Use of present tense with "ne sont plus"

[Curt Jugg]

I'd be grateful for some help on the use of tenses in the following sentence:

“Beaucoup de consonnes qui se prononçaient en ancien français même devant une initiale consonantique, ne sont plus prononcées vers le XVe et le XVIe siècle que devant une initiale vocalique.”

I'm not clear why “ne sont plus” is in the present tense rather than the imperfect, to match "prononçaient".

[George Hunt]

I am going off that idea now .(not sure if the passe simple would be right there after all)

All I can think now is that the second imperfect (trouvaient) should indeed be a present tense but that ,with all the talk of 15th /16 century the author has involuntarily "slipped into" the imperfect tense.

[Sandra]

Sooo I studied a bigger part of the text and I can say that in my opinion the problem come from the use of the composed past "ne se sont plus prononcées". If we strictly follow the sequence of tense rule it should be Imperfect but I think the author made this choice to avoid the repetition of "se prononçaient". Here is the detailed explanation:

First, I studied all the tenses used in the text. Be careful that Present (être ou avoir) + Participe = Passé composé (composed past).

In the complete text you can see there is a pattern: Composed Past is the normal tense of narration as we are talking of "history" or the evolution of French language trough history. So the reference time is Composed past (blue).

In sequence of tenses, if I want to speak of something that was before my narration time I must use Imperfect. If I want to talk about the actual time I must use normal Present. I colored all the tenses in the text so you can see the pattern:

Blue = Composed past = normal narration time (for history articles)

Violet = Imperfect = time used to talk about old french en 15th/16th centuries

Green = Present = What things are today (modern times)

Le sort des consonnes, à la finale, a grandement varié [composed  past] en français aux différentes époques de la langue. Leur évolution naturelle y a été contrariée [composed past with two Participe] par diverses circonstances, et surtout par la présence d'un s de flexion dans les formes du pluriel des noms. Beaucoup de consonnes qui se prononçaient [Imperfect] en ancien français même devant une initiale consonantique, ne se sont plus prononcées [composed  past] vers le xv^ et le xvie siècle que devant une initiale vocalique, ou lorsqu'elles se trouvaient [Imperfect]  à une pause dans la phrase […]. D'ailleurs la tendance populaire était [Imperfect] d'effacer toutes les consonnes finales. Dans la langue moderne, où les prescriptions des grammairiens ont fait [composed  past]  prévaloir pour les mots isolés certaines anomalies, ce qui a subsisté [composed  past]  régulièrement ce sont [Present]  les cas dits de « liaison étroite ». Devant une initiale vocalique, on prononce [Present]  en français les consonnes finales  […] lorsque les mots constituent [Present] entre eux des groupes unifiés par un accent dominant.

For me "ne se sont plus prononcées" (Composed past) is misplaced. I think the author choose to use the composed past instead of the Imperfect to try to avoid the repetition of "prononçaient".

"Beaucoup de consonnes qui se prononçaient en ancien français même devant une initiale consonantique, ne se prononçaient plus vers le xv^ et le xvie siècle que devant une initiale vocalique, ou lorsqu'elles se trouvaient   à une pause dans la phrase."

Of course, even if  in theory the use of Composed Past in the middle of an Imperfect paragraph is a mistake, 99% of French native speakers won't notice it, in fact it's quite common....

As a frequent reader I found the writing style quite "heavy", some time it's not necessary to have so long phrases. For example I would go with:

""Beaucoup de consonnes qui se prononçaient en ancien français même devant une initiale consonantique, ne l'étaient plus vers le xv^ et le xvie siècle que devant une initiale vocalique, ou lorsqu'elles se trouvaient   à une pause dans la phrase."

Whit just a "l" I refer to "Beaucoup de consonnes qui se prononçaient en ancien français même devant une initiale consonantique" shorter, simpler, easier to understand for everyone, no tricky problem with tenses.

We have another example here : "Dans la langue moderne, où les prescriptions des grammairiens ont fait prévaloir pour les mots isolés certaines anomalies, ce qui a subsisté  régulièrement ce sont les cas dits de « liaison étroite ».

There is nothing wrong grammatical with this sentence but it is sooooo heavy and uncomfortable to pronounce...

