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<strong>THE</strong> <strong>STR<strong>ON</strong>G</strong> <strong>PERFECTS</strong><br />
<strong>IN</strong> <strong>THE</strong> <strong>ROMANCE</strong> LANGUAGES<br />
(Part I)<br />
Hugh E. Wilkinson<br />
1. Introduction. In my earlier paper on the Vulgar Latin<br />
(Proto-Romance) Conjugation System (Ronshu, Vol. 10) I devoted a lot of<br />
space to the strong perfects and the related past participles, but my attention<br />
was mainly directed to establishing what regrouping of the verbs among the<br />
four conjugations had taken place in Proto-Romance (PR) as compared<br />
with Classical Latin. Since writing this paper I have read other stimulating<br />
works, notably R. de Dardel’s Le parfait fort en roman commun (Geneva,<br />
1958) and E. G. Wahlgren’s Étude sur les actions analogiques réciproques<br />
du parfait et du participe passé dans les langues romanes (Uppsala, 1920),<br />
which have shown up various errors and inadequacies in my presentation. I<br />
therefore feel the time has come to write one more paper on the Romance<br />
verbs, this time with special reference to the strong perfects and in<br />
particular the questions raised by Dardel. I will, at the same time, often<br />
mention the past participles, but these to my mind present no special<br />
problems that have not been adequately dealt with already, whereas in the<br />
case of the perfect Dardel has brought forward a new conception which,<br />
while hardly to be accepted in its entirety as it stands, nevertheless<br />
challenges further investigation. In this paper I propose to examine the<br />
various classes of strong perfects as they appear in the Romance languages<br />
from the purely morphological point of view, to see how far I can go along<br />
1
with Dardel in his assertions, while at the same time enlarging on and<br />
modifying my previous paper.<br />
To define my terms, I wish to treat all the perfects except those<br />
ending in -āvi, -īvi added to the unchanged root (I am marking the long or<br />
short vowels only where necessary), as amāvi, sentīvi, in which all the<br />
forms are arrhizotonic (arrhizotonic -ēvi did not survive and need not<br />
concern us), that is, to treat those perfects in which, with a few exceptions,<br />
certain of the forms are rhizotonic, to wit, reduplicated perfects (dedi, steti),<br />
perfects in which the perfect stem is marked by a lengthened vowel (vīdi,<br />
fēci), perfects with the endings added direct to the root of the verb<br />
(prehendi, descendi), perfects in which the stem is marked by the addition<br />
of an -s- to the root (dixi, clausi), other perfects similarly marked by the<br />
addition of -u- (which I will write as -v- when it is consonantal; tenui, posui,<br />
crēvi, cognōvi, quaesīvi), and those of the compounds of dare, which end<br />
in -didi (vendidi). I am conscious that this last class has given rise to a new<br />
weak perfect in Romance, as It. vendei, but its history is so closely linked<br />
with that of the other strong verbs with which it originally belongs that it<br />
needs to be considered in connection with them.<br />
These perfects underwent many changes throughout the history of<br />
Latin, especially in late Latin, and in the modern languages they have,<br />
where they have not disappeared altogether, largely been replaced by weak<br />
forms, especially in the patois. These weak forms are mostly based on the<br />
stem of the imperfectum, but there are some formed on a special perfect<br />
stem, as MCat. poguí, tinguí, Fr. valus, Rum. batui (these last two with a<br />
-u- that does not appear in the imperfectum), while in French those that are<br />
strong in origin now behave like weak perfects, so dis, conclus as finis,<br />
valus. Italian, again, exhibits another pattern of rhizotonic perfect stem<br />
forms alternating with arrhizotonic present stem forms in the same<br />
2
paradigm — a very curious and, one would have thought, unstable<br />
state of affairs; it may be, as Posner suggests in her critique of<br />
Dardel (see below), that this paradigm has been kept as it is because<br />
it does not belong to popular speech, and so is less subject to change.<br />
In referring to Dardel’s theory, I do not propose to<br />
discuss it in detail; R. R. Posner has dealt with many of its defects<br />
in her review in Romance Philology, Vol. XVII, No. 2, Nov., 1963,<br />
and its general reception by the philological world can probably be<br />
fairly represented by a remark of Fouché (in his Morphologie<br />
historique du français — le verbe, new edition, Paris 1967, §156)<br />
when he says, with reference to the -ui perfect, “... la tendance à la<br />
réduction de -wisti a -isti paraît un fait certain, et R. de Dardel a eu<br />
raison d’attirer l’attention sur elle. Mais comme toute tendance, elle a pu<br />
se réaliser ou non.” In other words, to draw a general conclusion, there is<br />
something to his theory as long as it is not pushed too far, and it is in<br />
this spirit that I would like to pursue my own investigations.<br />
2. Dardel’s thesis. Briefly summarised, Dardel’s contention is that the<br />
strong perfects in Proto-Romance were like those in Italian, that is, a<br />
distinct perfect stem was used in the creation of the rhizotonic forms,<br />
while the arrhizotonic forms were based on the undifferentiated root;<br />
compare It. dissi, ebbi, vidi, feci and dicesti, avesti, vedesti, facesti. He<br />
finds the reason for this distribution in the fact that the forms which had<br />
distinctive endings, such as bibisset, incendisti, did not need a special<br />
stem to indicate that they belonged to the perfect paradigm. Thus in his<br />
scheme dixisti and habuisti yielded place to *dicisti and *habisti, while<br />
occīdi and bibi were replaced by occīsi, *bibui; dixi, habui, occīdisti and<br />
bibisti, on the other hand, remained. In support of his thesis he quotes<br />
many forms from late Latin and the various Romance languages, and in so<br />
3
doing provides a valuable treasure-house of material. At first, in my<br />
reading of him, he takes a moderate standpoint, only claiming this<br />
pattern for a certain number of verbs for which the evidence is quite<br />
strong, but as he advances in his work he seems to get more and more<br />
carried away by his idea, until finally he is accusing all the arrhizotonic<br />
forms of the strong verbs in the Romance languages which show a special<br />
perfect stem of having been re-formed on the rhizotonic forms, which<br />
seems to me a plain case of twisting the facts to suit a theory. However,<br />
in spite of this, there does seem to me to be enough in his theory to<br />
warrant a closer examination.<br />
Such an examination requires a comparative study of the forms as<br />
they appear in the various Romance languages, and the quoting of<br />
innumerable examples. For the sake of conserving space I hope I may<br />
be forgiven if I do not give references for the forms quoted; these<br />
forms will, in many cases, be found fully documented by Dardel or<br />
Wahlgren, or else are the common property of the standard manuals, as<br />
listed at the end of Part III of this paper. Where I have supplied a<br />
reference, it will be because the source may not readily be found, and<br />
even here I will content myself with only the briefest of references,<br />
using abbreviations to direct the reader to the Bibliography. In<br />
principle I will give the earliest forms found in a language, but if I<br />
inadvertently quote a modern form — because it serves my purpose just<br />
as well — I crave the reader’s indulgence.<br />
We obviously need to start at the beginning and see what basis<br />
there is in Latin for such a theory, that is, we need to see if there is any<br />
evidence that the varying perfect forms found at the different stages of<br />
Latin were ever differentiated along the lines suggested by Dardel. In so<br />
doing it will be simplest to divide the verbs up into different classes<br />
4
according to the perfect stem, and first of all let us take the -ui class, as<br />
it has generally been supposed that the Italian type of strong perfect<br />
started with contrasting forms like ebbi, avesti, where the u of habui was<br />
lost before the accent, whereas Dardel considers that a *habisti type<br />
already existed in Latin, rightly pointing out that in words like gennaio<br />
(ianuarium), mannaia (manuaria) the u was not lost before the accent,<br />
its presence being indicated instead by the doubled consonant.<br />
3. The origin of the Latin -ui (-vi) perfects. There is indeed<br />
justification for believing that such a type may have existed in Latin<br />
from earliest times, at least in the -vi perfects, to which I would like to<br />
pay special attention first, at the expense of digressing somewhat from<br />
my subject. G. Bonfante, evidently basing himself on A. A. Burger<br />
(Études de phonologie et de morphologie latines, Neuchâtel, 1928,<br />
which I unfortunately have not read), has shown in his “The Latin and<br />
Romance Weak Perfect”, in Language, Vol. 17, No. 3, July, 1941, that<br />
in the weak -vi verbs the so-called contracted forms like -āsti, -ārunt are<br />
the original forms, and that the origin of this class of verbs is the primary<br />
verbs with monosyllabic stems, which originally formed their perfects as<br />
flēvi, flēsti, flēvit, flēmus, *flēstis, flērunt, or nōvi, nōsti, nōvit, nōmus,<br />
nōstis, nōrunt. (In many cases these primary verbs show no -vi- (-ve-)<br />
forms beside the “contracted” forms, thus only flēmus, complēsti(s),<br />
complēssent, consuēsti(s), consuēmus; in others the -vi- forms are usual<br />
but others are found, as strāsset, strārat, prostrāsse, sprērunt, sīris, sīrit,<br />
trīsti. See Gaf., Lew. & Sh.) So in the first conjugation nāvi, nāsti, nāvit,<br />
nārunt etc. changed the old -āre type *cantāi (cf. probai, calcai in App.<br />
Prob.), cantāsti, *cantāt (cf. inritat, Lucr., fumat, Virg.), cantārunt to<br />
cantāvi, cantāsti, cantāvit, cantārunt, and finally the -vi- (-ve-) element<br />
5
spread to all the forms (including old *cantāvĕrunt), though the older<br />
forms continued alongside the new, and passed (with one u-form,<br />
*cantaut) into Romance. (Here cantāvimus would be especially useful for<br />
distinguishing the perfect from the present form.) In the same way the -īre<br />
verbs were partly affected by sīvi, sīsti, sīvit, giving audīvi, audīsti,<br />
audīvit, but both the -īre verbs and sinere were then influenced by the<br />
more frequently used īre and its compounds, giving sii, siit, audii, audiit.<br />
As with the -āre verbs, the older forms as in audī, audīsti, audīt, and<br />
possibly desī, desīsti, desīt (1 and 3 attested in inscriptions — though<br />
these forms might be contractions of désii, desiisti, désiit) are the ones<br />
which survived in Romance, and also those like *audīrunt, *sīrunt, for<br />
which classical Latin substituted audiērunt, siērunt, on the model of<br />
iērunt; however, from sinere there are survivals of the older forms sīris,<br />
sīrit, sīritis, sīrint, corresponding to the Romance type. (It is unlikely that<br />
the Spanish forms -iero, -iera etc. reflect Latin -iero, -ieram etc., given<br />
the fact that only *-īro, *-īram survive elsewhere; also, phonetically<br />
speaking, the -i- would be likely to be absorbed one way or another, as<br />
in mujer, pared. See also §26 below.)<br />
With regard to the origin of the -vi element itself and its<br />
distribution, Bonfante points out that nōvi, nōsti, nōvit (earlier gn-)<br />
and -plēvi, -plēsti, -plēvit etc. show the same distribution of -v- forms<br />
as the corresponding Sanskrit paradigms with 1 and 3 jajñāú, paprāú<br />
(one may similarly compare nāvi, nāvit, from root *snā-, with Skt.<br />
sasnāú), and that one Tocharian A paradigm also has -w-, this time in 1<br />
only, while Armenian has -w, in 3 only. So this -v- element is<br />
evidently not peculiar to Latin, though it met with its widest extension<br />
there. Other such forms in Sanskrit are dadāú, tasthāú, (çrad)dadhāú,<br />
where Latin has dedi, steti, (cre)didi without -v-, but perhaps this -u is<br />
6
the same one as is seen in the old subjunctives duim, duam, and in<br />
Russian davat’, v-stavat’, d’evat’ as compared with dat’, v-stat’, d’et’.<br />
English know also seems to have the same element as (g)nōvi, but<br />
here it has been generalised in contrast not only to Latin but also to<br />
OHG -chnāen; cf. also Rus. u-znat’, u-znavat’. In the same way we may<br />
compare sēvi and sow (OHG sāen/sājan and sāwen; Rus. s’eyat’ and<br />
za-s’evat’), flāvi and blow (OHG blāen), trīvi and throw (OHG<br />
drā(j)en and drāwen), strāvi and strew/strow (OHG strawjan, strewen),<br />
nēvi and OHG nāwan, nā(j)an, vi(ē)vi (‘twined’) and Skt. vivyāya, Rus.<br />
vit’, za-vivat’, and find a certain parallelism between crēvi and grow<br />
(from the root of Lat. grāmen), and sprēvi and MHG spraejen/spraewen.<br />
These disyllabic -vi perfects were joined by those of the u-stems, as suere,<br />
spuere, pluere (from IE roots ending in -w- widely represented also in<br />
other language groups), which had a long ū in the perfect in Old Latin,<br />
as plū(v)it, fū(v)i (fui will be discussed later, §32), where the -v- must<br />
simply represent a glide as the -w- was absorbed into the u. Here we<br />
have, corresponding to suere, sew, OHG siuwen, Skt. sīvyati, Gk.<br />
(kas)súo, Rus. shit’, za-shivat’; to spuere, spew, OHG spīwan, Skt.<br />
sthīvati, Gk. ptúō, Lith spiáuju, cf. Rus. plevat’; to pluere, flow, Skt.<br />
plávate, puplāva, pupluvé, Gk. pléō < *pléwō, Rus. plyt’, plavat’,<br />
vy-plyt’, vy-plyvat’; and to fui, from an IE root *bheu-/*bhou-, Skt.<br />
bhávati, babhūva, Gk. phúō, péphūka, Rus. byt’, byvat’ and similar<br />
forms in other languages. It is also possible that some of the perfects<br />
from roots ending in -v- as cāvi (cf. Eng. show), fōvi, fāvi, were formed<br />
simply by adding the perfect endings to an altered form of the root with<br />
lengthened vowel, though there is another, more probable, explanation<br />
offered (see below). All these verbs, then, set the pattern for the creation<br />
of the weak -vi perfects of the -āre and -īre conjugations, which greatly<br />
reinforced the originally small group of primary strong perfects.<br />
7
Besides this group of verbs in which -vi was added to a long<br />
vowel, there was another group, the one with which we are here<br />
concerned, in which -ui is found added to a consonant. In origin, this<br />
-ui seems to have been the same as the -vi of nōvi, -plēvi etc., but<br />
whereas in the above cases the -w- element was added to a<br />
monosyllabic stem with a long vowel, in this case it was added to<br />
disyllabic stems ending in a short vowel. Thus the -ui of the perfects<br />
secui, domui, habui, tacui comes from *-ə-wai (with IE reduced grade<br />
of the root), just as the -(ĭ)tus of the participles comes from *-ə-tos.<br />
Though I can find no parallels to this quoted from other languages, it<br />
seems reasonable to me to suppose that this -w- was added in the<br />
same way to forms 1 and 3 of the perfect, especially when we consider<br />
that -plē(v)-, (g)nō(v)-, strā(v)-, trī(v)-, fū(v)- are originally disyllabic<br />
stems (Buck, §§126-7), and that the stem of the imperfectum of this<br />
second group of verbs often ends in a long vowel (IE strong grade of<br />
the root), as secā-, domā-, habē-, tacē-. As we have just seen, some or<br />
all of the -vi perfects from roots ending in -v-, such as mōvi, iūvi, lāvi,<br />
probably belong here, though they can also be explained in the same<br />
way as cāvi above; if they go back to forms like *mowə-wai, or were<br />
formed at a later stage by adding -ui (extracted from sec-ui, dom-ui<br />
etc.) to the root, then they are to be analysed as mov-vi, iuv-vi, lav-vi.<br />
(Forms in -ui among the -āre verbs, like secui, domui, disappeared,<br />
though fossilised traces of the corresponding participles in -ĭtus<br />
remained; see my previous paper.) Lavā- is clearly a disyllabic stem<br />
(cf. Gk. ló(w)e-ssa), and because of this Burger, as quoted approvingly<br />
by Bonfante, says lāvisti, mōvisti should be divided lāvi-sti, mōvi-sti,<br />
but such disyllabic stems with a long vowel in the first syllable cannot<br />
be traced back to IE, so I prefer the *-ə-wai interpretation. In this case<br />
the first vowels of lāvi and mōvi would only be what is commonly<br />
8
described as “long by position” (before the doubled -vv-); lavāre/OLat.<br />
lavere come from *lovāre/*lovere (cf. Gk. loúō < *lówō), which became<br />
-luere in compounds (as abluere, di-), so it is easiest to imagine lav-vi<br />
from *lov-vi (with the unaccented -ov- changed to -u- in -lui) as lautus<br />
beside lōtus (with analogical ō for the etymological ū seen in -lūtus, cf.<br />
lūstrum < *loustrom). *Mov-vi is required for Romance, as is *cognov-vi,<br />
though it is not clear whether the vowel was long or short. On the other<br />
hand the contracted forms found in compounds, as commōrunt, and the<br />
p.p. mōtus point to mōvi. This is clearly due to the analogy of nōvi, as<br />
Bonfante points out that there are no forms without -v-, such as *lāsti,<br />
*fāsti, in the case of other roots ending in -v-. Perhaps mōvi, as nōvi, was<br />
the literary form, while the common people said *mov-vi, and then<br />
*cognov-vi. In the same way there may have been two types for the other<br />
perfects like iūvi, fāvi; cf. late Latin expabui (i.e. expav-vi for expāvi<br />
(either with a long vowel or written with a long vowel because this<br />
vowel was “long by position”), and ferbui beside fervi.<br />
If all these verbs originally followed the pattern of nōvi, then<br />
we should have early Latin habui, *habisti, habuit, *habimus, *habistis,<br />
*haberunt (with short e; the classical -ērunt came from conflation with<br />
-ēre; we find an earlier fēcĕrunt in Plautus). In support of this, Dardel (p.<br />
67) quotes Burger as saying “Le peuple a toujours fléchi sapui/sapisti.”<br />
Bonfante also refers to this, saying that Burger sees in this the origin of<br />
the Italian paradigm, as ebbi (earlier abbi), avesti, ebbe etc., to which it<br />
certainly bears some resemblance, the only difference being that the ebb-<br />
has been extended to the other rhizotonic forms, ebbero and dial.<br />
ebbimo, which are based on late Latin hábuĕrunt, hábuimus. However,<br />
as Dardel maintains, this conception has not been generally accepted by<br />
others. Burger’s particular choice of sapui/sapisti would not seem to<br />
9
me to be a very happy one, as sapui is only attested from the 4th c. A.D.<br />
(though Cicero has resipui), and sapisti can be explained as belonging to<br />
sapi(v)i. However, though there is no great body of evidence here for<br />
forms without -u- as there is for forms without -vi- in the other class of<br />
verbs, there are nevertheless a few pre-classical forms such as monerim,<br />
moneris, monerit, tenisse, which point to early monui, *monisti, tenui,<br />
*tenisti (note that tenui is not the earliest perfect of tenēre, but tetini). It<br />
is possible that these forms, supported by other post-classical ones,<br />
represent the tip of the iceberg, which was the popular speech of Italy,<br />
surviving unchanged up to the present day, in fact to my mind there<br />
seems a strong possibility that this is so. But on the other hand one<br />
cannot ignore the fact that in classical Latin only -ui forms are found<br />
throughout the paradigm, and that these are the forms found in the<br />
greater part of Romania. We must suppose, then, that if the paradigm<br />
did originate in the above way, the average educated speaker, supported<br />
by the grammarian, felt the need to regularise it. Just as cantāvisti,<br />
cantāvērunt came to be felt, by writers at any rate, as the correct forms,<br />
of which cantāsti, cantārunt were just vulgar contractions, so the -ui-<br />
(-ue-) forms were given the blessing of grammarians, to the extent that<br />
no other forms are found in classical Latin. What is more, we must go<br />
on to assume that this “correct” Latin was the Latin exported outside<br />
Italy, though with possible exceptions, as we shall see.<br />
If this is true, it will explain, at least as far as the -ui verbs<br />
are concerned, why Italian differs from the bulk of the Romance<br />
languages, and we shall not find the difference surprising. It will mean<br />
