Register  Login  Active Topics  Maps  

Omission of French Subject Pronouns

 Language Learning Forum : Philological Room Post Reply
14 messages over 2 pages: 1 2  Next >>
1e4e6
Octoglot
Senior Member
United Kingdom
Joined 4301 days ago

1013 posts - 1588 votes 
Speaks: English*, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Norwegian, Dutch, Swedish, Italian
Studies: German, Danish, Russian, Catalan

 
 Message 1 of 14
09 July 2014 at 1:23am | IP Logged 
I feel like this should be obvious, but after approximately one decade of learning
French, I have never understood why French prohibits the omission of subject pronouns
like in the other Romance languages, like in Spanish and Portuguese «Soy Nicolás» or «Sou
Nicolas» or Italian «Sono Nicola», but in French «Suis Nicolas» is impossible. Is there a
reason that this cannot happen, or was this present in Old French and somehow evolved
that the subject pronoun was necessary? Mandatory subject pronouns reminds me as an
aspect of, for example, the Germanic languages. I remember when I started French, I often
made mistakes like, «Qui êtes?», which would omit the pronoun in Spanish «¿Quiénes
sois?», Portuguese «Quem sois?». Obviously I stopped doing this, but I never understood
why this construction had to be as such.

Edited by 1e4e6 on 09 July 2014 at 1:24am

1 person has voted this message useful



Chung
Diglot
Senior Member
Joined 7167 days ago

4228 posts - 8259 votes 
20 sounds
Speaks: English*, French
Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish

 
 Message 2 of 14
09 July 2014 at 1:46am | IP Logged 
For French I suspect that the lack of pronoun dropping is reinforced by French verb conjugation patterns showing a lot of homophones in some of the tenses (including the frequently-used ones in past and present).

Present indicative

Je mange
Tu manges
Il mange
Nous mangeons
Vous mangez
Ils mangent

Perfect indicative

J'ai mangé
Tu as mangé
Il/Elle/On a mangé
Nous avons mangé
Vous avez mangé
Ils/Elles ont mangé

Imperfect indicative

Je mangeais
Tu mangeais
Il/Elle/On mangeait
Nous mangions
Vous mangiez
Ils/Elles mangeaient

Present subjunctive

(Que) je mange
(Que) tu manges
(Qu') il/elle mange
(Que) nous mangions
(Que) vous mangiez
(Qu') il/elle mangent

See Pro drop patterns and analyticity for some examples from other languages.

***

Or it might be a case that the obligatory use of pronouns in a way "allowed" speakers to let homophones proliferate in French conjugation.
9 persons have voted this message useful



Arekkusu
Hexaglot
Senior Member
Canada
bit.ly/qc_10_lec
Joined 5392 days ago

3971 posts - 7747 votes 
Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto
Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian

 
 Message 3 of 14
09 July 2014 at 5:00pm | IP Logged 
In French, word endings have suffered an extreme level of erosion over time. You can see this in words ending in -ault, -auts, -eaux, etc., that are all pronounced "o".

If you take the present tense of manger, as Chung demonstrated, there are only 3 distinct forms in spoken French: mang(-), mangeons and mangez. If you consider that "on" usually replaces "nous" in informal speech, that leaves only two forms. 6 pronouns, 2 forms. It's easy to see how confusing the absence of pronouns would be.

Similarly, certain subject and object pronouns are identical (nous and vous). If French was pro-drop, then what would "vous mangez" mean?
8 persons have voted this message useful



smallwhite
Pentaglot
Senior Member
Australia
Joined 5319 days ago

537 posts - 1045 votes 
Speaks: Cantonese*, English, Mandarin, French, Spanish

 
 Message 4 of 14
09 July 2014 at 5:18pm | IP Logged 
In English, the subject can sometimes be omitted:
- Am trying. Will let you know.
- OK, will do.
- Looks great.

Do they sometimes omit the subject as well in French?
2 persons have voted this message useful



Speakeasy
Senior Member
Canada
Joined 4063 days ago

507 posts - 1098 votes 
Studies: German

 
 Message 5 of 14
09 July 2014 at 9:08pm | IP Logged 
I find that Chung's explanation pretty well answers the original query.

Nonetheless, in response to Smallwhite's question, my answer would be "yes, sometimes"; that is, in rapid speech, "je" is either dropped or crushed into the following syllable. Here is common transition in both French and English:

Je ne sais pas = I do not know
J'n'sais pas   = I don't know
Ch'pas        = Dunno

Ch'u pus capab' !!!
1 person has voted this message useful



vermillon
Triglot
Senior Member
United Kingdom
Joined 4689 days ago

602 posts - 1042 votes 
Speaks: French*, EnglishC2, Mandarin
Studies: Japanese, German

 
 Message 6 of 14
09 July 2014 at 9:23pm | IP Logged 
smallwhite wrote:
In English, the subject can sometimes be omitted:
- Am trying. Will let you know.
- OK, will do.
- Looks great.

Do they sometimes omit the subject as well in French?


Yes - although to a lesser extent - in the same circumstances as what you cited in English, i.e. in messages that look somewhat telegraphic.
2 persons have voted this message useful



tarvos
Super Polyglot
Winner TAC 2012
Senior Member
China
likeapolyglot.wordpr
Joined 4718 days ago

5310 posts - 9399 votes 
Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans
Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish

 
 Message 7 of 14
10 July 2014 at 11:22am | IP Logged 
Yeah, or if you are extremely lazy when texting.
1 person has voted this message useful



smallwhite
Pentaglot
Senior Member
Australia
Joined 5319 days ago

537 posts - 1045 votes 
Speaks: Cantonese*, English, Mandarin, French, Spanish

 
 Message 8 of 14
10 July 2014 at 1:50pm | IP Logged 
Thank you for the responses!


1 person has voted this message useful



This discussion contains 14 messages over 2 pages: 2  Next >>


Post ReplyPost New Topic Printable version Printable version

You cannot post new topics in this forum - You cannot reply to topics in this forum - You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum - You cannot create polls in this forum - You cannot vote in polls in this forum


This page was generated in 0.4219 seconds.


DHTML Menu By Milonic JavaScript
Copyright 2024 FX Micheloud - All rights reserved
No part of this website may be copied by any means without my written authorization.