le French · revision 16236

18 Oct 2026, 04:31 by bogdan “Fix punctuation and links in new French entries” current version

Changes in this edit

@@ -10,10 +10,10 @@
  '''le''' ''m'' (feminine la, masculine and feminine plural les, prevocalic masculine or feminine singular l')^(Wiktionary)
  Old French masculine subject [[m|fro|li]], object [[m|fro|lo]] (881) and ''le''; feminine ''la''; plural ''li'', ''les'', feminine ''las'', ''les''.^(TLFi)
− Contracted forms: ''au'' (from ''a le''), ''aux'', ''du'' (from ''de le''), ''des'', Old French also had ''el'', ''ou'' (from ''en le'') and ''ès'' (from ''en les'').^(TLFi)^(Bloch & Wartburg 1989)^(DHLF 1992)
+ Contracted forms: ''au'' (from ''a le''), ''aux'', ''du'' (from ''de le''), ''des''.^(TLFi)^(Bloch & Wartburg 1989) Old French also had ''el'', ''ou'' (from ''en le'') and ''ès'' (from ''en les'').^(TLFi)^(Bloch & Wartburg 1989)^(DHLF 1992)
  
  ==Etymology==
  It is [[inh|fro|le]], [[inh|la|ille|t=that]], from the accusative forms [[m|la|ille|alt=illum]], “illam”, “illōs”, “illās”, with the loss of the first syllable because these words were unstressed and always placed before the noun.^(DHLF 1992)^(Bloch & Wartburg 1989)^(Wiktionary) Littré found it odd that “ille” dropped its stressed syllable, and explained it by the same proclitic use.^(Littré 1873) The object pronoun “le”, “la”, “les” (“je le vois”) is the same word, from the same Latin forms.^(Grand Robert 2005)^(Bloch & Wartburg 1989)
  
− “Ille” was the demonstrative for a distant object in the Latin system of three demonstratives; its value weakened, especially in speech, and it replaced [[m|la|is]], a monosyllable, with a fuller form.^(DHLF 1992) Next to a noun it was reduced to an article, placed after the noun in Romanian and before it in the other Romance languages, Rey dates the choice of the order in the Latin of Gaul to after 271, when Dacia was cut off.^(DHLF 1992) Cognate with [[oc|lo]], [[es|el]], [[pt|o]] and [[it|lo]].^(Littré 1873)
+ “Ille” was the demonstrative for a distant object in the Latin system of three demonstratives; its value weakened, especially in speech, and it replaced [[m|la|is]], a monosyllable, with a fuller form.^(DHLF 1992) Next to a noun it was reduced to an article, placed after the noun in Romanian and before it in the other Romance languages.^(DHLF 1992) Rey dates the choice of the order in the Latin of Gaul to after 271, when Dacia was cut off.^(DHLF 1992) Cognate with [[oc|lo]], [[es|el]], [[pt|o]] and [[it|lo]].^(Littré 1873)
  
  ==Earliest recorded meaning==
@@ -28,5 +28,5 @@
  * 842 – The pronoun ''lo'' in the Strasbourg Oaths.^(Grand Robert 2005)
  * c. 881 – The article ''li'', ''lo'', ''la'' in the ''Sequence of Saint Eulalia''.^(TLFi)
− * late 10th century – ''Le'' as subject and elided ''l'''.^(TLFi)
+ * late 10th century – ''Le'' as subject and elided ''l’''.^(TLFi)
  * c. 1100 – Plural subject ''les'' in the ''Chanson de Roland''.^(TLFi)
  * 1919 – The joke ''redis-le-me-le'' is recorded.^(DHLF 1992)
@@ -34,5 +34,5 @@
  ==Meanings==
  ===Article===
− # [[m|en|the]]: the definite article, masculine singular; feminine ''la'', plural ''les'', ''l''' before a vowel.^(Petit Robert 2007)^(Wiktionary)
+ # [[m|en|the]]: the definite article, masculine singular; feminine ''la'', plural ''les'', ''l’'' before a vowel.^(Petit Robert 2007)^(Wiktionary)
  # Before a noun taken in a general sense: ''le chien est un mammifère''.^(Petit Robert 2007)
  # Before a family name in the plural: ''les Bourbons''.^(Petit Robert 2007)