that the popular speech survived on its home ground, though it was<br />
overlaid by another standard in literature, which also became the<br />
colonial standard. In this case Dardel, following Burger, may have<br />
10
seized on a point of truth, but then spoilt his case by pressing it too far,<br />
as we shall argue later. Furthermore, another possible argument for the<br />
existence of *habisti is the later creation of forms like *bibui for bibi; if<br />
people said habui, habuit beside *habisti, then they might be prone,<br />
where they said bibisti, equally to say *bibui, bibuit (attested). But on<br />
the other hand one might equally argue with Wahlgren that where one<br />
said habēre, habitus, habui, one might come to say bibere, bibitus,<br />
*bibui.<br />
4. Later developments; -i for -ui, and vice versa. When it comes to<br />
later occurrences of -i forms for -ui, Dardel provides several examples.<br />
It needs to be stated at this point that he has divided up the forms he<br />
quotes according to whether they are rhizotonic or arrhizotonic, with a<br />
special category for the forms in -(u)eram, -(u)erit etc., which might<br />
have been accented either way, in the hopes of finding some pattern to<br />
support his theory. Here he indulges in some very involved speculation,<br />
but ultimately the Romance languages seem to have uniformly accented<br />
hábueram as díxeram. (In this case, Spanish and Portuguese most probably<br />
have adopted the -ederam ending, as did Provençal and Catalan later, thus<br />
accounting for the paroxytone accentuation; see below §§6, 26.) I myself<br />
have reassembled his examples according to the individual verbs, and am<br />
bound to say that I find the picture so confused as to supply little<br />
support for the idea that the u or s stem suffix tended to be dropped<br />
when the ending alone was sufficient to indicate the function.<br />
However, in this instance most of the examples given (from late<br />
Latin sources) belong to the same category in Dardel’s classification.<br />
These are colerunt (with the short e of Proto-Romance), occulerat,<br />
studerunt, vomeris, vomerit (also (e)vomit), ponerit, tenerit (and<br />
11
detenissemus, Italy, 10th c.), volerit (and volestis), nolerit, poterit,<br />
poterint, and possibly also poterunt, poterant (these, and poterit,<br />
confusable with the future and imperfect). Besides these, there are<br />
the parallel forms nexi and nexui, and contexit, conteximus beside<br />
texui, of which more later (§13). Of these, tenerit, volerit and poterit<br />
(Lex Rom. Utin., 9th c.) and similar forms are of especial interest<br />
because some of the forms of many of the later languages point to<br />
*tēni, *voli, *poti. It will also be seen that as *potebo, *potebam (cf.<br />
potibat, in Tardif’s Cartons des Rois, M. & T., p. 200) took over the<br />
roles of potero and poteram, these latter (and perhaps potessem,<br />
quoted by Buck as “rare”, cf. pre-classical potisset, potesse) could<br />
have survived as alternatives to potuero, potueram and potuissem.<br />
Anyway, all in all, we have here some slight evidence of -ui forms<br />
losing their u, though under what conditions is not clear. If we accept<br />
the evidence of OLat. monerim, moneris, all these must serve as<br />
examples to corroborate Dardel’s theory.<br />
Dardel finds stronger evidence on which to base his theory<br />
in another class of verbs ― those which originally had no perfect<br />
suffix and came to adopt the u. These can be divided into various<br />
categories. Firstly there are those mentioned just now which had -vi<br />
in classical Latin, where the v probably stood for a doubled<br />
consonant, and so we have later pabuit, expabui for pāvi (= *pavvi),<br />
and ferbui for fervi; we may also mention here the trisyllabic solui<br />
found for solvi in poetry, though the more typical late forms for this<br />
verb have s, as absolsi, solserit, solserunt, transolsisse. In the next<br />
class, -ui is found added to the present stem to replace an -ui or -vi<br />
perfect differently formed; so we have sapui, saupisset (Lex Rom.<br />
Utin.), (con)terui, terueris, atteruisse, linuit, sinui, sinuerunt,<br />
12
(de)sinuerit, desinuisse, disserui (for dissēvi), conseruerit (for<br />
consēverit), incumbui, delui, abolui, adolui. In addition, -i and other<br />
forms are also found, so terii, lini/linīvi, linistis, sinissent,<br />
accumsimus, spernerunt, cognoscessem (Gl. Leidensis), and praerepsi,<br />
sorbsi, elexi for praeripui, sorbui, elicui. It will be seen that with the<br />
forms delui, abolui, adolui for delēvi, abolēvi, adolēvi the weak -ēvi<br />
perfects virtually died out. Another substitution that we may<br />
mention here, though it belongs to an earlier period, is that of posui<br />
for the original perfect posīvi/posii/posi, which ponere inherited as<br />
a compound of sinere. This last form is presumably a contraction of<br />
posii, but I have the feeling that it soon became treated as a regular<br />
-si perfect, which is what the Romance languages require (with the<br />
long o of ponere), and that these parallel forms gave rise to the<br />
forms quaesīvi/quaesii beside quaes(s); (which became regardeed as<br />
a contracted form). The Romance languages in the same way require<br />
rhizotonic quaesi, and the noun quaestus, which evidently reflects<br />
the old participle, points to an original -si perfect for this verb; this<br />
gives us, incidentally, another point of contact with ponere, for<br />
which the poets use another p.p. postus for positus. (Quaesīvi could<br />
alternatively have been taken from quaeso < *quaesso, conjugated<br />
as capesso.) If posi was a popular form, then posi/posui,<br />
posisti/posuisti etc. must have lived alongside. In this case we might<br />
also suppose *sapi < sapii beside sapīvi/sapui, in which case Burger<br />
would be justified in his sapui/sapisti. Another -ui for -īvi required<br />
by Romance is *petui for petīvi (Sard. petti), and conversely -īvi is<br />
sometimes found for -ui in late Latin, as tenīvi (Gaf.), penetīvit (M.<br />
& T.), so there may have been some slight connection felt between<br />
-ui and -īvi. The compounds of īre are in a similar position; for<br />
these, -ii is the usual perfect, and -īvi is hardly found, but on the<br />
13
other hand -i and -it for -ii, -iit are not unusual; as an early example,<br />
a Christian inscription (M. & T.) has trasit. As the accent was<br />
presumably on the first syllable, forms like peri, perit would<br />
approximate the ordinary -i perfect (and perit would be<br />
indistinguishable from the present), and so it is that we have obuit<br />
for obit, and also obuerunt, while the Romance languages point to<br />
other -ui perfects in this class.<br />
In a third category, distinct from those verbs which have<br />
either an unmarked pefect stem or one marked by the addition of u or<br />
s, are the reduplicating perfects, which could re-form in any of those<br />
three ways — with -ui, -si or just -i added to the present stem; so we have<br />
here the new forms canuit, canuerit/canerit, currit, currerit, curristi,<br />
currisset, currimus, currerunt, currere/accursit, incurserit (Dardel also<br />
gives corruerunt, but this surely belongs to the verb corruere; however,<br />
it is quite conceivable that corrui came to be felt as a -ui perfect of currere,<br />
with corrutus as a p.p.), parcui/parsi, fallit/falierit, tuli/abstoli/tulli/tolli<br />
(but cf. offersi for obtuli), repulerit/repelluit/repellerant/repulsi, pulserat,<br />
expulsisse/expuluerit, adpulserit/appulluerit, compulseris, perculsi, reculsi,<br />
poscuerit, tegeris/tanxi, adtinxit/tangit, contingent, adtingerit/<br />
continguisse (some only show -si forms, as panxi, inpinxerit, punxi,<br />
pu(n)xeris etc.).<br />
Then there are the verbs with a lengthened vowel in the perfect,<br />
which may add -ui or -si to either the perfect or the present stem, or use<br />
the plain present stem; these are deguerit/coguit/coxerunt/agerit,<br />
agerunt, legueris/lexerit/collexet (Lex Rom. Utin.), collexerat, colleximus,<br />
collexistis etc./elexit/neglegerit, neglegisset, diligeritis, dirrupuerunt,<br />
corrupuerit, erupuit, prorupuerunt/erumperunt, praerumperit, rumpisti,<br />
corrumpimus/rupsi (Bour., §91), dirempsi, convicuit/convincuit/<br />
14
vincisti, convincerunt, confringeram, capui(t), capuerunt, capuisset,<br />
fecuit/facerit, iacui/adicerit, convenuit, subvenuit, venuerit (Lex Sal. —<br />
surprising in view of Fr. vin(g), unless this reflects *vēnui; see the dial.<br />
forms in 6c), Catalan Lat. residui (R.-G.). We may also add here<br />
derelinquit, derelinqueris, delinquerunt, relinquerit, relinquerunt. Dardel<br />
notes that there is a distinct dearth of forms that lost their -s- with which to<br />
support his thesis, some of them clearly re-formed on the present stem;<br />
among examples quoted are coniungerint, viverit, both in Gregory of<br />
Tours, and extruderit in the Lex Sal. See §§17, 24.)<br />
Finally there are the verbs which had no distinguishing mark for<br />
the perfect stem, which may also add -ui: convertuit, avertuit (also<br />
versisse), bibuit, pinsuit, lambuit, lambuerunt. For some of these verbs<br />
only variant -si forms are found, as in the case of vulsi and its<br />
compounds beside velli, and versi for verri. (The perfects formed by the<br />
addition of -sui will be discussed later, §13.)<br />
It will be seen that these verbs provide excellent examples of<br />
variant perfect forms, though again without any indication of any<br />
special distribution among the parts of the verb. However, unfortunately<br />
for our purposes, very few of these verbs survived into the daughter<br />
languages, though those that have are important. All we can say, on<br />
the evidence of the late Latin forms, is that the variety of forms might<br />
conceivably have led to a situation where certain forms had certain<br />
functions assigned to them.<br />
As far as the creation of the new forms goes, verbs with past<br />
participles in -sus were likely to create -si perfects, while those with -tus<br />
might do so if there were similar models to follow (panxi–pa(n)ctus,<br />
punxi–punctus as iunxi–iunctus, collexi–collectus as neglexi–neglectus,<br />
and conversely neglēgi as collēgi), or might turn to -ui on the model of<br />
tenui–tentus, docui–doctus. It is also to be noted that past participles in<br />
15
-ĭtus tended to develop for -ui perfects, on the model of future participles<br />
such as caniturus, bibiturus, nasciturus, moriturus, ruiturus, so bibitus,<br />
parcitus (with parsus matching parsi), tollitus, impulitus, vincitus,<br />
lambitus, with traces of the approaching change to -ūtus as well.<br />
5. The -ui perfects which survived in Romance. The chief verbs to<br />
have survived to later times with -ui perfects or the equivalent are: iacere,<br />
placere, tacere, licere, nocere, decere (slight traces in It.), habere, debere,<br />
movere, calere, dolere, olere, solere, valere, parere, tenere, sedere, (in<br />
part videre, implere, (sub)monere), cadere, capere, sapere, posse, velle<br />
(all showing -ēre infinitives on the whole); fremere, gemere, tremere,<br />
timere, vomere, (in part premere, redimere), recipere and the other<br />
-cipere verbs, eripere, attribuere, battuere, fut(t)uere, consuere,<br />
conspuere, bibere, fervere, pluere, rumpere, lambere, vincere, (in part<br />
sequi, vertere), cognoscere, crescere, pascere, experg(isc)ere, irasci,<br />
nasci, miscere, texere, (in part vivere), colere, molere, (in part tollere,<br />
solvere, volvere, frangere, legere, eligere, trahere, traicere, credere,<br />
currere), cernere, sternere, with infinitives in -ĕre for the most part<br />
(timēre, miscēre were largely attracted); and in the -īre conjugation<br />
venīre, with a few other verbs that show isolated forms. Of these, as we<br />
have seen above, those with classical -ui perfects remain largely<br />
unchanged in late Latin (except for, e.g., forms like tenerit, volerit,<br />
poterit), in fact, considering the amount of fluctuation in general, they<br />
form a very stable block, so we would be justified in expecting -ui<br />
forms in the daughter languages. The late Latin fluctuations are found<br />
for the most part in the verbs which adopted -ui forms later, so here<br />
we might expect a variety of forms in the Romance languages.<br />
16
6. The verbs with -ēre infinitives and -ui perfects. The actual facts of<br />
the Romance languages largely bear out these conclusions. I propose to<br />
take the -ui perfects in groups, starting first with the verbs with -ēre<br />
infinitives in PR (for the allied verbs in -cipere (compounds of capere),<br />
also eripere, see §10) and including with them venire, which was closely<br />
associated with tenere in many regions, but leaving aside sedere, cadere<br />
and videre for consideration later with credere. I will also postpone monere<br />
for consideration together with manere in §31.<br />
a) Rumanian. Taking Rumanian first, we find here that all these<br />
verbs have weak -ui perfects and p.ps. in -ut, as plăcui, plăcut, except<br />
veni. This has the old perf. vene/vine, now replaced by venii, with p.p.<br />
venit (as the Latin venire was an intransitive verb there was no p.p.<br />
corresponding to the fut.p. venturus). There is no trace of *venut, unless<br />
it can be seen in the contracted dialectal p.p. vint/vent. (There is no<br />
trace either of *vēnui, as this verb did not undergo influences from<br />
tenere here, as it did it in other areas.) It is not clear how the Rumanian<br />
-ui perfect came to be formed (influence of fui (see below, §32), or of<br />
the p.p.?), but it is sufficient for our purposes to assume that it is<br />
somehow the modern successor of the Latin -ui perfect. The actual Latin<br />
perfects, placui, iacui, tacui would have become *placiŭ etc., with the<br />
development seen in cere, cet from quaerere, quietu, forms that were<br />
confusable with the present.<br />
b) Italian. In Italian we can find the -ui forms (matched by p.ps.<br />
in -uto) giacqui, piacqui, tacqui (with ORoman p.p. tacuto for taciuto),<br />
nocqui, ebbi/abbi/Sic. appi, OIt., dibbi and debbe, movvi (M.-L.; cf. also<br />
<strong>ON</strong>eap. p.p. muoppeto), dolvi, parvi, tenni, venni, OIt. cappissero<br />
17
(Mon.), seppi/sappi, OIt., Sic. potti, Umbr. poddi, Cors. pobbi, volli,<br />
valli (Dar., p. 80, Rohlfs, §582), but always with the arrhizotonic forms<br />
formed on the root, as giacesti, avesti, tenesti, OIt. venesti (now venisti<br />
with the i of venire), except in Old Aquilan, Old Roman and other old<br />
dialectal forms such as cappissero, hábbera/(h)ábera (condit.), ebbesti,<br />
appisse, sappessemo, dippisse, plaquesse, iacquesse, pótteri, pótera,<br />
tennesse, sosténnera, vennesse, convénnera. We have already seen that<br />
compared with the possible primitive Latin type Italian differs in having<br />
a strong form 6 also, as ebbero, and the same situation is found also in<br />
form 4 in the dialects, which have forms like ébbimo/ábbimo/áppimu,<br />
sáppimu, póttimu, tínnimu, vínnimu (Dar., p. 96, following Rohlfs, §566),<br />
with which can be compared Sard. appimus, that is, the rhizotonic forms<br />
are all strong. The same position is found dialectally in the -si perfects,<br />
and here the antiquity of a form like díssimo seems to be corroborated by<br />
ORum. zísemŭ, and cf. Sard. lessimus; furthermore these forms agree<br />
with the accentuation of Lat. hábuimus (late), díximus, and seem clearly<br />
to be strongholds of resistance against the tendency to change to<br />
arrhizotonic form 4. As regards the forms like ebbesti, sappessemo,<br />
iacquesse, opinions differ, some explaining them as being formed on the<br />
analogy of the strong forms, but I myself do not see why we cannot<br />
allow a continuation of the classical Latin state of affairs. After all,<br />
especially in the case of the imperfect subjunctive, if forms like giacessi<br />
once become established, there is little reason for them to be associated<br />
with giacqui, as the imperfect subjunctive has no semantic connection<br />
with the preterite and tends to be associated rather with the present<br />
subjunctive, as in Catalan above all, where the stems interact. In most<br />
cases — and this applies to ébbimo too — once the weak form is established,<br />
there is no return to the strong form, and in fact in some areas avesti has<br />
led to avei, avé, averono. Anyway, we will return to this problem of the<br />
18
alternation in Italian after we have had a look at the other languages.<br />
Also, the difference between dolvi, parvi on the one hand, and volli,<br />
valli on the other is one which we will consider later in connection with<br />
French and Provençal.<br />
Besides these -ui perfects, there are other types in Italian; we find<br />
that the verbs in -lĕre tended towards -si perfects, following sciogliere,<br />
sciolsi (cf. Lat. solsi), cogliere, colsi (and collessi, cf. Lat. collexi), and<br />
the similarly attracted togliere, tolsi. So, following the same pattern, we<br />
have in the -lēre verbs calsi, dolsi, valsi, volsi, and similarly mossi,<br />
parsi, and dial. tensi, vensi (with p.p. vensuto), for which models can<br />
be found in verbs like vivere, correre and porre. (Cf. also the<br />
coincidence of NIt. p.ps. volto < *volĭtus, dolto < dolĭtus with sciolto, colto,<br />
tolto.) The other tendency is the one referred to in the case of avei<br />
above, that is, the change to the weak -ei type, which has given dovei,<br />
solei, potei in the standard language, and -ei or -etti forms for all the<br />
other verbs in the dialects. This tendency is especially strong in Italian,<br />
evidently because it is favoured by the existence of the weak<br />
arrhizotonic forms of the strong perfects.<br />
c) French. In French, -ui perfects and p.ps. in -u are the<br />
normal for nearly all these verbs, which can be split up into three<br />
categories. In the perfects of the verbs with stems ending in c, v, b, p,<br />
d, t, this final consonant has become absorbed in the u of the ending,<br />
and the result, in central French, is paradigms like oi, oüs, out, oümes,<br />
oüstes, ourent, ploi, ploüs, plout, toi, toüs, tout, soi, soüs, sout etc., dui,<br />
deüs, dut, nui, noüs, nut, jui, geüs, jut, mui, moüs, mut, lut etc. (in the<br />
p.ps.the consonants were lost). Those ending in l, r have perfects with<br />
accented endings, as valui, valus, valu(t), parui, parus, paru(t) etc. (see<br />
19
elow). Vouloir, tenir (also early tenoir), venir have voil, volis, volt,<br />
volimes, volistes, voldrent, tin(g), tenis, tint etc., vin(g), venis, vint etc.<br />
Other types are found, and of these let me first mention here the<br />
attraction of the -cere verbs to the ducere, trahere type, especially of<br />
nuire, which, following luire (which created a new perf. luis, luisis, luist,<br />
beside luisi, luisis, luisit, formed on the inf. luisir), has developed nuis,<br />
nuisis, nuist forms; plaire and taire, too, have forms like plaisis, taisis,<br />
while for gesir Fouché gives both jui, geüs and gis, gesis (as sis, sesis<br />
below, based on the semantic affinity) paradigms. Dardel would see the<br />
origin of these -sis forms in Latin forms like *placisti, *nocisti, which<br />
he regards as the PR forms; while he cannot be disproved, his case also<br />
cannot be proved unless it can be shown positively that a particular<br />
author conjugated ploi, plaisis, plout or nui, nuisis, nut. Against this, it<br />
seems to me clear that any writer who was using such a conjugation<br />
would be unlikely to revert to ploi, ploüs, plout, nui, noüs, nut, as there<br />
would not have been any verbs in which strong forms alternated with<br />
-üs to serve as models for such a paradigm (in this case he would also<br />
have been pairing the similar oi and dui with *avis and *devis). So<br />
forms like plaisis, nuisis, even if they go back to PR (which is in fact<br />
doubtful), can never have been more than alternatives for ploüs, noüs,<br />
which can themselves be traced back to placuisti, nocuisti.<br />
With regard to these central French forms ploüs, noüs, deüs etc., I<br />
agree with the explanation that the u of the arrhizotonic forms came<br />
about through the rounding effect on an original i of the w which we<br />
suppose was present in the PWR forms (seen also in oi for *awi and<br />
dui for *diwi), rather than through the workings of the p.ps. in -u. It is<br />
