Of French Verbs, first person singular
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Of French Verbs, first person singular
Does anybody know why the first person singular of the present tense of "-er" verbs has no final "s" when the other conjugations have it? As in, why "je donne" but "je finis" and "je vends"?
Non fidendus est crocodilus quis posteriorem dentem acerbum conquetur.
Re: Of French Verbs, first person singular
The first person -s came in analogy with a number of verbs where this was the result of natural sound changes, eg:
facio > *fattsjo > fajts > fais
nascor > *nascio > *nastsjo > najsts > nais
finio > *finiscio > *finistsjo > finis
This could theorically have been extented to -er verbs, but in those instead the first person was lined up on the third, so that -er verb has a more uniform behaviour with an -e throughout the singular, since the original -o was lost, leading to a consonantic ending in Old French:
amo > aim
amat > aime
facio > *fattsjo > fajts > fais
nascor > *nascio > *nastsjo > najsts > nais
finio > *finiscio > *finistsjo > finis
This could theorically have been extented to -er verbs, but in those instead the first person was lined up on the third, so that -er verb has a more uniform behaviour with an -e throughout the singular, since the original -o was lost, leading to a consonantic ending in Old French:
amo > aim
amat > aime