Appendix:Franco-Provençal morphology

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Consonant alternations
Orthographic changes caused by a following vowel changing...


 * ...from front (iêéèe) to non-front (œaâàoôu):
 * c → ç (avanciér ‘to advance’ → avanço ‘I advance’)
 * g → j (mengiér ‘to eat’ → menjo ‘I eat’)
 * ...from non-front to front:
 * c → qu (bèca ‘peak’ → bèques ‘peaks’)
 * g → gu (blagar ‘ to jest’ → blague ‘he jests’)
 * ç → c (fôça ‘false’ → fôces ‘false’ )
 * j → g (rojo ‘red’ → roge ‘red’ )

Nouns
All nouns are either masculine, feminine, or both in variation.

Plurals are formed by adding -s. For feminine nouns ending in -a, the addition of -s is followed by a change in the preceding vowel to e.


 * homo → homos ‘men’
 * chat → chats ‘male cats’
 * man → mans ‘hands’
 * branche → branches ‘branches’
 * fèna → fènes ‘women’

If the singular ends in s/x/z, the plural is the same as the singular:


 * folx ‘scythe’ or ‘scythes’

Adjectives
The plurals are formed as they are for nouns.

The feminine is generally formed by adding -a to the masculine. If the masculine ends in -o, that vowel is deleted in the feminine:


 * dur, dura ‘hard’
 * âpro, âpra ‘rough’

If the masculine ends in the adjective-forming suffix -ox, the feminine will have -osa:


 * coragiox, coragiosa ‘brave’

There are many adjectives with irregular feminines:
 * bon, bôna ‘good’
 * dox, doce ‘soft’
 * ètranjo, ètrange ‘unusual’
 * blanc, blanche ‘white’
 * sèc, sèche ‘dry’

...and some that are invariant for gender:


 * veré, veré ‘true’

...and some with more than one possible feminine:


 * fôx, fôssa~fôça ‘false’
 * frêd, frêda~frêde ‘cold’
 * entiér, entiéra~entiére ‘whole’
 * grant, granta~grant ‘large’

Verbs
Subject pronouns are often omitted in the first person singular, third person singular, and third-person plural.

Compound tenses are constructed as in French using the auxiliaries avêr ‘to have’ and étre ‘to be’. The choice of auxiliary most often matches French usage. The passive always uses étre. Compound tenses of étre itself, and also pronominal verbs, may use either étre or avêr. I have omitted all of this from the tables below for simplicity.

Speakers often confuse the future and conditional.

In some dialects, especially in Bressan and Jurassien, the first-person plural conjugations may be lost: nos chantens ‘we sing’ → on chante (as in everyday French).

The preterite is completely lost in Valdôtain, the Swiss dialects, part of Bressan, and part of Savoyard. In dialects where the preterite survives, it may be defective for various person/number combinations, depending on the verb.

Dialects with a clear distinction between the present and imperfect subjunctive are a minority. It is common for one of the subjunctives to be lost in favour of the other, or for the two to coexist in free variation.

In the inflection tables below, any forms placed in braces, as in {alâves}, are ones that I have filled in myself on the basis of other verb tables. I've had to do this because the source omits what it regards as trivial repetitions. I have placed a checkmark (✓) after the filled-in forms which can be found in the various Franco-Provençal texts quoted in Stich 2001 or via a search in the LTA dictionary.

Local variations:


 * The 1PL ending -ens may be replaced by -ons in western dialects.

Conjugation 1 (-ar/-ier)
Local variations:


 * The 2PL -d in the present indicative and imperative may be replaced by -de in eastern dialects (as in chantâd → chantâde ‘you sing’)
 * In the Valdôtain dialect, the ending in conjugation 1B is merged with that of conjugation 1A (as in mengiéd → mengiâde ‘you eat’, as opposed to mengiéde in some other eastern dialects).
 * In the 1SG imperative indicative, some dialects have -a (continuing the Latin -ābam) instead of -o
 * Feminine past participles:
 * In Forézien conjugation 1A may instead have -âsa/-êses, as in chantâsa ‘sung’
 * In Valaisan and Valdôtain conjugation 1B may instead have -(i)êye/-(i)êye(s)

Type A (-ar)
From Latin -āre. These verbs are regular apart from:


 * alar ‘to go’
 * some verbs that have vowel alternations determined by stress:
 * abordar : abôrdo
 * achetar : achèto (cf. French acheter : achète)
 * afanar : afâno
 * amar : âmo

alar ‘to go’
Stich 2001 pages 265–6, 1073; Stich 2005 pages 184–5. As with French aller, the imperatives have special -s forms when followed by y, as in vas-y, alâds-y. In Foréz the past participle is anâ, borrowed from Occitan anat.

chantar ‘to sing’
Stich 2001 pages 257–64 and Stich 2005 page 184.