doubtful if there were any perfects and p.ps. with the pattern -u-, -u at<br />
the time this process took place, and the example of other conjugations,<br />
20
like portai, portas etc. with p.p. porté, or vendi(et) and p.p. vendu,<br />
would not have provided a stimulus in the direction of having the same<br />
vowel in the perfect and p.p., the -ir conjugation being the only one to<br />
do so. (In this I follow Pope and Fouché rather than Wahlgren and<br />
Dardel.)<br />
In the northern dialects we have instead the forms au, awis,<br />
aut, plaut, taut, saut etc. and diu, dewis, diut, giut, liut etc., where<br />
neither the stem vowel nor the vowel of the ending has been rounded<br />
by the w as in central French (though other forms duïst, nu, nuïs, nut<br />
are cited; Fou., p. 320, Wahl., p.163), and the existence of these forms<br />
is for me another argument against the influence of the p.p. (The auret,<br />
awret of Eulalie and St. Léger also belong here, and do not go back to<br />
*háberat as Dardel (p. 86) suggests.) The forms awis, dewis are also<br />
found written auis, deuis, and paralleled by promouist (Fou., p. 343), so<br />
that it is not clear whether the pronunciation /w/ or /v/ is intended<br />
(Dardel (p. 40) also raises the question that the w of powissent might<br />
be a glide consonant — cf. the v of pouvoir ); however, as the explicit<br />
spellings with w are found, most grammarians seem to accept this as<br />
indicating the pronunciation /w/, in which case we can assume that, as<br />
in central French, all these perfects go back to -ui forms throughout the<br />
paradigm. (I note that a similar modern Franco-Provençal form with a w,<br />
pwišo, is quoted by Dardel (pp. 40, 125), presumably resulting from<br />
semi-vocalisation of the o.)<br />
In both the centre and the north the verb pouvoir stands apart<br />
from the others in having weak forms like po(d)is, po(d)ist (d = /ð/). In<br />
pursuit of his theory, Dardel once again sees a clear example of the<br />
inheritance of Latin arrhizotonic forms without u alternating with<br />
rhizotonic forms with u, and says that they were later supplanted by the<br />
21
standard forms like poüs, poüst. But once again I cannot feel that his case<br />
is necessarily indisputable. It is a well-known fact that beside pout,<br />
pourent the forms pot, porent were found, and likewise ot, orent, sot,<br />
sorent etc., and I would like to say that one should not exclude the<br />
possibility of two complete inherited paradigms, one poi, poïs, pot, porent<br />
etc. (NFr. the same) and the other poi, poüs, pout, pourent etc. (NFr. pou,<br />
powis, pout, pourent, as given by Pope), which then got confused and set<br />
the pattern for the change of out, ourent, sout, sourent etc. to ot, orent,<br />
sot, sorent. (It is interesting that the Chanson de Roland has pout and<br />
poüst throughout, whereas Chrétien in general uses pot, poïst. In the case<br />
of forms like poüs, powis one has to suppose an intermediate *poðw-<br />
which became *poww-, pow-, just as oüs, awis arose from *aβwis,<br />
*awwis, and ploüs, plawis (attested?) from *plaγwis, *plawwis.) Once<br />
again, I doubt if any clear case can be made either way, unless we can find<br />
writers who consistently used either poi, poïs, pot or poi, poüs, pout, but<br />
anyway there is a chance that pouvoir was like vouloir and tenir in<br />
having paradigms with and without u (see below), though whether this<br />
loss of u goes back to Latin forms like poterit, volerit, tenerit is another<br />
matter. In the case of potui, potuisti the u could have been absorbed,<br />
possibly, in a different way from that seen in the other verbs (that is, the<br />
ones with Proto-Fr. *-ww- that I have just described), seeing that this is<br />
the only verb in -tere (cf. the Spanish and Portuguese forms); clearly pot<br />
(without diphthongisation), if inherited, could not have come from a form<br />
*potit, and we would have rather to imagine *pottit or *poutit or Proto-Fr.<br />
*poððit (cf. vouloir below). In conclusion, let me emphasise that French<br />
usually has the same type throughout the paradigm, whether with or<br />
without -u-, and does not follow the Italian pattern; we shall see a similar<br />
parallel development of different types when come to vouloir, tenir,<br />
venir.<br />
22
The -lēre verbs basically have weak -ui forms (to be discussed<br />
under parui) as valui, valus, valu(t), and so dolui, solui, chalut, olurent,<br />
later followed by voulu(s) (first found in E. French). But vouloir<br />
generally has voil, volis, volt etc., and also vols, volsis, volst etc., s-forms<br />
being found especially in the imp. subj., and similar strong forms so(l)t,<br />
dout are also found, as well as arrhizotonic forms in -is, -sis etc., such as<br />
valist, valsist, chalsist, from which new weak forms like vali, chalit,<br />
cheusit developed, replacing the rhizotonic forms. It is generally<br />
supposed that the s-forms started with vols, and then spread analogically<br />
to the other verbs; this development is parallel to that seen in It. volsi,<br />
valsi, etc. Valist, valissent point to a perfect as *vail, *valt, which is not<br />
attested but would parallel voil, volt, solt, dout. With these last forms<br />
we are faced with the same problem as in the case of poi, poïs, pot.<br />
Once again Dardel sees the alternating pattern, as volui, *volisti, voluit,<br />
and imagines *volli < volui; this last is a reasonable assumption, as we<br />
might posit *vollui as *tollui (see §14), with the u then lost in both verbs<br />
after the double consonant. But we can as well imagine *volli, *vollisti<br />
(rather than *volisti), *vollit as the basis of the French forms, and this<br />
accords better with the generally observable French pattern, making<br />
Dardel’s alternation unnecessary. Finally, for vouloir there is one more<br />
northern form, modern Walloon vôve, backed up by older vowist,<br />
vowissent (and a modern fôve from falloir; Fouché, §162). If these forms<br />
are not analogical, on powist, powissent, they point to an -ui perfect with<br />
vocalisation of the l. Thus it looks as if we have, in voil, voulu(s), vôve,<br />
three different resolutions of Lat. volui, each with a complete paradigm<br />
based on u-forms throughout.<br />
The case of tenir, and with it venir, is parallel to that of vouloir in<br />
that we find a threefold development. The basic central French forms are<br />
23
tin(g), tenis, tint, and vin(g), venis, vint etc. (ting, ving, like voil, with<br />
palatalisation before a following vowel), with other forms like tensis,<br />
vensis (this time to be referred to the action of prendre, which has prensis),<br />
EFr. tenui, venust, NFr. tinve, vinve (with development as in the adj.<br />
tenv(r)e from tenuis). The parallelism between the forms must mean that<br />
tenui and vēni influenced each other, producing the pairs *tēnui/*tēni and<br />
*vēnui/vēni (the long e’s being required to produce the i’s in French). As<br />
we have seen, Latin has examples of forms with and without u for both<br />
verbs, and vin(g), vinve, at least, can be traced directly back to them, so we<br />
do not have the problem of speculating what happened to the u. Once again,<br />
French keeps the paradigms with and without u separate. Here Dardel, in<br />
quoting as usual the contrast between ting, “dont la voyelle a été influencée<br />
par celle de 1 ving”, and tenis, does not explain whether he thinks ting<br />
comes from *tēnni < tēnui, but evidently wishes to convey this impression;<br />
if so, then I would counter that by the same token tenis should come from<br />
*tēnnisti < tēnuisti. (For another parallel to EFr. tenui, venust see semonui<br />
under the -si perfects below, §31, which may go back to Lat. submonui.)<br />
Paroir gives parui, parus, paru(t) etc. and p.p. paru/pareü, and<br />
courre follows the same conjugation. It will be seen that in French this<br />
conjugation is typical of the stems ending in a liquid or nasal<br />
(criembre/cremoir similarly has cremui, p.p. cremu), and from the point of<br />
view of French alone it may be said that these weak perfects were formed<br />
under the influence of the p.ps. (this would seem to be the natural<br />
explanation of the regional developments voulu(s) (later to become the<br />
standard), tenui, venust), aided by the weak forms like oüs, poüs and also,<br />
perhaps, by fui, fus, fut (see below, §32). But when one looks at the -rere<br />
verbs (parēre, currere, quaerere) in Provençal, Gascon and Catalan, one is<br />
struck by the fact that they have developed special forms as Prov. parec,<br />
correc, querec, with corresponding p.ps. paregut/parut, corregut, queregut<br />
24
(see §§12, 31). Also, as we have seen above, Italian has the unusual -vi<br />
forms parvi, dolvi (Dardel also gives corvi (p. 80) — though elsewhere (p.<br />
102) he says *currui had no successor in Italian — and the p.p. currutu is<br />
found in dialects) in contrast to volli, valli, and for -lēre, -nēre verbs Old<br />
Catalan (Majorcan) also has calech, prevalech, tenech. It would therefore<br />
seem conceivable that over a wide area (including French) the -ui<br />
underwent a special development after a liquid, probably producing a glide<br />
vowel before the u, which came to have the accent placed on it, that is,<br />
párui > párəwi > parəwi > parúi, cf. *dewi > dui. It is even possible that<br />
the same thing happened in Rumanian to all the -ui verbs. In this case the<br />
p.ps. paregut etc. would be formed from the perfect (as were all the Prov.<br />
and Cat. p.ps. in this class), and so also the Fr. pareü, while Fr. paru, Prov.<br />
parut represent the older type. However, in the case of French I have seen<br />
no perfect forms like *pareüs, *coreüs quoted which would lend weight to<br />
my theory (see, however, cadere below, §7). There are no -si forms for<br />
paroir, but encourre seems to have had some, to judge from Dardel’s<br />
encursist (p. 115) and the p.p. encours (God.).<br />
In addition to all the above forms there are several weak forms<br />
found in Eastern French documents, such as the sermons of St. Bernard and<br />
Gregory’s commentaries on Ezekiel, and in Burgundian, Lyonnese etc.,<br />
which follow the EFr. vendei type. Such forms are volest, vuillest, doillest,<br />
appartenest, revinnerent, poeront, havest, avesse (Wahl., pp. 105-6; Dar., p.<br />
49). The problem here is whether they are all entirely new formations based<br />
on the present stem, or whether there is a possible connection with *habisti<br />
etc.; vuillest, doillest clearly are new forms based on the stem that appears<br />
in the present subjunctive. Other examples from other kinds of verbs are<br />
diet and diest (beside disest), aemplissest and soraamplisest, apasset<br />
(beside nasquet), and ceindeirent, which are clearly derived from the<br />
present stem; besides this, many strong and weak forms are found together,<br />
25
thus trassest and sostraest, disest and diest (though Dardel would say the<br />
former represents *dicisset; sostraest and diest seem to follow the pres.<br />
subj. stems), and this not only in the arrhizotonic forms but where the<br />
traditional forms are rhizotonic, as ardet/arst, matet/mist, quaret/quist;<br />
enleisest is a further example of a strong arrhizotonic form.<br />
Franco-Provençal also has many similar forms: Dardel (p. 125) quotes<br />
modern pwišo, deišo, vališo, ulišo, šaešo, piaizisse and old aest, while the<br />
texts printed by Bec have preterites venit, veniront, tenit, ayit, muit, and<br />
subjunctives puit, volit, volissant. On the other hand there are the strong<br />
forms (condit.) ore, deuperant, souran (Dar., p. 88), ot, ouront, ousso, usse,<br />
(condit.) auret, por(r)et, pourret (Bec), u, dyu/devu, pu, su/sapu (Wahl., pp.<br />
220-1). Cf. also biuront (Bec) as against bevešo/beišo (Dar., p. 125) from<br />
boire. While there is not a clear-cut contrast here between strong rhizotonic<br />
forms and weak arrhizotonic ones, as Dardel would like it, still the fact that<br />
there has been such a swing here over to weak forms, with the use of the<br />
vowel e (which later gave way to i in some areas), makes me wonder<br />
whether there were not perhaps weak arrhizotonic forms in use in this area<br />
from earliest times, alongside the strong ones. It will be seen that this area<br />
is contiguous to Italy and the Rhaeto-Romance-speaking area, and we shall<br />
find that the latter agrees with Italy in the use of weak arrhizotonic forms,<br />
so it may be that Dardel’s conception holds good for just this part of France,<br />
which is further linked to Italy and Switzerland by the preference for e over<br />
i. (The south-western dialects also have e, but in this they resemble<br />
Provençal, and they do not show the same extension of weak forms.)<br />
d) Provençal. When we come to Provençal we find that nearly all<br />
these verbs have the perfect in -c, -guist, -c etc., which the grammarians<br />
seem to agree in attributing to phonetic development from *-ww- (or *-γw-)<br />
< -cu-, extended to all the verbs of this class; so ac (and aic), aguist, ac,<br />
26
aguem, aguetz, agron, and similarly plac, jac, dec, moc, noc, poc, lec/lic,<br />
valc, volc, and tinc, tenguist, tenc, vinc, venguist, venc, with the same stem<br />
consistently throughout the paradigm. In the case of tazer, Wahlgren gives<br />
tac, but Anglade gives tais and queries tac; this verb was not so common<br />
anyway, being challenged by calar. The verbs without -c, -g- are caber,<br />
saber, which have caup, caubist etc., saup, saubist etc., with anticipation of<br />
the u but no absorption of the consonant. The p.ps. similarly end in -gut,<br />
inherited in some cases, as plagut, jagut, nogut, and then extended to the<br />
others, as Wahlgren says, on the proportion plac:plagut, ac:agut; traces of<br />
earlier forms are found, as avut, mentabut, parut, venut, and, for another<br />
verb, (es)molut. Parec, paregut have been mentioned above. Saber makes<br />
sabut, also saubut under the influence of the perfect; for caber Anglade<br />
only gives cabit, from the inf. cabir (cf. It. capere/capire), but the modern<br />
dialects have ca(u)bu(t) and similar u-forms. For the -c, -g-verbs, the<br />
modern dialects have forms developed out of the old, with perfect -guère,<br />
p.p. -gut and similar forms, though sometimes the stem of the present has<br />
intruded, as in plaseguère, plaiguère beside plaguèri. Poder is interesting<br />
in having modern pousquère/pousquèi, p.p. pouscu, with the stem of the<br />
present subjunctive, beside regular pouguère, pougu; this, and similar<br />
Gascon and Catalan forms, will be examined later (§23). The remarkable<br />
thing to note about Provençal is the lack of forms based on the root of the<br />
verb; Dardel has, it is true, dug up an isolated imp. subj. tenes, but this is<br />
not a representative Provençal form. He also quotes sabes and sabessa,<br />
which seem allied to the Gascon and Catalan forms, but otherwise the<br />
uniformity is almost monolithic, until we come to Gascon.<br />
e) Gascon. Here the position is somewhat confused by a special<br />
phenomenon peculiar to Gascon, which is the use of the vowels o or u to<br />
27
form the weak perfect in these and other verbs. However, the evidence is<br />
almost conclusive beyond doubt that these vowels were substituted for an<br />
earlier e to avoid confusion with the imperfect which is, unusually, formed<br />
in e, and that their origin is to be found in fui, fost, fo etc. (see below, §32).<br />
One piece of evidence for this is that in the areas bordering Languedoc,<br />
where -ia survives in the imperfect, the original e is found in the perfect. In<br />
the case of this class of verbs, as in Provençal, the forms derived from the<br />
Latin -ui perfect have a g in the older language (the modern language has<br />
re-formed the perfect on the present stem), and those without this<br />
distinguishing mark may be presumed in all likelihood to have come from<br />
forms without Latin u, even if the ending in Gascon contains o or u. Thus<br />
examples of Latin -ui perfects are 1 pogui, 3 pogo, subj. pogos/pogues (and<br />
also 3 poscoc, subj. poscossen, modern pouscoui, as Provençal), 3 plago, 6<br />
plagon, 3 mogo, 6 mogon, subj. magos/moguos, 1 aguy, 2 agust, 3 ag/ago,<br />
6 hagro/hagon, subj. agos, 3 dego, subj. degues/degos, 1 (ar)thiencu, 3<br />
tenc/tengo, 6 tengo(re)n, subj. tengos, 1 binc/viencu, 3 venco/bingo, 6<br />
bengeren/convengoren, subj. vengos, subj. valgossen, 3 bolg/bolge/bougo,<br />
6 volgoren, subj. bolgos, 6 comparegoren; p.ps. pogut, yagut, plagut,<br />
mogut/magut, agut, degut, tingut/contengut, vengud/biengut, balgut, bougut.<br />
Here it will be seen that there are a few early strong forms, as ag, hagro,<br />
but most of the forms have added to them the new arrhizotonic o or u<br />
endings, or, in a few cases, e, as in bengeren, bolge. Forms without Latin u<br />
are podessem, podesen, podo, podora, podos, movessen, havo, sabo, sabom,<br />
sabora, sabossi, balos, valossan, volu/boluy, bolt (Dar., p. 44)/volo,<br />
voloren/volon, bolossen/bolessan, paros, with p.ps. podut, aut, sabut,<br />
volut/bolut. It will be seen that, as in the case of Provençal, the majority of<br />
verbs have -g- forms; those that have others have them in addition to the<br />
-g- forms, with both sets of forms occurring throughout the paradigm, as in<br />
French, with the exception of saber. In the case of this verb and the -cipere<br />
28
verbs, a comparison with Catalan below will show that the lack of any form<br />
like saub- with anticipation of the u does not necessarily imply that these<br />
forms did not come from the Latin -ui paradigm. For the rest, the forms<br />
without g recall Fr. avesse, poïs, valis, voil, volis without u (though the l of<br />
Gasc. volu, volo must come from a Latin form with a single l, as -ll- gives<br />
Gasc. r, showing that it is taken from the present stem), so that here we<br />
may be faced with a more widespread duplication of forms than in French<br />
(but originally limited to poder, voler, valer ?), both sets of forms conceiv-<br />
ably inherited from Proto-Romance, and both in use concurrently. Later,<br />
with the replacement of e by o/u in the weak perfects, for example, rendo,<br />
bendo, this latter form of perfect with the o/u added to the present stem<br />
became the dominant type, and so the -g- perfects were remodelled, giving<br />
the modern forms like poudoui, bouloui, plasoui, Béarn. aboui. Paros<br />
possibly followed the example of corro, toro (tollere), which correspond to<br />
Fr. corret (EFr.), tollit, and will be discussed below (§§12, 14, 31).<br />
f) Catalan. The position in Catalan almost exactly reproduces<br />
that in Provençal, with the old paradigm ac, aguist, ac, aguem, aguets,<br />
agren, later agueren (adopting the -ederunt ending, as did Spanish, see g)<br />
below) and the modern hagui, hagueres, hagué, haguérem, haguéreu,<br />
hagueren, with the weak endings throughout and the extension of -er- as in<br />
Provençal; so also plac, jac, dec, moc, noc, (l)lec, valc, volc, solc, olc, tinc,<br />
vinc, later replaced by weak forms; the -gr- of agren is also found in old<br />
pluperfects, as agra, valgra, volgra. Poder has, besides poc, poguist etc.,<br />
subj. 4 pusquessem (R.-G.) with the extension of the pres. subj. stem;<br />
García de Diego also gives the modern p.ps. poscut/puscut. For this verb<br />
Dardel also quotes Huber’s grammar for a modern perf. podí beside poguí;<br />
the other grammarians do not refer to it, and it seems to be the only verb in<br />
29
this class to have a perfect without g. However, this need not surprise us in<br />
view of the French and Gascon forms, but in this case it seems to be a new<br />
formation. (We can dismiss Dardel’s avessi from Alghero (p. 146) as a<br />
clear Italianism.) Parech, valech, prevalech, calech, tenech we have<br />
referred to in c) above, and they (or casech from caure) seem to have<br />
provided a model for plaech (Fou. R.), and aeg (R.-G.), which seems to<br />
belong to haver. This verb also has the old p.p. aut beside (h)agut.<br />
Catalan, like Gascon, differs from Provençal in having a weak<br />
perfect based on the verb root for saber, caber. There are a few old strong<br />
forms, however. Badía Margarit gives 3 sap, and Russell-Gebbett has<br />
instances of 3 saub and subj. saubessen in a document copied from a<br />
