POSSESSIF ET GENRE EN FRANÇAIS ET EN ITALIEN : LE CAS DE LA FORME ÉLIDÉE DEVANT VOYELLE
POSSESSIVE AND GENDER IN FRENCH AND ITALIAN: THE CASE OF ELIDED FORM BEFORE A VOWEL

Summary/Abstract: Possessive and Gender in French and Italian: the case of elided form before a vowel. Passage in French from the elided form of feminine possessive singular determinant before a vowel to the full shape of the male in a female context (anc. fr. m'amie, fr. mod. mon amie) is not observed in contemporary Italian. After an overview of current diachronic knowledge on the expression of possession in Latin, Italian and French, and after a review of the various hypotheses put forward to date, we show that this phenomenon, apparently only morpho-phonological actually illustrates the close relationship between form and underlying system, in morphology. Does this observation allow us to deduct an evolutionary movement of both Romance languages?

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