"Dans 1'S, à une heure d'affluence..."
- Raymond Queneau, Exercices de Style (opening sentence).
At 00:15 15/08/02 -0700, Eric Muller wrote:
> > > Your definition of "LatinVowel" is problematic. Is "Y" only a
>vowel in
> > > French? In a word such as "yeux", it certainly is a consonant. Could
> > > this lead to problems?
> >
> > I don't think so, but I wait for the opinion of French speakers.
> >
> > What I can see is that things like "l'yaourt" [lja'ur] are normal in
> > French
> > spelling, and sometimes are to be found also in Italian ("l'yoghurt"
> > ['ljogurt]).
>
>
>"y" is either a vowel or a semi-consonant. When a semi-consonant, an
>initial "y" does not cause elision, so "le yaourt". Of course, there are
>exceptions: "yeuse" (oak), "yèble" (?) and "yeux" (eyes). The usage is
>both ways for "yole" (skiff). There are a few words starting with a
>vowel "y": "y" (there), "ypérite" (mustard gas), "ytterbium" (?),
>"yttrium" (?). Finally, there is elision before most proper nouns
>starting with "Y": "Yonne" (a river), "York", etc.
>
>That being said, here are a few problematic cases for your proposal:
>
>"prud'homme" (a member of an industrial tribunal) is a single word, as
>are his relatives "prud'homal", and "prud'homie".
>
>Grevisse ("Le bon usage", "the" authority on French usage) gives five
>verbs which are considered a single word: "entr'aimer (s')",
>"entr'apercevoir", "entr'appeler (s')", "entr'avertir (s')",
>"entr'égorger (s')"; Le Petit Robert (1988, a well respected dictionary)
>gives only the second one.
>
>There is elision before the names of the consonants f, h, l, m, n, r, s,
>x: "admissible à l'X" (accepted at X = École Polytechnique), "devant
>l'n" (before the n).
>
>"grand'mère" is definitely one word for me, but "grand'rue",
>"grand'chose" are not so clear. All are archaic forms and Le Petit
>Robert does not list any of those (modern: "grand-mère", "rue
>principale", "grand chose"').
>
>Then there is spoken French: "j'suis allé m'promener" for "je suis allé
>me promener" (I went for a walk). There are many such cases of elision
>before a consonant.
>
>This spoken French is of course very close to many dialects, or even
>close languages (e.g. Picard, spoken in the North of France).
>
>Did we mention that one never breaks a line after an apostrophe that
>represents elision?
>
>Speaking of French line break problems, there is also the case of the
>";", which takes a space before and after: "foo ; bar". Of course, one
>never breaks on the space just after "foo". Same for ":".
>
>Eric.
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