Roussillonese original, and 1 sub and a substantival participial form sobud,<br />
both in a document of the 11th c. with conservative characteristics. Gili (p.<br />
127) also has an infinitive sauber used substantivally. The occurrence of 3<br />
sap beside saub inclines me to believe that in Catalan, as in Gascon, the<br />
tendency was not to anticipate or metathesise the u of Lat. sapui, with the<br />
result that the weak perfect was developed early to avoid confusion with<br />
the present; in this case a form like sabés would come from sapuissem, and<br />
not *sapissem. The p.p. is usually sabut. Caber only has weak cabí, p.p.<br />
cabut. Tenir, venir have old tenc(h), venc(h), and p.ps. tengut, vengut, but<br />
in the perfect the stems ting-, ving-, with i, are also commonly found in the<br />
old language, probably introduced from the pres. subj. rather than reflecting<br />
an old mutation; the modern language regularly has tinguí, tingut, vinguí,<br />
vingut, to avoid confusion with -tendre, vendre (there is confusion with<br />
-tenyer, -tendre, however; see below, §§18, 30). For venir García de Diego<br />
also gives vin, venist, ven, venim, venis (no references), and<br />
Russell-Gebbett has an example of 3 reflexive venesen (but I wonder if this<br />
is a misreading of vencsen, with the usual velar, as seen in the vengra in the<br />
30
next line), while a document from the Pamplona area in a language similar<br />
to Catalan has venissen (G. & H., No. 72; cf. No. 96, tiengutz in the same<br />
language). These forms seem to reflect Lat. vēni, as do the Spanish and<br />
Portuguese ones, rather than *vēnui. All in all, we may say in sum that<br />
basically Latin -ui survived in Catalan throughout the paradigm.<br />
g) Spanish. In Spanish there is great variety. To take poder first, as<br />
Dardel does, the original OSp. forms are pude, podiste, pudo, podiemos,<br />
podiestes, podieron (with -ieron < *-ederunt, see §26), and then the pud-<br />
stem was extended throughout the perfect paradigm, and even to the<br />
present participle, which is unusual for an -er verb (cf. viendo, siendo<br />
below, §7). As far as Dardel is concerned, he sees metathesis of the u of<br />
Lat. potui(t) as producing the u of pude, pudo, and says that therefore the<br />
pod- forms must come from an original without u. However, it seems to me<br />
more likely, as others have suggested and as he admits in the case of<br />
Portuguese, that pude represents a metathesised *poudi with ou > u by<br />
metaphony due to the following i, and with pudo following pude as puso<br />
followed puse. (There is no need to assume here, as Dardel does, that if this<br />
was the case, ove would have to have become *uve, as ove would still have<br />
been *auvi when pude was *poudi.) If this is the case, it seems to me that<br />
there is no objection to supposing that podiste represents earlier *poudisti,<br />
as oviste represents *auvisti. But it is, of course, also possible to see podiste<br />
as coming from *potisti, and in this case there is some support for this idea,<br />
not only from the examples of French and Gascon, but also from the fact<br />
that Berceo uses a weak paradigm, podí, podiste, podió/pudió. But even<br />
this is not absolutely conclusive, as there are other equally old weak forms,<br />
such as tovió, quisió, pusió, which are clearly derived from earlier strong<br />
perfects. So all we can say is that Dardel has a possible case but not a<br />
31
clearly proven one. For the p.p. I have not seen any form in -udo quoted for<br />
this verb either in Spanish or in Portuguese, which is strange.<br />
OSp. aver, caber, saber have ove (and ovi, of — identical with<br />
OPied. of), oviste, ovo etc., cope, copiste, copo, sope, sopiste, sopo/sobo<br />
(the Leon. Alex. O), with p.ps. avudo (Alf. Χ), cabudo, sabudo. (There is<br />
also prebudo from prebir < Lat. prae(hi)bere.) As can be seen, these show<br />
anticipation or metathesis of the Latin u, without metaphony, as explained<br />
above. In the case of these verbs, as possibly also in that of poder, there are<br />
forms found that clearly lack u. Such are OLeon. auiesemos, avier, avieres,<br />
OArag. auiesses, auieron, auieret/ab- (Gl. Sil.) and many others (among<br />
them, the Arag. Alex. P); OArag. sapieret (Gl. Sil.), sabiesse, xabieron<br />
(Yúçuf), and sabieron, sapiessen (Alex. P); Leon. cabiera (M.-P., 120. 6). It<br />
will be seen that these forms are not Castilian, and are all arrhizotonic,<br />
though Alvar & Pottier (§178) also quote forms like havió, sabió for<br />
OArag., while Mod. Arag. has the weak perfect habié etc. Most interesting<br />
to me is the alternation between the xabieron quoted above (Yúçuf, 61b)<br />
and strong xopo (68a), paralleled by dixo (65a) and diziexe (66d). (These<br />
forms are taken from G. & H., No. 54; but Ford’s text No. XV, from the<br />
later MS. B, has strong arrhizotonic supiera (90a), dixestes (99d), dixeron<br />
(108c).) From their occurrence in the Gl. Sil. it will be seen that these forms<br />
are very old, but evidently limited to certain areas, and always in<br />
competition with -ui forms. Dardel, predictably, traces these back to Lat.<br />
*habisti, sapisti, but once again it is possible to argue from the other side.<br />
OLeon. and OArag. have sevi, seviste, tevi, teviste, crevi, creviste, which<br />
are evidently -ui forms without metathesis or anticipation of the u,<br />
corresponding to OCast. sove, tove, crove; so we could say that aviste,<br />
sabiste were similarly formed, and that 1 and 3 *avi, *ave, *sabi, *sabe<br />
were replaced by weak forms as above (cf. Cat. sabí, sabé). But on the<br />
32
other hand, given the antiquity of the Roman colonisation of Spain, and the<br />
supposed Oscan settlement of Huesca, it may well be that early Latin<br />
*habisti, sapisti became established in Spain, and were later challenged by<br />
habuisti, sapuisti, which became dominant in Gaul. So Dardel may well be<br />
right here in seeing the same pattern as is found in Italian still surviving in<br />
certain isolated pockets of territory, whereas the rest of the country (and<br />
Portugal too) adopted the -ui type general in the rest of Western Romania.<br />
But it should be emphasised that this was a process which took place<br />
during the Latin period, and that oviste, sopiste are not later analogical<br />
Spanish forms, which is what Dardel would like them to be. For the other<br />
two verbs of this type, mover and deber, only weak forms of the type MSp.<br />
moví, debí are found, so far as I know; for mover old p.p. movudo is found,<br />
but for deber only debido. If we could be sure that moviste, debiste go back<br />
to Lat. movisti, *debisti, it would make the changeover to the weak type,<br />
found not only here but in very many Spanish verbs, easy to explain. But<br />
unfortunately there is no sure evidence, and we can only speculate.<br />
Of the -cēre verbs, only nocere, placere and iacere are found in<br />
Spanish. For the first, the inf. nozer is only found in OArag., and this verb<br />
is generally found conjugated as an -ir verb, perf. 3 nuzió, p.p. nozido. The<br />
other two, plazer and yazer, have in OSp. -ui forms throughout the perfect<br />
paradigm, as plogo, ploguiere, ploguiesse, yogo, yoguiere, yoguiesse, but<br />
they are rivalled from an early date by weak forms like plaçió, yaçió, with<br />
p.ps. placido, yacido (I have seen no -udo forms quoted), and even forms<br />
like pluguió, ploguido. (There is also a strong plego (Pell., Sp.), formed on<br />
the pres. subj. plega, itself formed on the proportion sopo:sepa,<br />
plogo:plega.) Pluguió, ploguido show the Aragonese tendency to form<br />
weak perfects from strong (cf. podió, tovió) and align the perfect and p.p.<br />
Whether plaçió, yaçió go back to Latin forms without u is uncertain; the<br />
33
fact that these replaced strong rhizotonic forms at an early date, plus the<br />
occurrence of strong arrhizotonic ploguiere, yoguiere, would seem rather to<br />
point to a trend in Spanish to replace strong perfects by weak ones. But<br />
once again, there may have been old arrhizotonic forms without u which<br />
provided the impetus for this change; we just cannot be sure.<br />
The Sp. -ler verbs show only weak forms, with p.p. doludo, and cf.<br />
(es)moludo, and parere is represented by parecer, to be discussed later<br />
(§13), so the only remaining verbs in this group are tener and venir. In the<br />
latter case the dialects show that the original paradigm was vine, veniste,<br />
veno, veniemos, veniestes, venieron, from Lat. vēni, with the vin- produced<br />
by metaphony early extended in OCast.; there is an old p.p. venudo (Fer.<br />
Gonz.) from PR *venūtus, seen in the name Venutus, but no trace of *vēnui.<br />
For tener the OCast. perfect forms are tove, toviste, tovo etc., p.p. tenudo,<br />
but the other dialects show forms based on tev- or tiv-, such as tevi, tevo,<br />
tivo, teveron, tevier, and even tudiere, as pudiere (M.-P.), and also weak<br />
tovió, p.p. tovido/tuvido. The loss of n in tov-, tev-, tiv- points to analogical<br />
re-forming of this strong perfect on other perfects like ove, sovo/sevo/sivo.<br />
Once again, OArag. produces examples of forms without u, such as<br />
tenieron, teniés (S. Juan de la Peña; the teniesse that Dardel quotes from<br />
Berceo, Mil., 720a (p. 46), is an imperfect reflexive form), and MArag. has<br />
the weak perfect tenié (and so also venié), while the Fuero Juzgo gives<br />
tinió, which once again obscures the question of the antiquity of such forms.<br />
Given the general Spanish tendency to form weak perfects for all verbs, we<br />
cannot say that the evidence of Spanish alone enables us to reach any firm<br />
conclusion about Romance in general, especially when we find that this<br />
class of verbs is more conservative in Portuguese. All we can say is that in<br />
Spanish itself there may have been an early stratum of the monerim,<br />
moneris type of Latin, which led to forms like auiesses, sabiesse, and<br />
encouraged the widespread change to weak perfects which will become<br />
34
apparent when we study other classes of verbs later. (This early stratum<br />
theory would also explain the existence of a duality of other forms in<br />
Spanish, such as participles in -udo and -ido and paired but distinct<br />
conjugations in -ir and -ecer, where Spanish does not accord with<br />
Gallo-Romance.)<br />
h) Portuguese. The corresponding forms in Portuguese are<br />
pudi/pude, podeste/pudeste, poude/pôde etc. (pude from *poudi by<br />
metaphony), ouvi/houve, ouviste/houveste, houve etc., and soube, coube,<br />
jougue/jouve, later jazi, prougue/prouve, with weak forms only in the cpd.<br />
comprazi (jouve, prouve as houve), vĩi/vim, vẽeste/vieste, vẽo/veiu,<br />
vẽemos/viemos etc., tivi/tive, teveste/tiveste, teve etc., and some -ui forms in<br />
the l-stems, as dolveron, valver, valvera, valvesse, besides the usual weak<br />
forms. -Udo p.ps. are avudo, sabudo, devudo, movudo, vĩudo/vehudo,<br />
tẽudo/teudo, and cf. mudo as Sp. moludo. Nozer/nuzir has 3 nuziu, and<br />
movi, devi are weak, as in Spanish; however, there is an unusual form 6<br />
diverão, with i, which might conceivably be an -ui form, as tiverão, with 1<br />
*divi by metaphony. But there are no weak forms corresponding to the<br />
Spanish auiesses, sabiesse, tinió etc., though Dardel quotes havera from<br />
the Portuguese of Brazil and Madeira; this seems to me a modern dialect<br />
form, like fazeste, fazesse from fazer. There are no traces, then, in<br />
Portuguese of inherited Latin forms without u.<br />
i) Rhaeto-Romance. Here there is a dearth of strong forms. For the<br />
verbs in this class Dardel quotes Friulian ob, and Engad. 3 pous, 6 pousen,<br />
3 uous, 6 uousen — paralleled by Friul. volç (Samp.) — (and also 3 stous,<br />
corresponding to OFr. estut, from a new verb based on Lat. est opus), 3<br />
uen/ven, 6 uennen, beside weak vanginen. Otherwise there are only weak<br />
forms without u throughout the paradigm, and even among the strong<br />
35
forms, as we see, there are new formations with s. These weak forms may<br />
be compared with some North Italian forms, for example the 1st persons<br />
wleck, tascheg in OEngad. with Bergamasque avec, savec (could this -eck,<br />
-eg come from secondary palatalisation of *-edi — cf. launguaick<br />
‘language’, -egiar/-ager < *-idiare ?). The modern language forms the<br />
perfect with the use of -ett, as avett, taschett, savett, which will be<br />
discussed later. The OEngad. paradigm of avair, if we extrapolate from the<br />
forms of other verbs, was probably 1 *haveck, 2 havist/havest, 3 havet, 4<br />
havischen/havesschen, 5 havisches, 6 hawenn (aven)/havetten, so that it<br />
looks as if the -ett started with the 3rd person (from *-edit ?). Modern<br />
Sursilvan has no perfect, but the older language has 1 pudí, 6 rumanenan<br />
(from another class of verb). The only forms still found in both groups of<br />
Swiss dialects, as also in the old languages, are those of the imperf. subj.,<br />
and here we have (a)vess (Friul. havès), podess/pudess (Friul. podès),<br />
less/vuless (Friul. volès), dovess/duvess, savess, tgness/tagness,<br />
(ve)gniss/vigness/vagness etc. It will be seen that these forms agree with<br />
those of Italian rather than French (except, perhaps, EFr.) or Provençal, so<br />
we may be justified, with Dardel, in tracing them back to Lat. *habisti,<br />
*volisti etc., and saying that the Italian pattern spread to this neighbouring<br />
territory. The past participles go back to *-ūtus, with the palatalised stem<br />
where this occurs, as, for example, in Friul. tignut, vignut/ve-,<br />
j) Sardinian. Here we have many strong rhizotonic forms attested,<br />
as OSard. 1 appi/api, 3 appit/apit, 4 appimus/apperus, 6 apperunt; potti,<br />
potuit, potterun, potirunt (perhaps accented on the i); tenni, tennit; benni,<br />
bennit/venit (perhaps Latinised; Mon. No. 10, i), bennerunt/vennerun;<br />
paruit; bolvit/voluerun; jaquet; piaqui. There are also some new s-forms, as<br />
parsit, tensit, bolsi (Dar., p. 165). Other forms can be inferred from the past<br />
participles, which are formed, amongst other things, on the perfect stem, as<br />
36
áp(p)idu, déppidu, bénnidu/bennídu, ténnidu/tentu (also mantesu; Bec,<br />
2/303), nókidu, dékidu (infs. nogere, degere; H. W. S., p. 32), (ap)párfidu<br />
(and also (kum)partu, parsu, cumpássidos (Wag., p. 415) ), bálfidu/bálidu<br />
(H. W. S., p. 67), dólfidu, bóffiu, póttidu/pózziu, and móviu (Rohlfs, §626;<br />
for the rest see Wag., Fl.); cf. also iackitoria, and OSard. placitu, used as a<br />
noun as it is in other areas also. There are also the shortened forms ait,<br />
arunt etc. used in the combination habere + infinitive. In this class of verbs<br />
there are apparently no 2nd person forms found in OSard., and as the Latin<br />
pluperfect subj. did not survive in Sardinian it is hard to know whether the<br />
arrhizotonic forms were based on the same stem; however, another -ui<br />
perfect, kerui/kerfi (Lat. *quaerui) has 2 keruisti, 5 querfistis, and ockisi<br />
has okisisti, so we may well suppose this was the general type. Dardel,<br />
however, dismisses these as analogical re-formations.<br />
Besides these strong forms there began to develop already in OSard.<br />
new forms with -is- inserted, as apisirunt, ap(p)isint, detisirunt (Bec,<br />
2/280-2), and from the 16th c. a new -isi/-esi paradigm began to appear,<br />
which has developed into the modern paradigm 1 -esi/-ei, 2 -esti, 3-esit/-eit,<br />
4 -esimus/-emus, 5 -edzis, 6 -esini/-eini. The interesting thing about this, as<br />
can be seen, is that there is an alternation of forms with and without s<br />
resembling that in Italian, but there is no agreement as to the origin of this<br />
paradigm, which was also extended to the verbs with weak perfects;<br />
perhaps the origin was with verbs like ockidere, which then lost the<br />
intervocalic d, giving a new infinitive in -ire (occhire, Wag., p. 379,<br />
modern Camp. boččíri, H. W. S., p. 95), while the perfect remained ockisi,<br />
and okisisti perhaps became *okisti by haplology, as apparently happened<br />
in the case of the evasi/evasti quoted by Dardel (p.165). (See also §30<br />
below.) In the case of this modern perfect, the endings may be added to the<br />
perfect stem (appesi, deppesi, potisi) as in the old forms quoted above, or<br />
to the root of the verb (venisit, haisti, haimus, haizis, vulisi, pudisi/podei,<br />
37
mulgesimus), or to the palatalised present stem (benzesi, tendzesi,<br />
balzesimus); for this multiplicity of forms compare modern Prov.<br />
pouguère/pousquère and Gasc. pouscoui/poudoui/OGasc. pogui. There is<br />
also a modern imperfect subj. in -essi created in imitation of Italian, which<br />
usually has the stem of the present subj. (appessi, benghessi/bengessi); we<br />
also find an earlier Gallurese (highly Italanised) aissi for appessi (Bec,<br />
2/291), which is possibly the forerunner of the modern regional essi, and,<br />
besides these, OSard. auissi/auesse occurring together (with fosse also) in<br />
the same document. Dardel seizes on these last forms as “très rares et<br />
précieux vestiges de l’ancien subjonctif”, which will support his theory of<br />
alternation; Wagner, however, clearly explains them as Italianisms,<br />
betrayed by the first e of auesse (and the o of fosse) and the<br />
Sardinianisation of the same Italian vowel in auissi (he could also have<br />
noted that the stem av- is Italian, as opposed to the Sard. app- or a-). In his<br />
chapter on Sardinian, Dardel begins by conceding that he has difficulty in<br />
finding any support for his theory here, but then goes on to achieve a<br />
triumph of hope over experience by convincing himself that the modern<br />
forms based on the root of the verb go back to old arrhizotonic perfect<br />
forms without a suffix. True, there is no solid evidence with which to refute<br />
his argument, but equally his theory is only conjectural, and the wide<br />
extension of the strong perfect stem (found also in the present, as parfo,<br />
balfo, dolfo) would seem to argue strongly against it. There are also some<br />
slight traces of Dalmatian forms: ORagus. potì and subjs. pudis, avisi, p.p.<br />
abudu, Vegl. subj. avás.<br />
7. Videre, sedere, cadere and credere. Next I would like to consider<br />
together three verbs from the PR -ēre conjugation and another which is<br />
closely associated: videre, sedere, cadere and credere. The Romance<br />
languages point to a PR inf. *cadēre, but credĕre remained, though OCat.<br />
38
also has an inf. creher (B.-M., 153, II), as ve(d)er, se(d)er, cader (Hom.<br />
d’Org.). I will begin first by listing the relevant parts in each language:<br />
Rum.: văzui, şezui, căzui, crezui, p.ps. văzut, şezut, căzut, crezut (all<br />
with z extended from forms with yod).<br />
It.: 1 vidi, 2 vedesti, 3 vide etc. (and 1 viddi/vitti/veddi/vedei/vedetti,<br />
etc.); p.p. visto/veduto (NIt. veçuo, vezu(dho) etc.)/viso etc.<br />
1 sedei, 2 sedesti, 3 sedè etc. (and 1 sedetti etc., 6 sediero); also OIt.<br />
3 sedde and possette; p.p. seduto. Cf. also assidere, assisi, assiso.<br />
1 caddi, 2 cadesti, 3 cadde etc., and 1 cadei/cadetti (NIt. caçí, chaí)<br />
etc.; p.p. caduto (NIt. caçuo, cazu)/NIt. cáito, chéito.<br />
1 credei, 2 credesti, 3 credè etc. (and 1 credetti etc.); also OIt. 1<br />
creddi (crebbi)/cresi etc.; p.p. creduto (NIt. creçuo, crezu), and old or dial.<br />
creso/cresto/credesto/creto. (Note that the northern dialects also have z for<br />
d, like Rumanian; cáito/chéito and creto are old -ĭtu p.ps.)<br />
Fr.: 1 vi, 2 veïs/vidist (St. Lég.), 3 vit, 6 virent/vidrent (St. Lég.), subj.<br />
vedisse (St. Alex.) etc., and various later weak forms, as EFr. 1 veü, 3<br />
veüt/veiit, 4 vesimes (cf. se(s)imes), 6 veïrent; p. p. veü (and veeit, vis etc.).<br />
1 (a)sis, 2 se(s)is, 3 (a)sist, 4 se(s)imes, 6 (a)sisdrent etc. (also 2<br />
sisis), and weak dial. forms as asseiit, (as)seïrent, EFr. s(e)üt, aisseüst; p.p.<br />
(as)sis and dial. asseü, aissu, ess(e)ute (Wahl.), seeit etc.<br />
1 chaï (cheï), 2 chaïs, 3 chaï(t) etc., and EFr. chaiet, chaerent, cheü,<br />
cheüs etc., WFr. 6 decheürent, also analogical enchesest; p.p. chaü (cheü),<br />
cheüte and chaeit (cheeit).<br />
1 crui, 2 creüs, 3 crut etc., and 1 creï, 2 creïs, 3 creï(t) etc., WFr.<br />
subj. creesse; p. p. creü (and creeit).<br />
Prov.: 1 vi, 2 vist, 3 vi/vic etc., subj. vis and vezes; later 3 veguet, mod.<br />
ve(i)guère/vesquèri etc.; p.p. vist/vis/veut/vezut/vegut.<br />