Type B (-iér)
From Latin -āre preceded by a palatalized consonant. This type of verb is regular apart from the fact that balyér ‘to give’ has, alongside the regular forms, clipped variants like baly ' = balye (imperative singular).

The -ié- is eliminated in the present indicative: mengiér ‘to eat’ → menjo ‘I eat’. The -ié- appears as a reduced -e- after gn/ly/y: guegnér/balyér/payér.

lèssiér ‘to let’
Stich 2001 pages 257–64 and Stich 2005 page 184.

Conjugation 2 (-ir$1$)
From Latin -īre. Verbs of this type appear to all be regular. They have various inflections with an infix -éss- derived from Latin -ēscere.

Local variations:
 * The 2PL -ésséd in the present indicative may be replaced by -de (as in fenésséd → fenéde).
 * Past participles may alternatively be constructed with -ê (m.) -êta or -ête (f.) in the Valaisan and Valdôtain dialects, as in fenê ‘finished’

fenir ‘to finish’
Stich 2001 pages 107, 266–7, 1168 and Stich 2018.

Conjugation 3 (-êr/-re/-ir$2$)
A mixed bag of irregulars. Probably best to handle their inflections individually, except in cases where verb A is just verb B with a prefix.

Imperfect indicative plurals (?)


 * Type 1: -ê(n), -ês, -êt, -(i)ans, -(i)âd, -(i)ant
 * Type 2: -évo, -éves, -éve, -évans, -évâd, -évont

Type A (-êr)
From Latin -ēre.

avêr ‘to have’
Stich 2001 pages 273–5; Stich 2005 pages 184–5; Stich 2018. In some dialects l (originally from the pronoun il) may be placed before any instance of avêr, as in je l-avê ‘I had’. The form é ‘I have’ sometimes makes a liaison with -s- or -t-.

chalêr ‘to matter’
Highly defective; cf. French chaloir. Stich 2001 page 1110.

devêr ‘to have to’
Stich 2001 pages 270, 1145 and Stich 2018.

falêr ‘to be necessary’
Highly defective; cf. French falloir. Stich 2001 page 1166.

povêr ‘to be able to’
Stich 2001 pages 583–4, 1255 and Stich 2018.

savêr ‘to know’
Stich 2001 page 1279 and Stich 2018.

volêr ‘to want’
Stich 2001 page 1318 and Stich 2018.

Type B (-re)
From Latin -ere.

bêre ‘to drink’
Stich 2001 page 1089 and Stich 2018.

chêre ‘to fall’
Stich 2001 pages 528, 1115 and Stich 2018.

crêre ‘to believe’
Stich 2001 page 1134 and Stich 2018.

crêtre ‘to grow’
Stich 2001 page 1135.

dére ‘to say’
Stich 2001 page 1143.

ècrire ‘to write’
Stich 2001 page 1152. Also conjugated like this are aduire (and other -duire verbs), luire, fuire, èssuire.

étre ‘to be’
Stich 2001 pages 275–6; Stich 2005 pages 184–5; Stich 2018.

prendre ‘to take’
Stich 2001 pages 271, 1256; Stich 2005 page 184; Stich 2018.

rèpondre ‘to reply’
Stich 2001 page 1270.

vêr ‘to see’
Stich 2001 page 1312 and Stich 2018.

vivre ‘to live’
Stich 2001 pages 584, 1317.

Type C (-ir$2$)
From Latin -īre.

aouire ‘to hear’
Stich 2001 page 1076.

te(g)nir ‘to hold’
Stich 2001 page 1296. Conjugated exactly like venir ‘to come’.

uvrir ‘to open’
Stich 2001 page 272, Stich 2005 page 184. The ô~u alternation is determined by stress.

venir ‘to come’
Stich 2001 page 1311 and Stich 2018.

Probably best to split in two (venir and vegnir).