent meanings.




i. [e] ' [o]: [bell]j - [bo]. "beautiful," and likewise [nuveli] - [nuvo]

"new," [3ymel*] - [3ymo] "twin," [famel*] ', [famo] "camel." ii. [e] ] [0], in [vjejl] - [vjo] "old."'0 iii. [ ] -^ [a], in [set-] - [so] "this." iv. [e] \- [e]: [pramjer]

-, [pramje] "first," etc. v. [;] \ [u], in

[fall] ' [fu] "foolish"; [moll] - [mu] "soft."

vi. [o] ' [o]: [idjatl] ' [idjo] "idiotic," etc.1 B [M1 5 F1): B' (sandhi-alternation type same in f and m), with sandhi-alternation type I, and the following alternations in the final consonant:

i. [v] in f, [f] in m: [viv] -^ [vif] "lively," etc. ii. [SI] in f, [k] in m: [s ef] ? [sEk] "dry." iii. [j] in f, [s] in m: [fij] [fis] "offspring." iv. [z] in f, [r] in m (with automatic alternation of preceding [0]

to [ce], cf. introductory remarks): [flatoz] [flatcer], etc. B2 (sandhi-alternation type different in f and m), with the following types of alternation:lla

IIIa in m, I in f, and the following types of alternation between the final consonants of f' and m':

i. Voiced consonant in fl, unvoiced in m ': [grad] '?- [gratj] "great"; [frwad] [frwatl] "cold"; etc.

ii. final consonant of f \. [z] in ml: [gros] ' [groz] "large"; [gras] [grazl] "fat"; [epes] [epezi] "thick"; [fos] ' [fozl] "false"; [tjers] [tjerzl] "third"; [fref] \- [frezi] "fresh"; [vjej] - [vjozl] "old."' IIIb in m:

i. Sandhi-alternation type I in f. Feminine has oral vowel followed by [n] or [p], and m' 3 has the closest nasal vowel. M' has the closest

10 This adjective may also be inflected as one of type B2, with sandhi-alternation type IIIa (see below).

11 If one of these words is used with [o] in mi, e.g. [(Cesotami] "a foolish friend", the adjective belongs under B2.

In these listings, the word etc. is used with the specific meaning "and other words too numerous to lil." If an example or group of examples is not followed by etc., it is understood that the list is exhaustive.

11I For pedagogical purposes, the picture may be considerably simplified by com- bining classes A' and B2 into one class, whose characteristic is the loss of the final consonant of the feminine to form the masculine (pre-consonantal), as done in Denceu and Hall, Spoken French, pp. 88-89. The aberrant masculine pre-vocalic forms such as [grft.] etc. may then be relegated to a more advanced stage of study and treated as special irregularities.

12 This adjective may also be inflected as one of type A', with sandhi-alternation type IIIb (cf. above).




nasal vowel followed by [n]; but this vowel may also.occur denasalized.'3 Examples:

F Mi M2 s [komyn] [komcen], [komcen] [kome ] "common" [bon] [b5n], [bon] [b5] "good" [peizan] ([peizdn], [peizan]) [peiza] "peasant" [plen] {plan], [plen] [plI] "full" [fin] [fnn] [fi] "fine" [malij] [malgn] [mali] "clever"

ii. Sandhi-alternation type V in f.: [ma-] f3 P- [man-] ([mon-]) m' "my," with treatment of nasal vowel in masculine as in sub-type 1 immediately preceding; likewise [ta-] "thy" and [sa-] "his, her, its" (?4.2).

2.2. NouNs belong, by definition, either to the feminine or to the masculine gender. The following types of sandhi-alternation (irrespective of gender) are found:

I. [gaz] m. "gas"; [m] m. "gas"; m] m. "man"; [fam] f. "woman"; [klof] f. "bell"; etc.

IIIa: [pjetj] m. "foot"; [tazl] m. "time"; [sabot+] m. "wooden shoe"; [g5d+] m. "hinge-pin"; [niyit+] f. "night"; etc.