3 (as)sec, (as)sis/assic/rasidet (Gir. de R.), mod. se(i)guère; p.p.<br />
(as)segut/assis/asses.<br />
39
3 cazet/cazec, 6 cazeron/cazegron (cadegren), mod. caiguère; p.p.<br />
cazut/cazegut/cazech.<br />
1 crezei, 2 crezest, 3 crezet/creét etc., mod. creseguère/cre(i)guère;<br />
p.p. crezut/creut/crezegut/cregut.<br />
Gasc.: vi/bi, mod. bedoui/besoui/besquèri; p.p. bist/bedut/bezut.<br />
p.p. segut; mod. inf. sèder/sèter, perf. setoui, p.p. setut.<br />
cado/cajoc/subj.cados/caiosen/escaygos, mod. ca(i)joui; p.p. escadut,<br />
mod. ca(i)jut.<br />
credo, credoren, mod. credoui/cresoui/cregoui; p.p. credut.<br />
Cat.: 1 vi/vid/viu/vehí, 2 veist/vist, 3 vit/viu/veu/vese(c)/vehé/veé/ve(c)/<br />
veyé/veié, 4 vesem/veem/vim, 5 veets, 6 videren/viren/veeren/veren/veieren,<br />
mod. also vegí, veguí (Gar., B.-M.), veieres etc. (Gili); p.p. vist, and also<br />
vegut (Wahl.).<br />
residui.<br />
1 (as)sec (Moll), mod. (as)seguí; p.p. (as)segut. Also Cat. Latin<br />
3 casech (R.-G.)/caec (Gili, p.108)/caegué (R.-G.), mod. caiguí, also<br />
ORous. casé (Fou. R.); p. p. caigut.<br />
1 cresegí, 3 credeg/crezeg (R.-G.), and crec (Moll), also 6 creren<br />
(Fou. R.), mod. creguí; p.p. cregut.<br />
Sp.: 1 vid(e)/vidi/vi, 2 vist(e), 3 ví(d)o/vío > vió, 4 vi(e)mos, 5<br />
vi(e)stes/vidiestes, 6 vi(e)ron/vioron/vidieron/veyeron (Ber., Mil.); MArag.<br />
vié; p.p. visto, OArag. v(e)ido; pres.p. viendo (cf. proveer, proveí,<br />
proveido).<br />
1 sovi/OLeon. sevi, 2 sovist, 3 sovo/OLeon. sevo/OArag. sivo, 5<br />
soviestes, 6 sovieron/-ioron, also OArag. subj. seyés; p.p. seudo/s(e)ido;<br />
pres.p. siendo (cf. poseer, poseí, poseido).<br />
1 caí, 2 caiste, 3 cayó (cadiót), 6 cayeron etc., fut.subj. cadieret (Gl.<br />
Sil., Dar., p. 87), subj. cadiesse (Cid, 1351); p.p. kadutu (Gl. Sil.)/cayudo<br />
(P. C. G.)/caido.<br />
40
1 creí, 2 creiste, 3 creyó (credió), etc., and 3 crovo/OLeon. crevo, 4<br />
croviemos, 6 crovieron; p.p. creudo/creido.<br />
Ptg.: 1 vi, 2 viste, 3 viu, 4 vimos, 5 vistes, 6 virom (proví, proveste,<br />
proveu etc.); p.p.visto/veudo (viudo)/provido.<br />
seeda).<br />
1 sevi/sive, 2 seveste, 3 seve, 6 severom; p.p. s(i)ido (cf. subst. old<br />
1 caí, 2 caeste, 3 caeu, 6 caerom etc., subj. caesse, now caí, caíste,<br />
caíu etc.; p.p. caudo/caido (subst. queda).<br />
1 cri, 2 crêste, 3 creu etc., and 1 crevi/crive, 2 creveste, 3 creve, 6<br />
creverom; p.p. creudo/cr(i)ido.<br />
Rh.: vaset/v(e)zet, p.p. vis, Friul. p.p. vis/vidut > viodut; subj.<br />
sasess/szess; subj. cartess/crajess, p. p. cret (M.-L.), Friul. crodut.<br />
Sard.: 1 bii, 3 vidit, 6 viderun, p.p. vistu/bistu (Wag., p. 366; Bec,<br />
2/282)/bid(i)u/biu/bittu.<br />
cret(t)idu.<br />
6 setisint; p.p. seidu/settidu/settsidu/settsiu (inf. seere, settsere).<br />
6 creterun (Wag., p. 328), mod. crettesi/creesi, p.p. crettitu/<br />
It will be seen that in many languages the four possess both -ui and<br />
-edi forms, or a combination of the two, and this needs to be checked first<br />
against the known Latin forms. Here we find, for videre, besides vidi and<br />
p.p. visus, videderant in the Vulgate; for sedere there seem to be no<br />
alternatives to the classical forms except Catalan Lat. residui (R.-G.). For<br />
cadere, besides the classical forms, there are only the late caderunt and<br />
cadissent in the Gl. Reich., while the p.p. *cadutu is found in Latin guise<br />
only in the Gl. Sil. kadutu. Wahlgren and Grandgent interpret caderunt and<br />
cadissent as representing *cadederunt (a form that is supported by the Gl.<br />
Sil. cadieret), *cadedissent, in the light of the French forms, while Dardel<br />
sees in them perfects without suffix. Given the late date of their appearance,<br />
I incline to the view that both these forms belong to a weak perfect<br />
41
paradigm, and that caderunt, at least, reflects *cadederunt (cf. the weak<br />
forms as found in most areas, including Sp. cayeron (matched by OSp.<br />
cadieret, cadiesse), OPtg. caerom); in the case of cadissent Dardel may be<br />
right morphologically — see the -dedi perfects below (§30). For credere,<br />
besides classical credidi (late crededi), there are crederimus, -itis, -int<br />
(Jerome, Orosius and the Itala), and concredui (Plautus), and, besides<br />
creditus, Creduta as a name.<br />
Of these, it is interesting to note that credere has both credidi and<br />
credui, together with simple cred- (in the parts that support Dardel’s<br />
theory), as this appears to be the verb that influenced the others. It seems to<br />
have got separated early from the other compounds of dare, as did tradere<br />
also in part (see §§26, 29), because, unlike perdere, vendere, abscondere,<br />
reddere, it had a single intervocalic d with no consonant in front to support<br />
it, besides not being formed with any recognisable prefix. It then seems to<br />
have influenced cadere, for which, despite the noun form casus, no s-forms<br />
are found (this being an intransitive verb it had no p.p.*casus, on which an<br />
s-perfect could be formed, and the supine casum and fut.p. casurus died<br />
out), and to have given rise to both *cadui and *cadedi, and perhaps also<br />
*cad- forms. For videre, vidi seems to have survived over such a wide area<br />
that it may be questioned whether other forms like văzui, viddi, veddi, vedei,<br />
vehí, veü go back to common originals at all; Wahlgren (p. 245, n.) raises<br />
this doubt concerning văzui and veddi. Certainly It.vedei can be explained<br />
by vedesti, Cat. vehí by veist, and Fr. veü by the past participle.<br />
In the case of sedere, I feel there is strong evidence for a PR *sēdui,<br />
which shows the natural development for this kind of perfect; moreover -ui<br />
forms are found in all the major daughter languages, in some form or other.<br />
Sardinian has a duplicated t which points to *seddi < *sēdui. In Italian<br />
there is just a slight trace of sedde (D. & G., p. 66, though Mon. takes it to<br />
be a pres.); there is also a form possette in the early oaths, in which it<br />
42
seems to me the -tt- might be a southern substitution for -dd-, though the<br />
editors assume that this is a contraction of possedette. (The sitte in<br />
Wartburg, 31.15, means ‘was’ and is evidently connected with the setti<br />
given by Rohlfs, §577, n., though his explanation of this as an -ette form<br />
from essere seems far-fetched — in combination with a word like bene,<br />
sedere could mean ‘be’.) The French forms, sut/seüt are dialectal, mostly<br />
Eastern, and therefore may be purely analogical, but then again they may<br />
not, and may go back to Latin; I am not clear whether the form sut quoted<br />
by Dardel (p. 123) is older than seüt, and might have come from *sēduit, or<br />
whether it is a later contraction; this seems to me more likely, and lends<br />
credence to the idea that seüt was formed on the p.p.; but even so, the<br />
existence in itself of a p.p. in -u for this verb is unusual in French.<br />
The French forms perf. sis, p.p. sis are usually explained with<br />
recourse to Lat. sessus (which did not exist as a p.p., cf. cadere, and only<br />
came down to Romance as a noun meaning a person’s physical ‘seat’, cf.<br />
OFr. ses), on which a perfect *sessi was formed; appeal is then made to the<br />
analogy of pris, mis, quis, to explain the vocalism. But surely it is easier to<br />
start from the compound assis, coming from *assīsi, *assīsu, formed from<br />
assīdĕre on the analogy of other PR -īdĕre verbs like rīdĕre, occīdĕre; the<br />
grammars usually give sēdi as the perfect of sīdĕre, but forms like sīdi,<br />
consīdi, subsīdi, desīdi are equally, if not more, common, giving this verb a<br />
close point of contact with occīdĕre–occīdi, which later developed a perf.<br />
occīsi (see §28). Assīdĕre is frequently used in medieval Latin in many<br />
senses, and in all cases the p.p. is assīsus, clearly formed as occīsus, so<br />
there must also have been a perf. *assīsi as occīsi. This assīdĕre is also<br />
represented in Romance as well as assĭdēre; Fr. assire (with pres. 1 assi),<br />
assis, assis is exactly paralleled by It. assidere, assisi, assiso, Prov. assire,<br />
assis (and, notably, simple sis), assis (beside assezer, assec, assegut), while<br />
Catalan has assiure/asseure (see also §28). (Unfortunately, it seems at first<br />
43
sight difficult to fit Sp. asir(se) in here because of its single s, though one<br />
could easily imagine the semantic transition from ‘besiege’ (It. assidersi) to<br />
‘seize’. However, Pellegrini (Sp., 147:5) quotes old subj. forms assa, assas,<br />
so it may be possible that there was an old *assir < assīdĕre which was<br />
changed to asir through contamination with asa ‘handle’; this would also<br />
account for its being a primary verb and not changing to *asecer. (We<br />
might even hazard that asgo, asga started out as *assio, *assia, which then<br />
followed the process that turned *tenyo, *tenya into tengo, tenga; cf. the<br />
consonant combination in plazgo, plazga, yazgo, yazga.) I am not happy<br />
with Malkiel’s suggested derivation from *ansire, based on ansa ‘handle’,<br />
as I would then expect it to have the meaning ‘equip with handles’; the<br />
excuse put forward in support of this derivation is that a formation such as<br />
*ansare would have been liable to confusion with the verb for ‘roast’, but<br />
in old Spanish the latter was spelt assar, cf. assadas, L.B.A. 1385c; note<br />
that Portuguese has asado ‘having handles or ears’, kept distinct from<br />
assado ‘roasted’. In French it will be noticed that -s- forms, as sesis, are<br />
also found analogically in vesimes, enchesest (based on similar forms in<br />
other verbs which are found with and without -s-, cf. §§21, 28, 30, 31), and<br />
that all four verbs also have p.ps. in -eit, usually in the East and North-East.<br />
These p.ps. Fouché (§193) explains on the analogy of bene(d)ir, bene(d)eit,<br />
based on the similarity between beneïr and the infinitives chaïr/cheïr, seïr,<br />
veïr. Cf. also Prov. cazech. To explain the adoption of sis in French, one<br />
needs to remember that an -ui perfect and -ūtu p.p. for this verb would have<br />
been too much subject to confusion with the perfects and p.ps. of savoir<br />
and suivre. This seems to me one more argument in favour of supposing<br />
that French originally did agree with the other languages in having such<br />
forms, besides the fact that sessus was not a p.p. and only survived in PR as<br />
a noun.<br />
When we look at Provençal and Catalan we find a situation<br />
44
eminiscent of that with parec, correc, querec in the forms Prov. cazec,<br />
cazegut, crezegut, Cat. ca(s)ech, caigut, crezeg. In the case of the first verb<br />
Provençal also has cazet, cazut, while Fouché gives casé for Old<br />
Roussillonese; for Gascon, cado, cados, escadut are the old forms given by<br />
Wahlgren, while Dardel also gives caios, escaygos. In view of the later<br />
forms cajoc (Bec, 1/549), caijoui (Mist.), with the infs. cager/caiger, I take<br />
it that caios, escaygos are to be interpreted as cajos, escaijos, agreeing<br />
further with the pres. subj. caja/caija (Bec). If this is so, this verb has no<br />
g-forms, and agrees with Prov. cazet, cazut; and anyway, if it did have<br />
g-forms, they would come out as -deg- and not -ig-, as -d- was not lost in<br />
Gascon. In the case of credere Provençal basically has cre(z)ei, cre(z)ut,<br />
and Gascon has only credo, credut, but the existence of Prov. crezegut<br />
makes Wahlgren suspect there was also a perfect *crezec. In the case of<br />
Catalan, Moll and García de Diego speak of a crec as the original of creguí,<br />
cregué, but I am not clear whether this comes from an earlier cresec, or is a<br />
separate form; judging from the forms given by Russell-Gebbett —<br />
credeg/crezeg in the Hom. d’Org., cresegí a century later, and the modern<br />
form cregut a century later still — I would suppose creguí, cregut to be<br />
the natural successors of creseg- forms, which leads me to question<br />
whether crec has not been falsely extrapolated. Fouché also gives an<br />
example of Rous. creren, formed on the Provençal model. The problem is<br />
to decide what happened; it looks as if Lat. *cadui merged with *cadedi,<br />
and credui with crededi, but we cannot be sure. Modern Prov. and Cat.<br />
creguè(t), cregué, cregut cannot help us to decide whether crec, cregut<br />
antedated crezec, crezegut, and the Prov. crezegut occurs later than Cat.<br />
crezeg, at a time when it was natural to add -c to the 3rd person of the weak<br />
perfect, on which a new paradigm might then have been created. A similar<br />
-c has been added in Catalan to the weak perfect ve(s)é, giving vesec<br />
(R.-G.), evidently on the analogy of casec, crezeg, leading to a modern<br />
45
form veguí (Gar.), and -ec forms are occasionally found in other verbs<br />
instead of -c , as in plaech (Fou., R.), aeg (R.-G.) and the calech, valech,<br />
tenech quoted above in §§6c, 6f.<br />
Of the attempts at explanations, Wahlgren feels that Prov. cazec is<br />
too early to be explained by the substitution of -ec for -et, which would not<br />
account for cazegron or cazegut either, at that date, and suggests, very<br />
persuasively, the mixing of *cac < *cadui and cazei < *cadedi, possibly<br />
backed up by the analogy of elec, p.p. elech, giving cazec, p.p. cazech.<br />
Dardel (pp. 140-1) sees the analogical working of correc, parec, supposing<br />
that hypothetical arrhizotonic forms like *corrist, *cazist acted as the link;<br />
this is in line with his theory, but seems rather tenuous to me. It looks as if<br />
we must leave the matter as a mystery, but what does seem clear is that<br />
these verbs had two forms in Proto-Romance. For credere Italian, French,<br />
Spanish and Portuguese offer both -ui and -edi forms; here Dardel believes<br />
in an early paradigm crui, creïs, crut etc. for French, but I can find no<br />
justification for this from a sampling of early texts, in which -edi and -ui<br />
forms seem to be used indiscriminately, while in Spanish and Portuguese<br />
also the two paradigms appear to be independent and fully developed in all<br />
the tenses and moods. It is therefore rather remarkable that the creguè(t)<br />
type does not appear in the oldest stages of Provençal. For cadere, on the<br />
other hand, the other languages do not offer the same degree of duality;<br />
caddi, cadesti is the standard Italian type, cadei/cadetti being popular, and<br />
Spanish and Portuguese know only caí. In French chaï/cheï is standard, and<br />
cheüt dialectal, mostly Eastern, barring the decheürent in the Western<br />
Roman de Rou (cf. the similar seüt). This cheüt can easily be explained in<br />
the light of the p.p. cheü, for which compare similar veüt, veü; Wahlgren (p.<br />
178 and n.) points out that *chui, *chut, formed as jui, jut from iacui(t), are<br />
not found, so that there is no question of forms coming from *cadui, but<br />
given the Prov. and Cat. cazec, casech and the correspondence between Fr.<br />
46
pareü, coreü and Prov., Cat. paregut, corregut, I just wonder whether there<br />
could not equally be a correspondence between WFr. decheürent, p.p. cheü<br />
and cazec, cazegut (the EFr. cheüt is more likely to have been based on the<br />
p.p.). (See also my paper in Ronshu, Vol. 10.)<br />
As far as Dardel’s theory goes, once again there seems to be no<br />
clear evidence of a mixture of forms with and without u in Proto-Romance;<br />
the relationship between -edi forms and suffixless forms will be discussed<br />
later (§29).<br />
We have now discussed all the PR -ēre verbs with -ui perfects, apart<br />
from implēre and complēre, which have various weak forms that are<br />
uninstructive for our purposes, and monēre and its compounds, which also<br />
have weak forms in most cases, except for submonēre, which will be<br />
discussed later together with manēre (§31). In general, we have found the<br />
-ui perfect to be most thriving in Rumanian, French and the group<br />
Provençal/Gascon/Catalan, where phonetic or other reasons have produced<br />
a distinctive class of perfects, with accented u-endings in Rumanian and<br />
French, and a stem ending in -g- in Provençal/Gascon/Catalan. In Italy and<br />
Iberia -ui developed phonetically in many different ways according to the<br />
nature of the preceding consonant, producing a group of “irregular” verbs,<br />
with a certain amount of interplay (tovo as ovo, tudiere as pudiere, jouve as<br />
houve), but little power to stand up against the encroachments of the weak<br />
perfect type. That the spread of this latter type was helped in Italian by the<br />
arrhizotonic forms, which were identical with those of the weak perfect,<br />
seems clear; a case for the same kind of process can legitimately be made<br />
for Spanish, at least for some dialects, but cannot be proved conclusively<br />
for lack of sufficient evidence. We shall find this lack of a clear -ui type in<br />
Italy and Iberia to be a deciding factor once more when we come to look at<br />
the VL -ĕre verbs, which we will do now.<br />
47
8. The PR -ĕre verbs with -ui perfects; those in -uĕre. I would like to<br />
take first the -uĕre verbs, because they seem to have set a pattern for others<br />
to follow. These verbs are battuere, fut(t)uere, consuere and conspuere,<br />
which in Latin had perf. -ui, p.p. -ūtus. Now, the Romance forms go back<br />
to *battere, *fut(t)ere (this includes Eng. fuoter beside a variant futtir,<br />
which is paralleled by a similar futtire in Sardinian, perhaps coming from a<br />
crossing of effutuo with effutio ‘blurt out’), *cosere, and even, in some<br />
cases, *cosīre, and to the -īre forms *cospīre/*escopīre, for conspuere,<br />
including a Fr. écopir, not usually noted. (Rum. scu(i)pi changed later to<br />
scuipa.) In this case we may well wonder whether the u also disappeared<br />
from the perfect; some -ūtus p.ps. survived (including OSp., OPtg. batudo,<br />
fududo; note also Ptg. coseito, as cozeito, ‘cooked’), but seem to have been<br />
rivalled by -ĭtus, as Sard. battitu (Rohlfs, §626) and the It. noun battito<br />
(note a late Latin fut.p. battiturus, formed as ruiturus). Only Rumanian has<br />
-ui perfects, bătui, futui, cusui, while elsewhere these verbs have all<br />
changed to the weak -edi type. In French and Spanish the -edi perfect is<br />
now identical with the -īvi perfect (and in Spanish bater has been replaced<br />
by batir), but that they were originally distinct is shown by the battederit of<br />
the Lex Sal. and OFr. abatiet, cousierent, and OSp. forms like meteo. In the<br />
case of consuere the weak perfects follow the infinitive type, which is in<br />
Italian cucire beside dial. cucere, cosere; cf. Prov. coser/cosir, Cat.<br />
cosir/Rous. cuser, Sp. coser/cusir, Gal. coser/cusir, Sard. kosíre, Dalm.<br />
koser with -er < -īre (OGasc. has perf. cozo, p.p. cosut). Given all these<br />
weak perfects, we may well question whether this does not represent a PR<br />
development, in which case the Rum. -ui perfects are new formations based<br />
on the p.ps. In fact, on the basis of battederit, it is generally supposed that<br />
there was a PR conjugation *battere, *battedi, battūtus (and *battĭtus ?),<br />
which then set the pattern for vendere, vendedi, vendĭtus/*vendūtus. It may<br />
also, as we shall see, have set the pattern for the replacement of -ui by -edi<br />
48
in other perfects, though we cannot be sure of this, just as we cannot be<br />
sure whether battui survived the change of battuo to *batto. We also need<br />
to define what we mean by “replacement by -edi”; once again we are in<br />
danger of being over-influenced by battederit, which is clearly an<br />
archaising spelling for what would probably have been pronounced<br />
*bat(i)er, if that tense had survived at all in the vernacular (cf. abatiet<br />
(Rol.) and EFr. abatet, NFr. batterent). It may be truer to say simply that<br />
we are faced with a change to a Romance *-ei perfect, originating with<br />
vendedi but owing its extension to the existence of suffixless arrhizotonic<br />
forms, in this case *battisti, *battissem etc., which were parallel to<br />
*vendisti, *vendissem. (See below, §29, for a fuller discussion of this.) We<br />
shall find this extension to originally strong perfects is still limited in the<br />
early stages of French and Provençal, but already further advanced in Italy<br />
and Iberia. One other verb which seems early to have followed this type is<br />
*sequere, which deserves to be mentioned here as another -uere verb where<br />
