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(Il) devient VS (Il) veulent


alex

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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!

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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 wishes

L

 

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Hi there and welcome to linguaholic.com!

I guess you mean ils veulent ? Because there is no such thing as il veulent. 

Best wishes

L

 

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!

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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 boivent

Here 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 deviens
tu deviens
il devient
nous devenons
vous devenez
ils deviennent
 

Simple Past 

je devins
tu devins
il devint
nous devînmes
vous devîntes
ils devinrent

 
 
Present 

je tiens
tu tiens
il tient
nous tenons
vous tenez
ils tiennent
 Simple Past 

je tins
tu tins
il tint
nous tînmes
vous tîntes
ils 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 by linguaholic
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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.

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  • 5 years later...

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.

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