The verb acheter

[Sarah]

Hello,

Why   do  je,  tu,  il,  and ils have an  è in the verb acheter?  

Thanks

[Chantal Savignat]

Hello Sarah

because of the pronunciation, but it's difficult to write an explanation for the pronunciation. It is the sound "è"

one of the difficult of the Language is that to have the sound "è" with "te " (or some other sounds like "è" with "le"), some are written "ette" and others "ète' and their pronunciations are pretty much the same. There is no rule to know what writing it is. You must learn the writing for each word.

example : je jette   /  j'achète

[Neil Coffey]

Just to extend slightly what Chantal has said:

The essential underlying reason for the change has to do with whether or not the stressed (final) syllable falls on the stem of the verb.

In "acheter" etc, the first 'e', written without an accent, represents a "neutral" or central 'e' sound, technically termed a schwa. This vowel has various special properties, notably that it is frequently deleted (you may be aware that in reality, "acheter" is generally pronounced "ach'ter" in what is considered to be a 'standard' French pronunciation). But one very important property that this vowel has is that it generally cannot occur in stressed syllables.

So, in the form "achete" (bearing in mind that the final -e is to all intents and purposes not pronounced and does not 'count' as a syllable) , the 'e' vowel of the stem falls on the final, stressed syllable. This means that there is an incompatibility, and the neutral 'e' vowel must change. Specifically, it changes to an 'open e' vowel, represented in writing with è.

As Chantal has mentioned, the traditional spelling for some verbs (various ending in -eter or -eler) is to represent this open e sound by doubling the 't' or 'l' rather than by writing an accent on the 'e'. So e.g. jeter ~ je jette. But this is just a spelling complication: the underlying sound change is the same.

[One thing you might be thinking: if the neutral 'e' vowel can be deleted, why don't these verbs just resolve that issue by deleting the vowel where it would be stressed? i.e. why don't people say "j'achte". One reason is that the current forms arose at a time where the 'neutral e' vowel was not generally deleted as readily as today, and also that deleting it would create some rare consonant combinations in some cases. However, in informal use, you will find one or two cases where this solution is actually adopted, e.g. for "feuilleter", as well as the 'formally expected' form "je feuillette", you will find people in practice saying "je feuillte", deleting the 'e' vowel from the stem.]

Two complications you will come across:

- there is not necessarily a consensus for all verbs on whether to use the "è" convention or double the l/t;

- just to confuse matters further, the 1990 spelling reform proposed generalising the use of "è" (e.g. "j'appèle" rather than "j'appelle"), so that you'll potentially see a mixture of spellings used even for common verbs.

I've written before about the spelling of -eler and -eter verbs in detail:

http://www.french-linguistics.co.uk/grammar/spelling_eler_eter.shtml

As you'll see from this analysis, for some verbs, the answer to the question of which spelling to use is basically "nobody can really decide".

[Sarah]

Thank you, Neil. Your answers are always very helpful.