the u was dropped from the pronunciation in part of the Romance territory.<br />
In most areas this has changed over to the -īre conjugation, like consuere,<br />
conspuere, but both -ĕre and -īre conjugations are found in OFr., OProv.<br />
and OCat. (cossegre in R.-G.). To the -ĕre conjugation belong -ui or -edi<br />
perfects and -ūtu p.ps. French has -sui, -seüs etc. in compounds, as<br />
aconsurent, porseüst, and p.p. seü (later giving way to suivi), enseü; the<br />
simple verb has the perfect sevi, later suivi, EFr. enseuest, Anglo-Norman<br />
siwerent, SWFr. seguet, as Prov. seguei, seguest, seguet etc. There is no<br />
record of any Prov. or Cat.*sec, *segut, but clearly these would have been<br />
confused with the forms from sedēre, while in French there was the further<br />
danger of confusion with the forms from sapere; we do find, however, an<br />
OSp. p.p. segudo. It would seem as if the position in PR was confused, and<br />
each language produced its own solution; even the -ūtu p.p. seems to have<br />
been challenged by -ĭtu, as in the substantival It. seguito, Fr. suite.<br />
49
One other -uere verb has survived in Iberia, and that is (at)tribuere.<br />
Here OSp. has (a)trovo, p.p. atrevudo, and OPtg. atrevudo. Evidently<br />
tribuere, like other verbs, lost its u, but perhaps it kept it in the perfect<br />
because of the support of habui.<br />
9. The -mere verbs. Here we have the group fremere, gemere, tremere,<br />
vomere, to which we may add the -ēre verb timēre, and in part premere,<br />
redimere; sumere may also have survived in Sp., Ptg. sumir. The first five<br />
have classical perfects in -ui and p.ps. in -ĭtus (including late tremitus,<br />
timitus). The only variants found in late Latin by Dardel are (e)vomit,<br />
vomeris, vomerit. With regard to the development of premere and<br />
redimere, the only relevant item is the occurrence of direm(p)si beside<br />
diremi, suggesting the origin of *premsi and *redemsi, required by<br />
Romance. In this class Rumanian has gemui, temui, vomui and scremui<br />
from screme, which goes back ultimately to exprimere. Italian has only<br />
-ei/-etti perfects and -uto p.ps. for all except redimere, which has redensi,<br />
p.p. redento (cpds. in -pressi, -presso are learned). In later Old French the<br />
-si perfect and -tu p.p. seem to be the usual, so criens, crient (with the<br />
vowel of the present and cr- for tr-), giens (?), gient, priens, prient, raiens,<br />
raient, subst. friente (God., s.v. frainte), or similar forms with the stem<br />
vowels e or ei (taken from the verbs in -eindre, which affected this class in<br />
general, producing infs. like geindre, preindre); however, cremui and<br />
cremut are also usual (perhaps more usual) in the old language, and cremi<br />
is also found. In Provençal there is a great mixture; premer has prems, p.p.<br />
prems/premut/premit, cremer (rare) has p.p. crems/tremps and cremuz (Gir.<br />
de R.), temer has tems, p.p. tems (?)/temsut/temut (Pell., Prov.), and<br />
rezemer has rezems or rezemei, p.p. rezems/rezemt/rezemut. Gascon has<br />
temon, p.p. temut. Catalan has premí, -mut, temí, -mut, tremí, -mut, remí,<br />
50
-mut, with a Lat. infremuerit, and Spanish and Portuguese have similar<br />
weak forms (including old remedir, rem(i)ir, now redimir), with -udo<br />
found in temudo, OPtg. premudo. (Note also the substantives Cat. premsa<br />
> Sp., Ptg. prensa, as Prov. premsa.) Friulian has old sprens (sprenz)<br />
(Samp.) and the noun témit (Wahl.). Rhaeto-Romance has tmetten (Bec,<br />
2/354). The interesting thing here is the loss of -ui over almost the whole<br />
of Romance territory, the exception being Rumanian, where -ui is the rule<br />
for verbs with p.ps. in -ut, whatever their origin, and Fr. cremui, which is<br />
supported by other stems in liquids and nasals (does cremi come from<br />
another resolution of -ui, as volis, valist ?). Perhaps the competition found<br />
here between the three PR types tremui–tremitus (cf. Sard. p.p. timitu<br />
(Harris, p. 332) and the substantives. fremida, emida, premida (H. W. S.,<br />
pp. 94, 31), It. fremito, gemito, premito, tremito, Rum. freamăt, geamăt,<br />
ORum. temet, Friul. témit), *premsi–*premsus and *redempsi–redemptus<br />
had something to do with it; to judge by the contrast between French and<br />
Provençal, including premsa/prensa, on the one hand, and Gascon,<br />
Catalan, Spanish and Portuguese on the other, we might suppose that the<br />
-si perfects gained the upper hand at one stage, and then yielded early to<br />
the weak perfects, as happened in this latter territory. In Italian the natural<br />
route would be by way of the arrhizotonic forms. Whatever the process<br />
was, it is clear that except in Rumanian and French, which had their<br />
special weak -ui perfect, the Latin perfects in -mui lost their distinctive<br />
form, perhaps by absorption of the u into the m, and had to be replaced.<br />
There seems to be no direct support for Dardel’s theory in this class of<br />
verbs because the confusion is too great; forms like Fr. craignis, Prov.<br />
cregneguère/cregnèri are late analogical developments, and the existence<br />
of Prov. subj. redemes beside perf. 1 redems, as quoted by Dardel, is of no<br />
significance as both strong and weak forms occur throughout the<br />
paradigm.<br />
51
10. The -cipere verbs. The next group consists of the compounds of capere,<br />
and with them Prov. erebre < eripere. Here, as we have seen, the perfect<br />
capui is found in late Latin for the simple verb but not for the compounds,<br />
and praerepsi is found beside classical praeripui; the modern languages<br />
point to *-ui perfects and *-ūtu p.ps. Rumanian has, predictably, începui,<br />
-ut, pricepui, -ut. The only Italian form I have found that might reflect<br />
*-cipui is OSic. rechippe (Wartburg, 40. 35), but as the same text has vippi<br />
from vivere it may be that rechippe is also a new formation. Standard<br />
Italian has ricevei/ricevetti (dial. recipeo, recipesse, recevé etc.) and old<br />
ricevvi, evidently analogical (M.-L.), p.p. ricevuto (dial. receputo/ri-,<br />
recevuo etc.); for the other compounds I have found NIt. descevé, and p.ps.<br />
deceduto, percevu(o), apperceputo, conceputo, while in the standard<br />
language all these verbs have changed over to the -īre conjugation. In<br />
French the standard type is as reçui (earlier spelt receui), receüs, reçut, p.p.<br />
receü > reçu (so also (a)per-, con-, de-), with reciut, perciurent, subj.<br />
receuist, in the north, subj. recevest in the east (the Ezekiel). In Provençal<br />
we have standard receup, p.p. recebut/receubut, and other similar forms for<br />
the other verbs ((a)per-, con-, de-), together with ereup, ereubut, but there<br />
also occur recep, recebro, recebes and decep, besides rece(i)t in Gir. de R.<br />
Gascon has only arrhizotonic forms as receberen, recebuy, recebo,<br />
receb(or)on, recebossen, p.p. recebut, decebut, but forms with the u<br />
anticipated, as receubo, receuboro, receubut, are also found (Dardel, p.<br />
144). For Catalan one strong form, 3 reb, is given by Badía Margarit (168.<br />
II), beside weak rebí, old rebist etc., p.p. rebut, but I wonder if reb is a<br />
reliable form, as the early stem is re(s)eb-, and the contracted reb- only<br />
comes later; deseubutz (Ramon Llull) shows Provençal influence. Spanish<br />
and Portuguese have weak recebí, etc., with old p.ps. recebudo,<br />
(a)percebudo, concebudo. Rhaeto-Romance has the p.ps. antschet (from<br />
52
antscheiver < incipere), retschet (M.-L.); such p.ps. formed from -ceptu are<br />
also found elsewhere in substantival forms. Friulian has the p.p. ricevut.<br />
The state of affairs in this class of verbs is similar to that in the<br />
-mere verbs, with strong forms in French and Provençal contrasting with<br />
weak forms elsewhere. As before, Provençal is a zone of transition; the<br />
existence of forms with and without anticipated u (cf. also the case of<br />
saber) may be due to a difference of treatment in combination with a labial,<br />
or to the influence of the past participle. We cannot, of course, be sure that<br />
Lat. recēpi was everywhere replaced by *recēpui, though the existence of<br />
-ūtu p.ps. everywhere makes it seem likely; one possibility is that Iberia<br />
was more conservative and resisted the encroachment of -ui forms, in<br />
which case it would be easy to explain the weak forms as being aligned on<br />
the old arrhizotonic forms.<br />
11. Other stems ending in a labial. Other Latin verbs with stems ending<br />
in a labial and perfects in -ui are bibere, fervere, plovere for pluere (found<br />
in Petronius), rumpere and lambere. (There are also solvere and volvere,<br />
but these show greater affinities with the -lere verbs, and I will deal with<br />
them later in §14; vivere I will likewise hold over until I come to §13.) The<br />
late Latin perfects are fervi/ferbui, bibi/bibuit, pluit (OLat. plūvit),<br />
rupi/rupuit, -uerunt/rumpimus, -isti/rupsi, lambi/lambuit, -uerunt; these are<br />
interesting in showing a distinct alternation between -i and -ui, though there<br />
is no clear pattern of distribution. The Romance languages show a certain<br />
amount of variety. Rumanian has băui, fiersei/ORum. fierbui, p.p. fiert,<br />
plo(u)ă (with change of conjugation, Latin -ove- giving Rum. -ouă-),<br />
rupsei/ORum. 3 rum(p)se, rupe. Italian has bevvi (vibbi, vippi etc.)/bevei<br />
(-etti), fervei (with an s seen in the dial. p.ps. fers, fiersetu), piovve/piovè<br />
(chiobbe, chioppe), ruppi (OIt. 3 roppe)/rompei, lambii (-ire verb); also to<br />
be noted are the -ĭtu p.ps. formed in the south from the perfect stem, as<br />
53
Neap. vippeto, chiuoppeto, which have also produced muoppeto from<br />
movere (and <strong>ON</strong>eap. mosseto). French has bui, beüs, but etc. (NFr. biut,<br />
subj. bewist), plut (also weak analogical bevit, plovit in the north; cf. movit),<br />
rompi (dial. 3 rompie, 6 romperent). Cf. also Franco-Prov. biuront (Bec,<br />
2/376), subj. beišo, bevešo (Dardel, p. 125), plut (Bec, 2/376). Provençal<br />
has bec, ploc, rompei, and Gascon beguo, p.p. begut (mod. beboui, bebut),<br />
subj. plagues, plaguosse (mod. plabo, plabut), arompos, p.p. corrompudes.<br />
Catalan has similar bec, ploc, rompí. Spanish and Portuguese have only<br />
weak perfects (note OLeon., Ast. 3 rompe(g)o), together with the old p.ps.<br />
Sp. (cor)rompudo (also Moz. ronpito, Oríg.), Ptg. bevudo/bebesto.<br />
Rhaeto-Romance has arumpet. Sardinian has the p.ps. bittu, and próppiu<br />
beside próitu (Fl., §145), which may be analogical, or may reflect the stem<br />
of PR *plovuit. It should also be noted that the p.p. ruptus left reflexes<br />
everywhere, including Sard. ruttu.<br />
It will be seen that bibere, pluere largely kept the -ui forms, with<br />
the notable exception of Iberia. Once again the presence of an -udo p.p.,<br />
bevudo, suggests that the -ui perfect also made its way to this area, but that<br />
perhaps the strong forms were not distinctive enough to survive; equally,<br />
bebi–bebido might go back to another Sp. type developed directly out of<br />
bibi–bibitus. But there is also one other special factor at work in this area.<br />
The p.p. bebesto quoted above was formed on the model of comesto, found<br />
beside OSp., OPtg. comudo; now, this verb comer is only found in Iberia,<br />
and has a weak perfect comí developed phonetically from Lat. comēdi. It<br />
looks here as if bebí may have been formed on the model of comí, as<br />
bebesto on comesto. At the same time we must not forget that just as there<br />
may have been a habui, *habisti pocket in Spain, so there may also have<br />
been a *bibui, bibisti one. Thus it looks as if many influences may have<br />
been at work here. Fervere may have had a perfect *ferpsi in PR, on the<br />
analogy of sorbui/sorpsi. Rumpere is remarkable in that all the Latin forms<br />
54
survived, and even one more, *rumpsi, though the -si forms are confined to<br />
Rumanian, and may be new formations. The west evidently early<br />
developed an -edi perfect based on *rumpi (or *rumpui), rumpisti, similar<br />
to *battedi, *battesti for batt(u)i, batt(u)isti; if *rumpui existed, the u<br />
would ultimately have been lost after the two consonants as in the case of<br />
battui. The same thing would have happened to lambui, ferbui, leaving the<br />
way open for the creation of new weak perfects, wherever these verbs<br />
survived. (In Spain, lamer would also have been affected by comer.)<br />
12. Stems ending in two consonants. There are a few verbs, vincere,<br />
vertere (see also §31), cernere, sternere, currere (see also §§13c, 31),<br />
verrere, which do not naturally fall into any particular group, but are all<br />
united in having stems ending in two consonants. (There were also other<br />
verbs which died out, such as those in -ctere treated in the next section.)<br />
The late Latin forms are vici/vincisti/convicuit/convincuit, verti/versisse/<br />
convertuit, crēvi, strāvi (but cf. spernerunt), cucurri/curristi, currit/accursit,<br />
incursit/corruerunt (?), verri/versi (this verb only survived in Sp., Ptg.,<br />
with weak forms); many tendencies are seen, so one may expect confusion<br />
in the daughter languages. Here Rumanian has învinsei/ORum. învencuiŭ,<br />
with p.ps. învins/Mac. Rum. azvimtu/ORum. învencut; cernui, -ut; aşternui,<br />
-ut; cursei, curs. Italian has vinsi/vicqui/vincei (NIt. venzí)/<strong>ON</strong>It. venqué,<br />
p.p. vinto/vitto (vicquo)/vinciuto (NIt. venzuo)/<strong>ON</strong>It. vencuo; vertè/conversi,<br />
p.p. converso/convertuto; cernei/scersi, p.p. cernuto/scerso/NIt. zerto;<br />
sternei, sternuto (? — rare); corsi/corrette/NIt. curré/corvi (? — Dardel, p.<br />
80), p.p. corso/corruto (currutu)/<strong>ON</strong>eap. curzeto/NIt. corresto etc. French.<br />
has venqui (dial. 3 venquet), p.p. vencu/vaint (evidently as craint; Fou., p.<br />
379); (con)verti (placed by Fouché among the -edi perfects, but without<br />
examples of -(i)e- forms), p.p. convertu/-ti/convert/convers; corui/co(u)ri<br />
(NFr. corissent)/EFr. corret/encursist (Dar., p. 115), p.p.<br />
55
coru/coreü/encours (God.). Here we will also quote from Franco-Provençal<br />
the p.ps. sersa (from sädre < cernere) and sotärsa (= substrata) given by<br />
Wahlgren (pp. 68-9). Provençal has venquei and one example of a subj.<br />
vences (Dar., p. 138), mod. venceguère, p.p. vencut; verti, vertit;<br />
correc/cors, p.p. corregut/cors; no parts given for cerner. Gascon has<br />
corro(ren). Catalan has vencí, vençut; convertí, convertit; correc, corregut;<br />
cerné, cernut. Spanish has weak perfects (note Leon. venceo, OArag.<br />
convertié), old p.ps. vençudo, cernudo. Portuguese also has weak perfects,<br />
together with old p.ps. vençudo, (con)vertudo, corrudo, decorudo (Diez),<br />
acorrudo. Rhaeto-Romance has OEng. 6 vandschenn (from *ving- for<br />
vinc-; cf. Rum. învinge for earlier învence/învince, and also Velletrian<br />
abbenge, given by Posner, Diss., p. 193), subj. curris, p.p. cuors, and<br />
presumably tschernett from tscherner. Sardinian has 1 vinki (binki), 3<br />
binckit, plup. vinkeran, and vinsi (17th c.), p.p. vínkitu (bínkidu) and new<br />
modern forms bintu, binsu, bissu; for kurrere, modern currisit and p.p.<br />
kurtu/kúrridu; note also traessu < transversu (H. W. S., p. 43).<br />
Of these, the forms for vertere, cernere, sternere are not very<br />
enlightening; we can suppose either the same process as with battuere, and,<br />
in West Romance, rumpere, or, in the case of cernere, sternere, the<br />
influence of currere, cursi and parere, parsi. Fr., Prov., Cat. (con)vertir<br />
may be learned formations like It. convertire beside OIt. convertere.<br />
In the case of vincere, Dardel, on the strength of Rumanian, Italian<br />
and Sardinian, supposes a Latin *vinxi (and makes the mistake “convincuit<br />
pour convinxit”, p. 80; vinxi was the perf. of vincīre), alternating with<br />
vincisti (attested). It seems to me on balance that the forms attested in late<br />
Latin — convincuit in the Form. Salic. Merk., convincerunt in St.<br />
Augustine, vincisti in the Gl. Reich. — are the basis for the Romance<br />
formations; Rum. învencuiŭ is more frequent than învinsei (învinsŭ) in the<br />
56
older language, and the change of the infinitive from învence/învince to<br />
învinge shows that the trend was towards assimilating this verb to those of<br />
the cinge class. In Italian the standard vinsi has many rivals, not only the<br />
“regular” weak vincei, but vicqui in the dialect of Rome, and the northern<br />
venqué, similar to the French and Provençal forms. (Vicque is quoted by<br />
Meyer-Lübke, Gr. Rom. Spr. and It. Gr., and by Salvioni (apud Wahlgren,<br />
p. 91, n.) as being the perfect of vivere, but this is questioned by Wahlgren,<br />
and in the Lib. Yst. Rom. (Monaci, No. 65) it is clearly from vincere, while<br />
the perfect of vivere in the same piece is visse, also spelt vixe.) In Sardinian,<br />
vinki is evidently the original form, and we may wonder whether vinsi is<br />
not an Italianism, like the p.ps. bintu, binsu; this vinki seems to me to<br />
represent *vincui, though Dardel supposes it to come from *vinci, and on<br />
that basis justly regards it as an exceptional form. The p.p. vínkitu, from<br />
late Latin vincĭtus, perhaps corresponds to Mac. Rum. azvimtu, It. vinto,<br />
assuming they are derived from vinc(i)tus; once formed, these p.ps.<br />
provided a basis on which to create a new -si perfect, as cinxi–cinctus. NIt.<br />
venqué, Fr. venqui, and Prov. venquei are from *vincui with the -edi<br />
extension, on the model of *battedi, with p.ps. to match. Catalan, as in the<br />
case of the -mere and -cipere verbs, has eliminated all traces of the perfect<br />
stem suffix (the same thing has happened in the case of the Prov. form<br />
vences, quoted by Dardel), and is in line with Sp., Ptg. vencí, vençudo. In<br />
spite of the close relation between Provençal and Catalan, it looks as if<br />
Catalan consistently differed from Provençal in not having any distinct<br />
perfect stem for those verbs which did not develop a -g- in the perfect, and<br />
so was forced to add the weak ending for the sake of clarity. The same<br />
thing may have happened in Spanish and Portuguese, in which case we<br />
cannot tell whether or not there ever was any previous alternation of forms<br />
with and without u within the paradigm. (In the case of Catalan, the pres.<br />
subj. vença for earlier *venca might have helped in the formation of imp.<br />
57
subj. vences and other vence- forms; and the same development is seen<br />
perhaps in Prov. vensa (beside venca), vences, which led to venceguère.)<br />
Currere shows equal variety. The *cursi type appears in Rumanian<br />
(now attached to an inf. curge, which replaced cure < cură, where the -ă<br />
reflects the influence of the Lat. -rr-), in Italian, partly in Provençal, and<br />
apparently occasionally in French, unless encursist is formed on the<br />
analogy of valsist, and encours just an adjectival form (cf. the modern<br />
nouns concours, recours, secours). *Currui is evidently required for corui,<br />
corvi (?), and correc, which have been discussed above (§6c) in<br />
connection with parui, parec. Fr. co(u)ri is occasionally found early, but it<br />
is not clear whether or not it is an analogical form based on the infinitive,<br />
which was re-formed from co(u)rre. Fouché explains EFr.corret as being<br />
formed in the same way as batterent, that is, the u of *curruit was lost after<br />
the double consonant and then the -edi ending was added, whereas standard<br />
corut came from *curuit, in which the geminate had been simplified (but cf.<br />
§6c); on the other hand, corret could well be a new formation like many of<br />
the other EFr. perfects, perhaps starting from arrhizotonic forms as curristi,<br />
seeing that it may have been influenced by the Italian paradigm. The same<br />
arguments hold good for the Gascon, Spanish and Portuguese forms; no<br />
correg- forms are quoted for Old Gascon, unlike Provençal and Catalan,<br />
but Mistral gives courregut as the modern participle.<br />
13. The -scere verbs. We now come to a group consisting of cognoscere,<br />
crescere, pascere, nasci, irasci, miscere (an -ēre verb in classical Latin),<br />
texere (cf. also expergisci/experisci, §15), with vivere, exire partly attracted<br />
to it, and, in some languages, some derivative -escere verbs, as parescere,<br />