IIIb, with the following alternations: i. [o] m [u]: [kol] [ku] m. "neck"; etc. ii. [a] ~ [o]: [kordal+] % [kordo] m. "string, rope"; etc. iii. Oral vowel plus [n] -, nearest nasal vowel: [f ksjon+] - [f5ksj5]

f. "function"; [kadran+] - [kadrf] m. "sun-dial"; etc. IV: [tabl] f. "table"; etc. V: [aktal] m. "act"; [aksall m. "axis"; etc.14

3. NUMBER-RELATION. The singular of a substantive is always equal to its root-form in one of the three sandhi-variants, without suffix. The plural is based on the root (m or f), normally in sandhi-variant 3 (pre-consonantal), with or without change in the root, and with or without an added sound.'5

13 Masculine sandhi-variant 1 of adjectives in [an] seems to be avoided in normal speech; Damourette and Pichon (I, 306) give the artificially constructed phrase [peizdnakutroma] "(a) peasant get-up," with alternative pronunciation [peizana- kutramd]. Both of these pronunciations, and the phrase itself, seem unnatural to Salvan.

The final [9n] in ml of adjectives having [ip], [in] in the feminine is normally not denasalized, except in [fin] and [divin], e.g. [ladivindfa] "the divine Child" (set phrase). Forms like [ynom] "a man" are now said to be archaic or dialectal.

14 In this class come, in vulgar speech, a number of words which end in two consonants and have in careful speech sandhi-alternation of type I: [ark] m. "arch," sandhi-variant 3 [ark] in careful speech but [arka] in vulgar speech.

1i In accordance with current practice, the term zero is used to refer to the absence of a suffixed element, in comparison with its presence elsewhere in the same type of syntactic relation. The addition of zero, i.e. of no sound at all, to a substantive will be treated as a suffix on the same basis as the addition of a sound.




Plural suffixes occur in sets of sandhi-variants; each substantive is always used with one given set of plural suffixes. The sets of plural suffixes, ar- ranged according to the sandhi-alternation manifest in them, are:

X: sandhi-alternation type I, zero throughout, as in [faksimile] m. "facsimile"; [pridj0] m. "praying-stool"; [fedcevr] m. "masterpiece"; etc.

Y: sandhi-alternation type II, [z] %- [s] zero; this suffix occurs only with [tut] "all." The plural suffix in [s] is used only when the word is the head of a phrase ("is used pronominally"); in the feminine, the [s] of the plural is used, if at all, only before a following vowel;16 in the masculine, it is used in all phonetic positions. When [tut] is used as an attribute preceding the head of a phrase, [z] is used before a following vowel and zero elsewhere.

Z: sandhi-alternation type III, [z]77 -- zero . zero. Substantives taking this suffix are divided into two classes, according to the relation between the root in the singular and the root in the plural:

1. Root in plural = root in singular: [fapo] m. "hat"; [vil] f. "city"; [movez] adj. "bad"; etc.

2. Root in plural 5 root in singular. This type of alternation in the root occurs normally only in masculine nouns or in the masculine of adjectives. The final consonant or consonants of the singular is always absent from the plural, and the following types of relation between the vowels in the final syllable are found:

a. The vowel alternates according to a regular pattern: [ajcel] adj. "ancestor," m. pl. [aj0]; [os] m. "bone," pl. [o]; [cef] m. "egg," pl. [0]; [bcef] m. "ox," pl. [bo].

b. Plural has [o] (,-' [a], [e] or [o] in the singular): [3eneral] adj. "general," m. pl. [3enero], etc.; [travaj] m. "work," pl. [travo], etc.;] [listel] m. "listel," pl. [listo]; [notrl] adj. "our," fm. pl. [noll]; [votrl] adj. "your," fm. pl. [vol].

c. Plural has [0] (' [e] in the singular): [sjel] m. "heaven," pl. [sj0].

d. Plural has [j] before the root vowel: [cej] m. "eye," pl. [jp]. 1 Langlard (La liaison dans le frangais [Paris, 1928], p. 41) gives the example

[elzetetutsafere] "they were all busy." But this example seems unnatural to both Salvan and Delattre; Delattre writes: "Langlard is mistaken. First, that liaison would hardly ever be heard even with emphasis on the word toutes (never in colloquial speech). Secondly, when it is heard it can only be with z (not s) and d (or more exactly voiced t)."

