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From: elna@netcom.com (Esperanto League N America)
Subject: french grammar influences english?  
Message-ID: <elnaE6rsp3.DuC@netcom.com>
Organization: Esperanto League for North America, Inc.
References: <853605030.2652@dejanews.com> <331D188E.711C@scruznet.com> <elnaE6nDMu.LHq@netcom.com> <rte-0703971505460001@135.25.40.118>
Date: Sun, 9 Mar 1997 09:51:03 GMT
Lines: 161
Sender: elna@netcom17.netcom.com

rte@elmo.lz.att.com (Ralph T. Edwards) writes in a recent posting (reference <rte-0703971505460001@135.25.40.118>):
>In article <elnaE6nDMu.LHq@netcom.com>, elna@netcom.com (Esperanto League
>N America) wrote:
>> Mike Wright <darwin@scruznet.com> writes in a recent posting (reference
><331D188E.711C@scruznet.com>):
>> >
>> >Do you have a few examples of English grammar that is derived
> >>from French?
> >
>> The normal plural -s.  Germanic -en is only residually used.
Eyen ==> eyes.

>This not the usual interpretation.  The usual interpretation is
that the
>English s plural comes from the oblique case endings of Old
English
nouns.  E.g.

>ealle his eorlas - all his earls (masc. acc. plural)

>This is the same place (in general, not necssarily in particular)
that the
>French plural comes from, so the s comes from common inheritance
from IE,
not from borrowing.

To be sure, it did not need to be *borrowed*, for the -s was
already in place in AS in nouns with masculine a- stems, ja- stems,
wa-stems, i-stems, and some -nd- stems. 
However, the vast majority of nouns utilized some other form of
pluralization:

Neuter a- stem nouns used -u or -[null]
lim  - limu
word  - word
heafod - heafodu

Neuter ja- also used -u or -[null]
rice - ricu
cyn - cyn

The same with neuter wa-
cneo - cneowu
bealo - bealo

Feminine o- stem nouns used -a to mark plural
giefu - giefa
lar - lara

And so forth.....

The declensions of AS were *much* more complex than ME. All this
complexity was abandoned, and eventually replaced with a *normal*
form (to be sure, there were plenty of exceptions) of -s. To
blithely say that "the usual explanation is that the -s form comes
from oblique forms of case endings in Old English nouns" is to miss
the obvious interaction of the dominant language of the Norman
rulers. No one can dispute the massive importation of words from
Norman French. Nearly all the nouns had plural in -s. I believe it
is highly likely that this had an impact on the normalization (not
Normanization) of the plural form used during succeeding
generations. Rather few common words retain the AS plurals in -en
or the like: eyen? tonguen? queena? headu?
> 
>> The use of "to do" in interrogatives, in imitation of "est-ce
que" and
>> replacing normal Germanic inversion.

>What does "do" have to do with "is it that.."  You made this up.

It is suggested not as a translation, but as an imitation of an
antecedent. English eventually abandoned (for the most part) the
Germanic interrogative inversion, and took on a form which rather
resembles that of the French. Coincidence?

> 
>> As already mentioned, the use of "to" in marking most
infinitives, 
>> following French use of "de" and "a".

>This is total ........  Common (west?) Germanic already had this
feature,
>which you would know if you knew any German or Dutch.

As I stated in another posting, the English usage sometimes
diverges from the Germanic.
Ich muss gehen. I have to go. J'ai besoin de aller.
                                          ^^
> 
>> Use of preposition to replace genitive.

>I guess German and Dutch borrowed this feature from French too eh?
>(developed independantly probably)

Who knows? The last time I looked, Germany and Netherlands shared
borders with French speakers, and were therefore vulnerable to
their influence. It could well have been independent: who knows?
> 
>...More disinformation deleted.

For the record, I'd like to restate the *only* part of my reply
that Ralph deleted, calling it "disinformation".

      Tendency to keep compound verb structures together. Germanic 
      languages cast some to the end of clauses.

I suspect that this is the strongest of my claims. Structure of
subordinate clauses in English is decidedly non-Germanic. And
compound verbs are often divided in Germanic, but not in French nor
English.
"Moeder, ik wil hebben een man die mij deez winter warmen kan."
"Koennen Sie dass verstehen?"

There is also the English creation of a pseudo-future from modal
verbs "will" and "shall" which divorces these verbs from "wollen"
and "sollen" in imitation of the French simple future (a true
tense).
There is also a nearly total dismissal of the accusative and a
complete abandonment of the dative. (Some residuals in pronouns, of
course)
Gender likely disappeared due to the inconsistency between French
and AS gender: so ME did not *adopt* the French, but abandoned the
feature altogether as a result of the "creolization".
English also abandoned adjective inflections, as had French, for
the most part.

> 
>> To be sure, I am speculating on causality here. I am still
hoping for 
>> some more informed examples to be offered...
> 

>Or simply some informed ones.   I think proving inheritance of
grammar
>from  French is a dry hole. 

I agree that *proving* anything about grammar inheritance is
impossible: one cannot back up history or create controlled
experiments. But the concept that English would import French words
by the thousands, drop much of its complex inflectional structure
and replace most of it by a fixed word-order and simplified
inflectional structures which just *happen* to resemble French
grammar, and yet not be a result of French influence---- well it
just doesn't seem likely...


> And getting any linguistic info from the guy
>who said he'd read a linguistics book when he had a free month
some year,
(words to that effect), is a really dry hole.
>
Well, Usenetters, let this be a lesson to you: *always* use smileys
to mark irony & sarcasm, for this place is jam-packed with the
humor-impaired!

BTW Ralph, ad hominem arguments are generally considered weak.
-- 
Miko SLOPER              elna@netcom.com              USA  (510) 653 0998
Direktoro de la          ftp.netcom.com:/pub/el/elna   fax (510) 653 1468 
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