I would prefer: "Dans la langue moderne, où les prescriptions des grammairiens ont fait prévaloir pour les mots isolés certaines anomalies, seul les cas dits de « liaison étroite » ont subsistés."

So to answer your first question I would say that there is no reason why "ne se sont plus prononcées" here because it's a mistake. Maybe it's a choice, maybe distraction, maybe a try to "complexify" the sentence I don't know.

Again, it's a very very common mistake that people won't even notice or think it's just a "writing style" so you can do it if you write in french, it doesn't disturb the comprehension of the text at all.

Common readers won't notice... but a teacher will ;)

I hope all of this is clear for you!

[Curt Jugg]

I am grateful to you, Sandra, for all the trouble you have taken with your reply. I am reading carefully though it, but there is just one thing I wanted to ask. The author did not actually write "ne se sont plus prononcées" he wrote "ne sont plus prononcées" (no "se") as you will see in my original post. Do you think, then, the author has made a mistake and meant to insert "se", as George suggested earlier?

[Sandra]

The "se" here with "prononcer" is used to transform the verb in its pronominal form and in this context to give a passive value. It's useful when you use the imperfect:

Elles se prononçaient = They where pronounced

Elles prononçaient = they pronounced

But with the Composed Past "elles sont prononcées" you don't have the need to keep the pronominal form as the passive tone  is already created by the use of "sont" instead of "ont". It would be redundant.

Elles sont prononcées = They are pronounced

Elles ont prnoncées = They pronounced

So the presence or not of the "se" here makes no difference for the sentence comprehension. It's just about the writing style, its complexity and its "weight".

Worst, it can also be confusing as "se prononcer" also means "to decide".

"Elles se sont prononcées" (without context) = They made a decision.

Here of course we are talking about consonants and not people so they cannot have a "direct action", so we know what meaning choose. Therefore, all the verbs connected to them will have to conjugate in passive form (Composed past or pronominal form here).

Les anciennes se sont prononcées pour la peine de mort.

The elders choose penalty of death.

Les consonnes (se) sont prononcées à la fin des mots en français jusqu'au XVeme siècle.

The consonnants where pronounced at the end of each word in french until the XVe century.

Exactly the same writing but a meaning completely different. For simplicity sake, I would take out the "se" of the second example.

----

I included the "se" in my example because when I asked my good friend Google to find where does this sentence come from he found the quote in a research paper  with an academic quoting and the name of the original author :

BOURCIEZ, Edouard (1967) [1910] Éléments de linguistique romane, Paris, Klinck-sieck.

In this version, the "se" was present.

I kept searching and found another article which included also the other sentences you quoted along the one from Mr Bourciez ( without the proper references >_<!!) and the "se" was present again.

I copy/pasted the text from this last source and must say I didn't pay attention to the "se" because I was focused on the wrong use of of Composed Past.

As I explained in the beginning, its presence makes no difference here :)

Maybe the author cut it on purpose, maybe it's a copy/paste mistake I don't know :/

[George Hunt]

Yes , thanks for your effort and research ,Sandra.

You deserve a small English lesson yourself  - you keep writing (misspelling) "where " in place of "were" .That can be a little confusing ("were" and "where"  are not normally  pronounced the same by the way )

[Sandra]

OMG!

It's a complete lack of attention! I went too fast when writing my answer and now I see all my mistakes and misspellings :x

So sorry ! I'll be more careful in the future

I hope it doesn't ruin the explanation :(

(Where/were is a mistake I keep making since I learned English in school. If I don't pay enough attention I always switch them even if I know the rule >_< it's really bothersome.

I think it's because I'm not able to pronounce them differently, my English accent is quite.... medium)

[George Hunt]

Some people  lightly "aspirate" the "wh"so that "which" ,for example  can sound different to "witch".

I like to do that sometimes  as I think it sounds quite nice (I am not sure if it can be considered an affectation )

Another pair is "whit" and "wit".

[Curt Jugg]

Thanks again, Sandra. It is very useful to get a native French speaker's view on something like this as I didn't realise that leaving out the "se" doesn't make any difference, though it certainly looks as if it was omitted in error here. It's also good to see that you would have used the imperfect yourself.