17 This variant must be set up to cover the occurrence of [z] in such set phrases as [etazyni], [Sazelize], and in optional combinations which are not yet wholly obso- lete. It is at first glance tempting to consider the [z] of the plural as a prefix, not a suffix; but consideration of the whole French grammatical system shows that such a treatment would lead to insoluble confusion in the analysis of such clusters as [ale- vuz&] "go away

l'-




e. Plural has [e] (%' [a], [a], [o] or [5], or [e] in the singular): [lal], [la1], [ll] definite article (?4.1), pl. [lej]; [mal] [m5nl] "my," [tal] [t[nl] "thy," [sail [s5nl] "his, her, its," pl. [mel], [te1], [sell (?4.2); [setll] demonstrative prefix (?4.3), pl. [sell.

4. SUBSTANTIVE PREFIXES or phrase-markers are a class of forms which never occur alone, but are phrasally bound in that they are used only prefixed to a substantive or to the first word of a phrase functioning as a substantive.'s They are to be treated together with substantives because of this feature of their occurrence, and because their inflection follows that of substantives. There are three types of substantive prefixes: definite article, possessive prefix, and demonstrative prefix.

4.1. THE DEFINITE ARTICLE is formed on the stem [1]. Its f3 is [lal], m3 [loa], and fml [1I] (gender-relation A', sandhi-alternation V). Its plural stem is [lel] (plural-formation Z2).

In m3 and pl., the definite article does not appear in independent form after the prepositions [all "to" and [d(a)1] "of." The combination of [al] + definite article is replaced in these two positions by [oi]; that of [d(a)l] + definite article is replaced in m3 by [dyl] and in the plural by [dell.

4.2. POSSESSIVE PREFIXES (usually called "possessive adjectives") are of two types:

1. Those with gender-relation B2, sandhi-alternation type V in f and IIIb in m., and plural formation Z2: [mal] [mhnl] [mel] "my";"9 [tal] [thni] [tel] "thy"; [sal] [sinil [sel] "his, her, its."

2. Those with gender-relation A', sandhi-alternation type IV, and plural formation Z2: [notri] "our"; [votrl] "your."20

4.3. DEMONSTRATIVE PREFIX is [setl] f'-3 "this, that," with m3 [sall], pl. [sel]; gender-relation A2, sandhi-alternation type IIIb in m., and plural- formation Z2. M1 has also the alternative form [satl], in which case the gender-relation of this prefix is B2.

18s Since, therefore, these prefixes never occur before a pause, they have only sandhi-variants 1 (pre-vocalic) and 3 (pre-consonantal). On the other hand, the forms of the definite article and demonstrative prefix which contain [a] are subject to automatic alternation of [a] with zero, similar to that found in the first syllable of other forms when a preceding single consonant is in post-vocalic position: [avekla- tr9J "with the train" N [daltre] "in the train"; [aveksagars5] "with this boy"' - [daskala] "in that case."

29 With these forms, ft is used only directly before [amil f. "friend" and [amur] f. "love," in the set phrases [mamil "my dear" and [mamur] "my love." Elsewhere, the m' forms ([mhnl], [t5nl], [s5nll) take the place of fl.

[mM~, m3] has the special variant [ma,], only in the set phrase [masjo] "sir, Mr." 20 The form [aIer] "their" (A'/I/Z') is not a true possessive prefix, as it can be

used apart from a substantive.




5. LISTING of a substantive, e.g. in a dictionary, should always be in the fullest form of the substantive (even if this form occur only in word-formation or in set phrases, or if it be hypothetical). With the substantive should be listed its gender-relation, sandhi-alternation, and plural-formation; if any of these involve irregular alternations, the irregular forms should be given. A few sample listings follow:

[om] m/I/Z1 "man"

[kordaol] m/IIIb/Z2; m2, 3 [kordo] "string, rope" [fedcevr] m/IV/X "masterpiece" [laval] m/I/Z2; pl. root [ ovo] "horse" [nqit+] f/IIIa/Z1 "night" [rif] A1/I/Z1 "rich" [tut] A2/IIIa/Y "all" [movez] A2/IIIa/Z1 "bad" [bel] A2/III/Z; m2,

3 [bo] "beautiful" [viv] B1/I/Z1; m [vif] "lively" [fref] B1/IIIb/Z1; m1 [frezj] "fresh" [ban] B2/IIIb/Z1 "good"



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Colloquial French Substantive Inflection