*merescere. The Latin perfect forms recorded are cognōvi/cognoscessem<br />
(Gl. Leid.), crēvi, pāvi (I take it that pabuit, like expabui, is another form of<br />
the perfect of pavēre, not this perfect, but even so this perfect probably<br />
58
underwent the same development), natus sum (and fut.p. nasciturus), iratus<br />
sum, miscui (with classical p.p. mixtus), texui/contexit (Ausonius),<br />
conteximus (Pliny the Elder), vixi/vexivit (D. & G., p. 44; labelled “V.L.”, =<br />
Vulgar Latin rather than Vet. Lat. ?)/bisit (visit; M. & T.)/vixcit, visscerit<br />
(M.-P., Cid)/viverit (Greg. of Tours)/victet (Gallic inscr.; Wahl., p. 25), and<br />
exii/exit. It will be seen that these fall into two broad classes of those with<br />
and without -sc- (-x-) in the perfect. In PR, cognōvi, crēvi and pāvi<br />
evidently all followed the verbs with *-ww-, like the pāvi (or *pavvi)/pabui<br />
just mentioned (but note cognoscessem, formed on the present stem, in the<br />
Gl. Leid.). (See the discussion of nōvi and mōvi above, §3.) The<br />
substitution of texi for texui is the converse of what happened in the case of<br />
the perfects of the verbs in -ctere (which became obsolete), flexi, nexi, pexi,<br />
plexi, for which the later forms flexui, nexui, pexui, plexui are also found<br />
(Gaf.); cf. also late messui from metere, which evidently replaced *messi,<br />
with fut.p. metiturus, and so also pinsui for pinsi from pinsere, with p.ps.<br />
pinsus and pinsitus for pistus (preserved in It. pesto). We may also be<br />
justified, on the basis of Romance developments, in assuming *exui beside<br />
exii, as the latter evidently became *exi in pronunciation (cf. exit for exiit<br />
above). As we have seen in §4 above, the compounds of īre had only -ii<br />
perfects, stressed on the prefix, in which the -ii is sometimes found<br />
contracted to -ī; having also p.ps. in -ĭtus, they would naturally be drawn<br />
into the -ui, -ĭtus class, as is actually evidenced by the forms obuit,<br />
obuerunt cited above in §4. In addition there is an It. dial. form subbe from<br />
sui < subire (Servigliano, Macerata) quoted by Corominas, s. v. subir,<br />
which seems to reflect *subuit. In the light of all these forms we may<br />
perhaps interpret the “V.L.” vexivi as an attempt at Latinising *vexui,<br />
especially when we note the parallelism of sapivi/sapui, petivi/*petui<br />
(OSard. (Camp.) peti(u)i and (Log.) petti), posivi/posui.<br />
Coming to the Romance languages we have (with p.ps. often<br />
59
formed on the pres. stem, and then affecting the perfs.):<br />
Rum.: cunoscui, -ut, crescui, păscui, născui (p.p. născut, cf. subst.<br />
nat), mescui, Ńesui, ieşii/Mac. Rum. esui, also ORum. încărescui<br />
(incalescere), învescui (investire), (în)vişŭ (vivere).<br />
It.: conobbi/conoscei, p.p. conosciuto (conoscuto); crebbi/crescei,<br />
p.p. cresciuto (crescutu); pascei, pasciuto; irato; nacqui/nascei,<br />
nato/nasciuto (nascutu); mescei, mesciuto/OIt. mesto; tessei, tessuto/OIt.<br />
testo; vissi/vivei/OSic. vippi (Wart.)/vicque (? — doubtful), dial. strong subj.<br />
vissesse, vissuto/visso/vivuto/NIt. vivesto etc.; uscii/uscette, uscito/issuto<br />
(insuto, riusciuto, esciuto etc.).<br />
Fr.: conui (2 coneüs)/EFr. cogneisset, subj. connissest, p.p. coneü/<br />
EFr. cogneissu; crui (2 creüs)/NFr. 3 criut/dial. cressi, p.p. creü/dial.<br />
cressu; poi (2 peüs/NFr. peuis)/NEFr. 3 paut/dial. apasset, paissi, p.p.<br />
peü/dial. apassu, paissu; aparui/EFr. apareissit, p.p. aparu/apareü/EFr.<br />
apparissu; irasqui (dial. 3 irasquet), p.p. irascu/iré; nasqui (dial. 3<br />
nasquet)/dial. nessi, p.p. né/nascu/dial. naissu, nasqui; beneï/benesqui<br />
(benedicere), p.p. beneeit/benit/benescu; t(e)issi/late tissus, p.p. tissu; issi<br />
(dial. 3 isset)/yssut, issurent, p.p. issi/issu; 3 vist/vesqui (dial. 3 vesquet,<br />
vesquié, visket)/late vescus, p.p. vescu/late vesqui.<br />
Prov.: conuc (conoc)/mod. coune(i)guère, couneissèri, Lang.<br />
counousquère, p.p. conogut/mod. Lang. counouscut; cric (crec)/mod.<br />
creiguère, creisseguère, creissèri, Lang. cresquèri, p.p. cregut/mod. p.ps.<br />
to match perfs., as Lang. crescut; pac/pasquei/condit. payssera/mod.<br />
peisseguère, peissèri, p.p. pagut/pascut; parec/mod. pareiguère, pareissèri,<br />
Lang. paresquèri, p.p. paregut/parut/mod. p.ps. to match perfs., as Lang.<br />
parescut; irasc/irasquei, p.p. irascut/irat; nasc/nasquei (nasqui)/Lim. 3<br />
naissé (Dar., p. 50)/condit. naissera/mod. nasquère, neisseguère, neissèri,<br />
p.p. nat/nascut; mesquei, mescut, now as creisser (Mist.), noun mest;<br />
60
tesquei/teissei, tescut/teissut/testut (?); eissi (eisserent in Gir. de R.),<br />
eissit/eissut; visc/visquei (vesquei)/mod. visquère, viscut.<br />
Gasc.: rechonoc (conogueren)/conogo (conego)/mod. couneshoui,<br />
counegoui, subj. counesquessi, p.p. conogut (conegut) and mod. couneshut;<br />
cresco, crescut; nascui, nasco/mod. ne(i)shoui, nascut/mod. ne(i)shut; mod.<br />
p.p. pascut; comparegoren/paros/aparesco/mod. subj. parescoussi,<br />
pareishoui, mod. p.p. pareishut, Béarn. parešcut; exit (ishit), mod. p.p. ishi;<br />
visco, mod. biscon, subj. biscoussi, p.p. biscut, Béarn. bibut.<br />
Cat.: conoc/conec/mod. coneguí, conesquí, coneixí (Gar.),<br />
conogut/conegut/also mod. conescut (Gar.); crec (Gar.)/cresc(h)/creguí<br />
(Bec)/cresquí/creixí, p.p. crescut/Rous. creixit; pasquí/peixí, p.p. pascut/<br />
Rous. peixit; irasquí/ireixí, p.p. irascut/irat; parec(h)/OMaj. comparesc(h)/<br />
pareguí/aparesquí, p.p. aparegut; meresc(h)/meresquí/mereixí, p.p.<br />
merescut; nasc(h)/naix (Fou., R.)/nasquí/neixí, p.p. nat/nascut/Rous. neixit;<br />
teixí (tisquí ? — Gar. says “as eixir”), p.p. teixit, old test; eixí/isquí, p.p.<br />
eixit; visc/visquí, p.p. viscut. (Note that, in contrast to the -xí perfects, with<br />
-i- throughout, the -squí perfects have 2 -squeres, 3 -squé etc.)<br />
Sp.: conuvo, connuvieron/conocí (OLeon., OArag. -xí), old p.p.<br />
conoçudo; crove, crovo, crovieron/crecí (-xí), old p.p. cresçudo (P. C. G.);<br />
pasco (Alex. 718c; a reconstruction required by the rhyme)/pací (-xí);<br />
nasque (nasqui, Ber., Mil.), nasco, nasquiestes, nasquieran/nací (-xí),<br />
naiseran and naisceset (Gl. Sil.), nasceo (F. J.), Ast. nacego, old p.ps.<br />
nado/nasçudo (P. C. G.); mecí, p.ps. Moz. miššita/mejido beside mecido<br />
(cf. also Mesta); paresco/parecí (parexieron; Gass.) — (Dardel’s parist<br />
(p.74) is from parir) — , old p.p. desparesçudo (P. C. G.); merecí; old<br />
-e(s)cer p.ps. estavlezudo, betereiscitu (Gl. Sil.); tejí (Arag. texí), old p.ps.<br />
texudo (Alf. Ⅹ), tiesto; 1 ixe/exi, 2 essiste/existe, 3 yxo/ixo/exo/yxió/<br />
issió/exió(d), 4 yxiemos, 5 yxiestes, 6 yxieron/issieron/exieron, p.p. exido;<br />
61
visque (vesqui; Diez), visquiste, visco (visquió), visquieron, visquiera,<br />
visquiessen etc./viví, vivir (fut. subj.) and vivissen (F. J.), old p.p.<br />
visquido (so inf. vesquir; Veláz.).<br />
Ptg.: only weak perfects, with the old p.ps. conhoçudo, creçudo,<br />
nado, adj. mesto, estabelesçudo, desfalesçudo, teisto, apareçudo. (Note that<br />
Ptg. -cer cannot be the etymological form, and the Castilian form has<br />
perhaps spread here as elsewhere; cf. tecer = Lat. texere (found also in<br />
Leon. Alex. O) but mexer, and also nascer but OPtg. neixente, neixença<br />
(Mich.), and a similar place name Creixente.)<br />
Rh.: 1 arcunguschek, subj. cognuschess, Friul. p.p. cognossut,<br />
increschett, naschett, p.p. naschü, subj. viviss, Friul. vivès; cf. also subst.<br />
ischüda (Eng.), išuda (Dolom.), insude (Friul.), ensüda (Tyrol.).<br />
Sard.: perfs. vissi/mod. vibisi, mod. conoscisit, mod. (b)essisit;<br />
p.ps. náskidu, (b)essiu, albéskidu, pudešiu (H. W. S., pp. 94, 67).<br />
As can be seen, the general tendency here is for the old -vi forms<br />
like cognōvi, though found over a wide area (Italy, France and Spain), to<br />
be replaced by new ones like *cognoscui, *cognoscu-edi, *cognosc-edi.<br />
The only -scui perfect in Latin is miscui, with texui to support it, both<br />
liable to lose the u after the two consonants, though in the case of miscui<br />
the u was evidently preserved, at least in some areas, as is shown by the<br />
hard c/q of certain languages; on the other hand one might also see here the<br />
influence of the subj. stem, as crescat, *miscat. In view of the general lack<br />
of uniformity it is hard to say whether any of these forms go back to PR;<br />
one must beware of being influenced by accidental similarities, as in the<br />
case of Rum. and Gasc. născui (nascui)–născut (nascut), crescui–crescut,<br />
which are the result of independent parallel development. If there is any<br />
form which we might trace back to PR, it is, in fact, *nascui, as this<br />
could possibly be the basis of the forms in all the major languages except<br />
62
Portuguese (if we suppose It. nacqui to have been reformed from *nasqui<br />
on giacqui, piacqui, tacqui; there is a connection between them, as a word<br />
like piacere is popularly pronounced with a palatalised /∫/, similar to the sc<br />
of nascere). The forms as *-scedi seem on the whole to have come later in<br />
the various languages, and to have been formed direct from the present<br />
stem, but there is always the question posed by Dardel of the possibility of<br />
weak arrhizotonic forms alongside strong rhizotonic forms. This seems to<br />
me to have very little support from the Latin angle, as on the lines of<br />
*bibui, bibisti one would here expect *cognovui, cognovisti, *crevui,<br />
crevisti, *pavui, pavisti, without the intrusion of the present stem, while<br />
nasci and irasci had no active perfect; miscere and texere may have<br />
produced such a pattern, but we have no strong Romance forms from<br />
which to judge, though Prov. mesquei, tesquei point to them. Dardel<br />
himself recognises this problem (p. 70), and concludes that forms like<br />
*cognoscisti must have developed after the PR period; the cognoscessem<br />
he quotes is from the 9th-c. Gl. Leid. Even so, one cannot necessarily<br />
exclude the possibility of new unrecorded PR forms based on the present<br />
stem, like those found in the case of rumpere, vincere. What is clear is that<br />
the -scui forms came to be in danger of colliding with the forms of the<br />
present and had to be extended by use of the weak ending; in French,<br />
*nascui, *viscui would probably have become *nais, *vis (see my<br />
comments on vist below), while Prov., Cat. nasc, visc were equally<br />
ambiguous (cf. Cat. 1 pres. nasc, visc).<br />
The most interesting group of languages here is the central one<br />
occupying southern France and north-eastern Spain; here there is a<br />
flourishing -scui/-scu-edi class, which has not only tended to absorb all the<br />
-scere verbs, including parescere, *merescere, but also to take in texere,<br />
exire, vivere, and, as we shall see later (§23), several verbs with -si and<br />
63
other perfects. One of the influences in bringing this about has no doubt<br />
been the forms of the present subj., which were extended to the imperf.<br />
subj.; in confirmation of this, converse forms are found, as Cat. pres. subj.<br />
conegui, creegua (OCat.; R.-G.), paregui, escriscau (OCat.; Gili, p.123),<br />
visqui, also pres. 1 conec, parec, visc. Prov. teisser was attracted because of<br />
the similarity of its present paradigm to that of creisser, but kept its older<br />
form teissei and thus set up a duality, which was to be joined later by pairs<br />
like nasquet/naissé, and set a pattern for other verbs to follow, as will be<br />
discussed later. In Catalan I can find no perfect form quoted for teixir, but<br />
it has pres. 1 tixc, 3 tix, as ixc, ix, and García de Diego says it is like eixir,<br />
which clearly has isquí, isquist, isqué etc., beside eixí (pres. subj. isca), so<br />
here there is duality, and equally in nasc(h)/naix, nasquí/neixí. It seems<br />
doubtful to me whether there is any connection with Latin texui, *exui, as<br />
the French u-perfects and the Mac. Rum. esui (beside inšii) can be<br />
explained as formed on the -ūtu p.ps. (*iesut for ieşit not attested in Rum.),<br />
which were no doubt decisive in the formation of the perfect in every area.<br />
On the question of the -ūtu p.ps., Fr. issu, It. issuto, esciuto etc. in<br />
themselves do not necessarily point to a PR *exūtu, because French and<br />
Italian created many new -ūtu p.ps. for -īre verbs, but in this case Prov.<br />
eissut, Eng. ischüda/Dolom. išuda/Tyr. ensüda/Friul. insude (nominal<br />
forms, so evidently old), and Mac. Rum. esui make it seem likely that<br />
*exūtu was the PR form, which would be expected anyway as the natural<br />
successor to exĭtus. Textus survived, but was probably also flanked by<br />
*texĭtus (cf. It. tessitura, Sp. tejedura), which likewise became *texūtus.<br />
The Spanish strong perfect forms ixe, ixo are surprising, seeming, as they<br />
do, to go straight back to ex(i)i, ex(i)it, with certain modifications; perhaps<br />
they owe their existence to the support of dixe, dixo.<br />
64
How vivere was attracted to this -scui group is more of a puzzle.<br />
That vixi survived is shown by ORum. (în)vişŭ, It. vissi/OIt. vixi, and Sard.<br />
vissi, and also the isolated Fr. vist (Rom. de Rose; Fou., §145), unless this<br />
represents *viscuit, but victus is only found as a noun (giving Rum. vipt, It.<br />
vitto). As vivere was an intransitive verb there was no p.p. corresponding<br />
to the supine victum, and a participle newly formed on this stem to match<br />
vixi would have clashed with other participles (in Sard. bittu belongs to<br />
videre and bibere, and in OIt. vitto belongs to vincere). What is all the<br />
more surprising is that vivere did not apparently follow the pattern of<br />
scribere; but on the other hand a closer look reveals that they are not so<br />
dissimilar. Wahlgren (p. 7) quotes a late Latin p.p. scripsus, and Rumanian<br />
has scris and (în)vis, with earlier script as vipt. If scripsus goes back to<br />
Latin times, it is equally possible that Latin had vixi–victus (noun)/*vixus,<br />
as fixi–fictus/fixus, frixi–frictus/frixus, giving It. vissi–visso; this visso was<br />
then changed to vissuto by a process which produced other p.ps. such as<br />
volsuto, valsuto, dolsuto, parsuto, vensuto (venire), alongside -si perfects.<br />
So we may assume as a working hypothesis that the original PR forms<br />
were vixi–*vixus, and that *viscu- is just a local development. (As<br />
mentioned above, under vincere, it seems wise to regard the attribution of<br />
vicque to vivere as a mistake, and rid ourselves of any notion that *viscu-<br />
may have turned up in Italy, the more so because we cannot be sure of<br />
seeing *nascu- lurking behind nacqui.) Menéndez Pidal (§120.4) supposes<br />
that vixi continued in its learned form (/víksi/) to produce visc- by<br />
metathesis, but it can hardly be imagined that such a popular verb would<br />
have had a learned form in the perfect.<br />
*Viscui, like *nascui (disregarding Rum. născui and It. nacqui), is<br />
limited to France and north-eastern Spain, at the heart of which area the<br />
-scui perfects, as we shall see later (§23), show a great extension. Thus in<br />
Spanish visque, visco, visquieron, like nasqui, nasco, nasquiestes, are<br />
65
limited to the areas close to Gascony and Catalonia, and such forms are not<br />
found further west or in Portugal; note that where the eastern versions of<br />
the Fuero Juzgo have visquiere, visquiessen, the western ones have vivir,<br />
vivissen. Menéndez Pidal (Cid) gives vixcit, uisscerit as forms found in the<br />
Latin of Spain and Portugal, and another Latin variant is the “V.L.” vexivit<br />
cited above, but none of these indicate the *visc- with a hard c that we are<br />
looking for, though vexivit shows the e of *vesc-, which is often found as<br />
an alternative to *visc. Fouché has assumed derivation from vivescere/<br />
viviscere with haplology; Dionisotti and Grayson also mention vivesco, as<br />
well as vescor, as forms that have been suggested to account for the vesco<br />
of the Ritmo Laurenziano (No. XII, p. 44), and quote rivisco, reviviscere as<br />
parallel forms. Cf. also reviscló in Berceo (Mil. 749c). The difficulty here<br />
is that with these slight exceptions *visc-, *vesc- are not found in the<br />
imperfectum; if we accept that v(iv)escere is the origin of *vesc-, we still<br />
need to find another influence to account for the limitation of these forms<br />
to the perfectum. It seems to me that the theory of attraction is the easiest<br />
one to accept. If we imagine a context such as “he was born and lived all<br />
his life in the same place”, we could conceive that Proto-Prov. nasc e *vis<br />
changed to nasc e visc, while, in Proto-French *naist e vist, vist < vixit<br />
could be interpreted as vist < *viscuit, parallel to *naist < *nascuit (as nais<br />
< *nasco, bois < *boscu; in fact it is possible that vist goes back to *viscuit<br />
rather than to *vixit), with the arrhizotonic forms based on -scu- in both<br />
cases. In this same area the p.p. *vis < *vixu became both ambiguous and<br />
isolated from the rest of the verb, and so viscut was formed on visc, as<br />
nascut on nasc. Spanish has a p.p. visquido which is limited to OArag.,<br />
where it was natural to form the p.p. on the perfect stem. (It is ironical that<br />
vivere and scribere were reunited in the Prov./Gasc./Cat. area by the later<br />
formation of escrisc as visc; see §23.) It seems hardly likely that there is<br />
any connection between weak Sp., Ptg. viví and the Lat. viverit of Gregory<br />
66
of Tours (6th c.), nor are there any weak viv- forms in French, though<br />
Wahlgren (p. 221) gives Franco-Prov. perf. and p.p. vivú.<br />
For nascere, the absence of any forms in Latin as *nascui, *nasci<br />
makes it impossible to decide whether there was any early alternation of<br />
forms, but at least we can say that *nascui forms proponderate in most<br />
areas, and seem to be earlier. Moreover it is from the strong arrhizotonic<br />
forms as *nascuisti that the weak paradigm, as nasqui, nasquei etc., was<br />
developed. The antiquity of naisceset, naiseran in the Gl. Sil. (to be<br />
pronounced like the forms in naix- in later OArag.), along with abierat,<br />
sapieret, in contrast with later nasquiestes, nasquieran in the Cid, is taken<br />
by Dardel as an indication of the parallel existence in earlier Spanish of<br />
strong rhizotonic and weak arrhizotonic forms. But against this must be<br />
placed the fact that there is an early displacement of strong forms by weak;<br />
for example, in Berceo’s Milagros there is only one strong form, nasqui<br />
(753a), and in his Santo Domingo also only one, nasco (126c), as against<br />
numerous examples of the weak replacement nació (also substituted in Alex.<br />
718a for the nasco required by the rhyme; cf. pasco above), and equally<br />
naciera, nazieron, and also the fact that the arrhizotonic forms are likely to<br />
change sooner than the rhizotonic. An example of this is in Catalan, where<br />
you have in Tirant lo Blanc regularly 3 dix, but digués, diguesseu, diguí<br />
(R.-G., No. 73), the weak forms being patently new formations, not from<br />
*dicistis, *dicissetis etc. In the case of those Spanish verbs which<br />
eventually became weak, it is difficult to prove anything from the early<br />
appearance of weak forms, and in this particular case anyway we cannot be<br />
sure how far the *nascu- forms penetrated. Nevertheless it is possible to<br />
make out a case for the Aragonese weak paradigm having started with the<br />
arrhizotonic forms, and from that to argue — without any proof — that the<br />
67
same thing happened with the other verbs that became weak. (See also<br />
below, §23.)<br />
14. The -lere (and some -gere) verbs. There are two more groups of -ĕre<br />
verbs in which -ui perfects are found, those with an l in the stem — colere,<br />
molere, tollere, solvere, volvere — and a few with a velar — frangere,<br />
legere, eligere, trahere (*tragere), traicere and perhaps, to a minor extent,<br />
facere. (Another verb, fallere, became an -īre verb, but traces of an old<br />
p.p.*fallĭto are seen in the substantives OIt., Prov., Cat., Sp., Ptg., falta, Fr.<br />
faute. In French, from OFr. fa(i)llir was created a new falloir/faudre having<br />
the meaning ‘it is necessary’ and conjugated as valoir, so perf. fallut, EFr.<br />
defallerent, NFr. fôve, subj. faulsist, p.p. fa(i)llu. Similarly, there was an<br />
