alex Posted October 28, 2015 Report Share Posted October 28, 2015 Hello! I have a question about the pronounciation of verbs ending in -ent. Some of them, like (il) `veulent` are pronounced without the nasalisation of the -ent termination, while others like (il) `devient` are pronounced with a nasalised -ent. Why is that?Thank you! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
linguaholic Posted October 29, 2015 Report Share Posted October 29, 2015 On 10/28/2015 at 9:46 PM, alex said: Hello! I have a question about the pronounciation of verbs ending in -ent. Some of them, like (il) `veulent` are pronounced without the nasalisation of the -ent termination, while others like (il) `devient` are pronounced with a nasalised -ent. Why is that?Thank you!Hi there and welcome to linguaholic.com!I guess you mean ils veulent ? Because there is no such thing as il veulent. Best wishesL alex 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alex Posted October 29, 2015 Author Report Share Posted October 29, 2015 On 10/29/2015 at 6:23 AM, linguaholic said: Hi there and welcome to linguaholic.com!I guess you mean ils veulent ? Because there is no such thing as il veulent. Best wishesL Hello! Nice to meet you.You are right. Is `ils veulent`. I didn`t notice that. Thanks for correcting me. I`m new in french and although I study it in school and is a romance language, remains an enigma for me, so I really appreciate every correction. But I still don`t understand why is there a difference in pronunciation of -ent in different verbs. To be more specific, veulent and peuvent are pronounced different compared to devient, even though the termination is the same. So, is because there are different persons (il/ils), different verbs? Can you explain to me, please!Thank you! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
linguaholic Posted October 30, 2015 Report Share Posted October 30, 2015 (edited) It's a good question. Anyway there can always be some exceptions in this kind of thing. However, in general it goes like this:Verbs like: manger, dire, danser, parler, boire, manger Their form in third person plural is- ils disent- ils dansent- ils parlent- ils boiventHere you never pronounce the 'ent' ending. So in general, in third person plural you do not pronounce the 'ent'. But I still don`t understand why is there a difference in pronunciation of -ent in different verbs. To be more specific, veulent and peuvent are pronounced different compared to devient, even though the termination is the same. So, is because there are different persons (il/ils), different verbs? --->well yes. Because devient is third person singular and peuvent and veulent is third person plural. Moreover, devenir is a verb of the third group of French verbs. And other verbs from this group they can have the same form. So the verb devenir is like the verb tenir. Present je devienstu deviensil devientnous devenonsvous devenezils deviennent Simple Past je devinstu devinsil devintnous devînmesvous devîntesils devinrent Present je tienstu tiensil tientnous tenonsvous tenezils tiennent Simple Past je tinstu tinsil tintnous tînmesvous tîntesils tinrent Have a look at the verb conjugation in third person singular. For 'devenir' you had il devient and for tenir you have il tient. And the pronunciation of the verb suffix (ending) is the same for those two verbs.Hope that helps. regards Lingua Edited October 30, 2015 by linguaholic Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FlagOnce Posted October 31, 2015 Report Share Posted October 31, 2015 On 10/29/2015 at 8:34 PM, alex said: Hello! Nice to meet you.You are right. Is `ils veulent`. I didn`t notice that. Thanks for correcting me. I`m new in french and although I study it in school and is a romance language, remains an enigma for me, so I really appreciate every correction. But I still don`t understand why is there a difference in pronunciation of -ent in different verbs. To be more specific, veulent and peuvent are pronounced different compared to devient, even though the termination is the same. So, is because there are different persons (il/ils), different verbs? Can you explain to me, please!Thank you!Honestly, I think you mix up grammar and pronunciation, and that's not the same story. It should be considered as something different, because it's more related to pronunciation rules (whether you say the t or not, etc.).For example, devient, it maybe terminate by "ent", but there's also an "i", changing the whole story. After all, you say "viens" as you say "devient", as you say "préviens", even if it ends with "ens". Meanwhile, peuvent, veulent, etc. are all separated, from a pronunciation perspective, of other syllables. There's not a letter interfering with the -ent at the end. That's my explanation, at least, of the issue. I'm not authoritative, but that's what I would say. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Saint-Jean Posted October 15, 2021 Report Share Posted October 15, 2021 With the verbs venir and tenir and their derivatives, the -ien- sequence comes about as a result of stem change: the e in venir becomes ie when the stress falls on that syllable. So you get je viens and il vient but nous venons (without the stem change). The -ien- sequence isn't an ending and has nothing to do with the third person ending. So you have two present-tense stems for venir : vien- (for all singular and the third person plural) and ven- for the nous and vous forms. The endings are -s, -s, -t, -ons, -ez, -ent. The third person ending in -ent is a relic of Latin and was never pronounced in French as far as I know. The difference between is best illustrated with ils viennent, where the -ent ending is silent, but the stem vowel is -ien and gets pronounced. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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