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Omission of French Subject Pronouns | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Philological Room |  | |
| 1e4e6 Octoglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4072 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 | ||
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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 6938 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 | ||
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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 5163 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 | ||
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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 5090 days ago 537 posts - 1045 votes Speaks: Cantonese*, English, Mandarin, French, Spanish | Message 4 of 14 09 July 2014 at 5:18pm | IP Logged | ||
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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 3834 days ago 507 posts - 1098 votes Studies: German | Message 5 of 14 09 July 2014 at 9:08pm | IP Logged | ||
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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 4460 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 | ||
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 4489 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 | ||
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Yeah, or if you are extremely lazy when texting.
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| smallwhite Pentaglot Senior Member Australia Joined 5090 days ago 537 posts - 1045 votes Speaks: Cantonese*, English, Mandarin, French, Spanish | Message 8 of 14 10 July 2014 at 1:50pm | IP Logged | ||
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Thank you for the responses!
1 person has voted this message useful |
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