OIt. fallere ‘be mistaken’, p.p. falluto. The classical p.p. falsus had already<br />
become an adjective.) The first group I will take now, but the others with a<br />
velar I will study together with the -si perfects. Here (late) Latin has<br />
colui/colerunt, p.p. cultus, molui, p.p. molitus/molutus (Vää.), (te)tuli/tolli/<br />
tulli/abstoli (toll- and tull- frequent in all parts), p.p. (abs)tul(i)tus/<br />
tollitus/tolutus (Bour.), solvi (solui)/solsi, p.p. solutus/solvitus, volvi, p.p.<br />
volutus. As we have seen in the case of the -lere verbs, solvere provided a<br />
-si perfect well attested (solserit, solserunt, absolsi, transolsisse) and a<br />
participle solvitus — probably followed by *volsi, *volvitus — which set<br />
an example for other verbs to follow.<br />
In the daughter languages the forms are:<br />
Rum.: desvoalse, p.p. desvolt/învolt.<br />
It.: p.p. colto; tolsi (tulze)/tolli (tulle)/tollí (tolé, tulé), strong<br />
arrhizotonic tolsesti, p.p. tolto/NIt. tolleg/<strong>ON</strong>eap. tólleto; (as)solsi/<br />
(as)solvei, p.p. (as)solto/(as)soluto/NIt. solvuo; volsi (av-, in-, ri-, s-), p.p.<br />
volto (av-, in-, ri-, s-)/convolso/involuto (cf. also svellere, svelsi, svelto,<br />
68
from *exvellere, evidently popular, as against learned avellere, avulso,<br />
convulso).<br />
Fr.: toil (tult, tolrent; Dar., p. 46)/toli/tolst/EFr. tolui, p.p. tolt/<br />
tolu/toleit/tolli; (ab)sols/absolus/absolis/solvis etc., p.p. (ab)sols/assolt/<br />
absolu/resols/resolt/résolu/solvi/persulleites; volst, p.p. volt/vols/volu<br />
(Nyrop), noun voûte; molui, p.p. molu (Pope also gives mols).<br />
Prov.: p.p. colt (cout); molc, p.p. mout/(es)molut; tolc, p.p. tolt<br />
(tout)/tolgut; (as)sols (subj. (as)solses)/solc (Toul.; Graf.)/subj. (ab)solves,<br />
condit. solvera, p.p. (ab)solt ((ab)sout); vols/volvc (volgron), p.p. volt<br />
(vout)/volgut. Mod. perfs. mouguère, absouguère.<br />
Gasc: p.p. mot/moulut (Mist.); torc/subj. toros, mod. p.p. tourut;<br />
solbo/asolbeg, mod. p.p. sou(l)but.<br />
Cat.: p.p. colt; molc, p.p. molt; tolc (tolgren; mod. tolguí)/3 tolé<br />
(R.-G.), p.p. tolt; absolguí (absolgren; Gar.)/resolc/solvé (Fou., R.), p.p.<br />
(ab)solt (dis-, re-); 4 volvem (R.-G.), envolt (Gili), nouns volt(a).<br />
Sp.: weak perfects, with p.ps. (es)moludo, tuelto/tolludo, suelto<br />
(ab-, di-, re-), vuelto (en-, re-), noun bóveda.<br />
Ptg.: weak perfects, with p.ps. mudo, tolheito, solto (ab-,<br />
re-)/persolvudo, volto (en-)/envolveito/revôlto, noun abôbada.<br />
vouta (Bec).<br />
Rh.: OSurs. volví, p.ps. miot, tot, Eng. siut, vieult (M.-L.), noun<br />
Sard.: p.ps. assoltu (and adj. sortu)/assolviu, nouns volta,<br />
imborbida (H. W. S., p. 94).<br />
Here it will be seen that there is rivalry between the -si, -(ĭ)tu and<br />
-ui, -ūtu types, with the -(ĭ)tu p.ps. dominant, though molūtus is also well<br />
represented. Molui, solsi, *volsi seem to be the dominant perfect types; Fr.<br />
absolus is late, and Prov. solc, Cat. resolc, absolguí are also probably<br />
69
analogical, as the -si perfects were generally replaced by g-forms here. In<br />
the case of tollere there is great hesitation, and the widespread appearance<br />
of a weak type; note the rare French forms given by Dardel, which are<br />
apparently parallel to voil, volt, voldrent. Given the basic late Latin perfect<br />
tolli, beside which there most probably also existed *tollui, these early<br />
French forms are exactly etymological, and tolli, tollisti would be subject<br />
to the natural change to *tolledi, *tollesti that we have seen in the case of<br />
battere, rompere, vincere, currere etc. What is more, toil, tult, tolrent<br />
could have affected the perfect of vouloir, thus accounting for voil, volt,<br />
voldrent without diphthongisation of the o. Prov., Cat. tolc, Gasc torc<br />
represent *tollui, while Cat. tolé (if this is not a misreading of tolc; Gar.<br />
also gives 1 tol, 2 tolist; forms with one l are usual), Gasc. toros reflect<br />
tolli. Note the progression, seen before, from strong to weak type as one<br />
goes south, through Prov. solves, Gasc. solbo, Cat. solvé, volvem to the<br />
Spanish and Portuguese weak types. (Gasc. 3 asolbeg is a weak perfect<br />
with added g, from a zone which did not substitute o for e.) Another point<br />
of interest is the p.p. as *tollectus, in imitation of collectus, which has also<br />
influenced other p.ps.<br />
15. The -īre verbs. There is one more group of verbs with -ui (or -si)<br />
perfects, namely, those found in the -īre conjugation, particularly those<br />
ending in -erīre. We have already examined venire and exire, and<br />
mentioned It. subbe and Sard. petti/peti(u)i (petere seems to have become<br />
an -īre verb *petīre in PR, cf. Rum. peŃi, SIt. petire, Sp., Ptg. pedir, Sard.<br />
petire/petere); also some of the Latin -io, -ĕre verbs with -ui perfects joined<br />
the -īre conjugation in part (It. capire/capere, Prov. cabir, OSp.<br />
reçebir/reçeber), and we have seen the same phenomenon in the case of<br />
consuere, conspuere and sequi. One other verb, paenitēre, which appears in<br />
70
the Romance languages with two stems, pent- and penet-, has now largely<br />
aligned itself with sentīre, which lost its strong forms. (There were also<br />
other Latin -īre verbs with strong forms that are now only represented by<br />
p.ps. that have survived here and there as adjectives and nouns: sanctus,<br />
fartus, sepultus, *assaltus, salsa. See also *fallĭta above, §14.) But the<br />
most significant group is the -erīre verbs. Of those represented in Romance,<br />
aperīre, cooperīre and ferīre are original -īre verbs, to which we must add<br />
perīre, a compound of īre. To these were attracted in PR ferre and its<br />
compounds, and merēre/merēri; experg(isc)ere/expergisci (× experīri),<br />
servīre, inserere/*inserire and quaerere (especially its compounds, among<br />
them conquirere, which gave Rum. cuceri, amongst others) were also<br />
affected. The result in late Latin was a multiplicity of perfects and p.ps.,<br />
thus aperui, apertus and cooperui, coopertus; 4th-c. ferii, feriturus;<br />
perii/peri, perĭtus; offersi, offertus/inferturus (cf. classical fertilis,<br />
fertorium); merui, merĭtus; expergi, expergĭtus/experrectus (× expertus);<br />
inserui, insertus. We cannot be sure of ferii, feriturus, but it will be seen<br />
that the others are all strong forms, assuming that peri, being a contraction<br />
of perii and not of *perīvi, keeps the same accent; it is quite likely that this<br />
accentuation was followed by ferii, too.<br />
The modern languages have mostly substituted the weak -īvi forms,<br />
but these strong Latin types have all survived here and there. In Rumanian<br />
you have Mac. Rum. k’erui, k’erut (k’ < p’; possibly on the model of<br />
k’erdui, k’erdut = pierdui, pierdut, as Wahlgren says), to which may be<br />
compared cerui, cerut from quaerere. Italian has apersi/aprii, aperto/Calab.<br />
aperutu; copersi/coprii, coperto; offersi/offrii, offerto/Calab. offrutu;<br />
soffersi/soffrii, sofferto; profersi/proferii, proferto/proferito/OIt.<br />
arproferuto (Mon.); riferito/Istr. riferto; ferito/feruto; perito/peruto;<br />
inserito/adj. inserto; for merire only the present mere seems to have been in<br />
use, but cf. the old noun merto. It will be seen that in Italian -si has<br />
71
triumphed over -ui (but cf. apparsi/apparvi/apparii), and -uto has replaced<br />
-ĭto, though -to has survived, backing up the -si perfects. However, we<br />
cannot be sure that this -uto is not a later substitution for -īto; still such -ūtu<br />
p.ps. are widely found, even occurring in Provençal, which does not usually<br />
make new p.ps. in -ut in the -ir conjugation, so these Italian forms may<br />
have been original, and have formed the basis for the later extension. In<br />
French you have the p.ps. offert, souffert, ouvert, couvert and analogical<br />
OFr. dessert, and the participial adj. espert; ferir, perir, merir are basically<br />
regular verbs, but ferir had at first feriet, feru (so Fouché, but without<br />
references), and in EFr. peret is found, as well as ferei, fere(i)t, fere(i)rent.<br />
With the Eastern forms we cannot be sure how old they are, but central<br />
feriet, feru would seem to be original, though the formation of such a<br />
perfect for a stem ending in a single consonant is surprising in French; it<br />
seems as if the weak -edi ending has been added to férii/*féri (as périi/péri),<br />
as in the case of battere etc., perhaps in imitation of currere. If this in fact<br />
happened, we might even suppose that other forms like offrit, ouvrit also<br />
came via -iet. Querir (ac-, con-, en-, re-) for querre was also affected,<br />
giving querit/queret/querut, and p.p. enqueri/queru (see also the discussion<br />
of quaerere in §6c).<br />
In Provençal, besides the weak forms, there are the perfects uberc,<br />
cuberc, oferc, soferc, proferc, and p.ps. ubert, cubert, ofert, sofert, profert;<br />
in this case the -ui forms have triumphed. Besides these there are<br />
esp(e)reisser/esperir, esp(e)rec/esp(e)ric, p.p. espert, and merir, merc,<br />
mergut. Perir is regular, but ferir also has p.p. ferut. Gascon similarly has<br />
the p.ps. auffert, souffert, oubert, coubert, which Wahlgren considers, it<br />
seems to me unreasonably, to be loans, because irregular p.ps. are so<br />
unusual in Gascon (but they are plentiful in the velar stems). Catalan also<br />
has similar forms, ofert, sofert, obert, cobert, adj. despert, from which the<br />
-ert has spread to omplert, complert, suplert, rublert, establert, and OCat.<br />
72
cloert ‘closed’ (a good example of semantic association with obert). Ferir,<br />
perir are regular, and merir has mostly been replaced by mereixer (but<br />
imperf. meria; R.-G.). Spanish has the nouns OAst. ofierta (standard oferta<br />
has a learned stamp about it), refierta (reyerta), profierta, old p.p. sufierto,<br />
mod. abierto, cubierto, and adjs. or nouns (d)espierto, ingerto/injerto<br />
(ingerir ‘graft’; OSp. enxierto, enxerir < inserere/*inserīre, cf. It. dial.<br />
noun inserto). Portuguese also has p.ps. aberto, coberto, adj. (d)esperto,<br />
and nouns enxêrto, oferta, old referta; sofrer has the old p.p. sofrudo.<br />
Rhaeto-Romance has the p.ps. Eng. avert/ORh. auirtu, cuvert, ofert, and<br />
fiers (from fierer) as piers (from pierder); to this last may be compared the<br />
Franco-Prov. (Vaud) fiersa given by Wahlgren (pp. 68-9). Friulian has the<br />
similar aviart, cuviart. Sardinian has apersit, coberssi, offersi, affersit,<br />
which have affected kerfit to produce kersit; the modern forms are as<br />
abberisit, riferisit. Past participles are as mod. abbertu, fertu ‘struck’ (Wag.,<br />
p. 415; ferrere combines Lat. ferre and ferīre, Bec, 2/296), and kertu,<br />
beside kersu/kerfidu. I presume also cobertu corresponding to the noun<br />
cobertura (H. W. S., p. 101).<br />
One more verb in this class, mori (morīri, morīre also attested),<br />
had a strong p.p., perhaps under the influence of fut.p. moriturus; *mortus<br />
for mortuus is found in all the languages (sometimes only as an adj., as<br />
Rum. mort), and this led to some other perfect forms besides those from<br />
*morīvi, as It. morsi (and moretti, with p.p. moruto), Fr. mourus (and old<br />
p.p. mouru), to which cf. respectively corsi, courus. Sardinian had, besides<br />
morivit (Mon., No. 10, iii), contracted morrunt and plup. morran (Fl., pp.<br />
29, 21). Paenitēre may also be supposed to have brought its old -ēre forms<br />
into the -īre conjugation, so It. pentire with alternative forms pentere,<br />
pentiedi, pen(e)tuto, Fr. repentei (EFr., but Fouché alleges the same<br />
development for central French, without giving examples), repentu, Prov.<br />
73
penedut, Sp. penitieret (Gl. Sil.), arrepentudo and repiso/repeso, Ptg.<br />
repender/repentir, rependeu (OGal.; O.B.P.V., Nos. 58, 60), repentudo<br />
and arrepiso. Vestir also seems to have adopted a p.p. *vestūtus, perhaps<br />
formed from the noun vestis, and parallel to cornūtus, barbūtus etc.; this is<br />
seen in It. vestuto, Fr. vestu, Prov. vestut, its presence in Provençal being<br />
probably a token of its antiquity (cf. also Rum. învescut beside înveştit<br />
from înveşti; u-forms have also penetrated şti < scire, giving ştiui, ştiut).<br />
Gaudēre seems to have influenced audire, cf. It. dial. odetti, olduto as<br />
godetti, goduto. With all these irregular forms appearing amongst the -īre<br />
verbs (though most of the Latin irregular verbs had been regularised), it<br />
was a short step to extending the -ēre perfect and p.p. forms to the -īre<br />
verbs in general, especially in the south, thus, for example, It.<br />
sentetti/sentiedi, sentuto (with the converse substitution of -i for -ei in<br />
many dialects), Salent. 6 salera, Neap. sagliuto, or OFr. sentei, oiet (EFr.),<br />
sailleront (Lyon), sentu, oü (Franco-Prov. oiu; Bec, 2/390), salu/saillu.<br />
Similarly we have Gal. senteu, o(i)eu, mod. Prov. mourèri beside<br />
mouriguère, sufrèri beside soufriguère, seguèri beside seguiguère (here<br />
two infs., segre and seguir), and the complete amalgamation of -īvi and<br />
-edi in French and Spanish (seen early in OArag. morie(t), murié (Oríg.,<br />
Hans., G. & H.)); subsequently there were large-scale changes of<br />
conjugation in different areas, as Spain, Sardinia, S. Italy, Corsica, and<br />
some changes from -er to -ir in other parts as well, with the reverse<br />
process observable in French dial. -re for -ir. Wahlgren suggests that the<br />
resemblance between vendere and sentīre was enough to start off<br />
analogical extensions, in spite of the difference of conjugation, but my<br />
own feeling is that in the early stages of the Romance languages the<br />
difference between -ere and -īre was still clearly felt (for instance, it is<br />
only amongst the old -īre verbs that we find the -esc- interfix alternating<br />
with the plain stem as a result of coalescence with corresponding -escere<br />
74
verbs), and the confusion began with the above handful of verbs and then<br />
spread, particularly to the -īre verbs without interfix, and so became<br />
generalised.<br />
16. Conclusions regarding the -ui perfects. Having now looked at all the<br />
verbs with -ui perfects, barring a small handful to be discussed later, for<br />
which -si was the dominant type (see §14), we need to sum up our findings.<br />
What emerges most clearly is that it is mostly the verbs in -ēre with<br />
classical Latin perfects in -ui — largely remaining unaffected in the late<br />
Latin period, and surviving into Romance — which show some signs of a<br />
dual conjugation in Romance, as in Fr. poïs/poüs, Sp. oviesse/auiesses,<br />
while those verbs which at first did not have u, and then added it, like<br />
bibi/*bibui, recēpi/*recēpui, ru(m)pi/*ru(m)pui, or conversely later lost an<br />
original u, as battui/*batti, have generally settled for one type or the other<br />
in the different languages. (We also need to allow for the fact that there<br />
may not have been any extension of the u in some areas, e.g. in Iberia,<br />
where there is no trace of *vēnui, and perhaps none of *stetui (see §25),<br />
and the newly created -ui perfects are largely limited to the PR -ēre<br />
conjugation, as sope, cope, sove; in the -ĕre conjugation the only<br />
non-classical -ui perfects to appear are credui (Sp. crovo, Ptg. creve), and<br />
*nascui, *viscui. Credui goes back to Plautus, so quite possibly belongs to<br />
the earliest Latin of Spain, while *nascui, *viscui, as we have seen, are<br />
regional developments. For the other perfects, conuvo, crovo (crecer), there<br />
is also a strong possibility that the Latin pronunciations *cognowwi,<br />
*crewwi are old, though it can also be argued that the Spanish forms go<br />
back to cognōvi, crēvi; Dardel (p. 70) quotes Meyer(-Lübke) as saying that<br />
the addition of u to perfects like mōvi, pāvi is not found in Sardinian, and is<br />
only in its early stages in Iberia.) Leaving Italian aside for the moment, it<br />
75
looks as if the Romance languages abhorred a mixed type, and generalised<br />
one or the other, with the *batti, *rumpi, and in some areas the bibi, recēpi,<br />
types tending to add the weak -edi ending to the strong forms, producing a<br />
uniform arrhizotonic paradigm. In the case of the -ēre verbs, there seems to<br />
be strong reason to believe that forms like *potisti, *habisti, sapisti, *volisti<br />
survived locally, and in some cases became the basis for new weak<br />
paradigms, as mod. Arag. habié, tenié, though in other cases it is clear that<br />
the weak paradigms were created afresh from the present stem, or certain<br />
parts of it, as appears in Fr. doillest, raemplissest. (But often, unfortunately,<br />
the weak forms are so widespread that we cannot tell how they began.) On<br />
the strength of the evidence I would say that the habui/*habisti type is<br />
represented in three ways in Romance. Firstly, it is the regular type in<br />
Italian, and seems to have spread from there to contiguous areas in<br />
Switzerland and France, so that we have It. ebbi (abbi), avesti, subjs. avessi,<br />
volessi, Rh. ob (Friul.), havest, mod. subjs. avess, vuless, EFr. avesse,<br />
volest, Franco-Prov. aest, volissant. Secondly, in Spanish (but not in Portu-<br />
guese) there are early forms like abieret, sapieret in the Gl. Sil., and<br />
interesting alternations, like xopo/xabieron, in the Yúçuf, all these in verbs<br />
for which the standard language has strong perfects even today. Thirdly,<br />
there are certain isolated verbs, such as tenēre, *volēre, *potēre, for which<br />
forms of both types appear, as Fr. tin(g), tenis/tinve, voil, volis/vove,<br />
pois/poüs, Gasc. volgoren/voloren, pogo/podo, though it is not clear here<br />
whether the loss of u is to be traced back to PR. In the case of the first type<br />
there may have been two influences at work. One would be the submerged<br />
tendency, seen in the pre-classical moneris, monerit, and nōvi/nōsti,<br />
-āvi/-āsti, -īvi/-īsti, to prefer forms without u everywhere except in forms 1<br />
and 3 of the perfect (with 4 and 6 also later following the pattern of 1 and 3,<br />
as they did in the -si verbs); this would continue to take effect on its home<br />
ground, with the difference from the moneris type that the forms without u<br />
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were limited to the arrhizotonic ones, but be countered in the territories<br />
outside Italy to which Latin was introduced later, because the educated<br />
people would insist that the u-forms were the correct ones. One exception<br />
to this would seem to be found in the second area listed above; as Latin was<br />
introduced early into Spain, perhaps sometimes by Oscan colonists, it is<br />
possible that this early speech habit was found here too, though it was<br />
countered, and largely overcome, by the ruling classes with their “correct”<br />
Latin. This first tendency would then be reinforced by the other one<br />
envisaged by Dardel; a form like bibuit was necessary to avoid confusion<br />
with the pres. bibit, but there would not be the same need for *bibuisti, so<br />
that bibisti would be quite likely to survive (supported by the grammarians),<br />
with perhaps *bibuisti as an alternative form, as in the areas which kept a<br />
uniform paradigm. In the same way you would probably get pavisti beside<br />
pabuit, or crēvisti beside *crēvuit, reinforcing, and in turn being reinforced<br />
by, *habisti beside habuit, which provided the initial impetus for the<br />
creation of bibuit beside bibit; at the same time, to produce the situation<br />
found in the other areas, you would have habui, habuisti as the “correct”<br />
type, so *bibui, *bibuisti, *crēvui, *crēvuisti would follow. So, while I<br />
agree with Dardel in his conception of the existence of an alternating type<br />
of perfect, I disagree with him over his insistence that it was the only PR<br />
type, that is, I consider that you must have had habuisti/*habisti and<br />
bibisti/*bibuisti all existing concurrently to account for the varied<br />
development in Romance, whereas he eliminates habuisti and *bibuisti,<br />
insisting that the Italian type is the only original one.<br />
*****<br />
This paper is a slightly edited version of a paper that appeared in<br />
Aoyama Gakuin University’s Ronshu, Vol.14, 1973.<br />
A Bibliography will be found at the end of Part III.<br />
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