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]

The way it reads to me  is that the use of the present tense "immerses" the reader more so  in that period  (the 15th/16th century)-so it seems a bit more vivid.

It  may also lend a little contrast to the  structure of sentence  (the author could have used the imperfect but chose the present tense)

I am a little surprised myself that  the first use of "prononcer" is reflexive ("se prononçaient")  but the second is a simple indicative (" ne sont plus prononcées.....que" ) as I find that a bit confusing.

Mind you  ,I cannot say that I have clearly understood the  overall meaning of the sentence as a whole  ,what with "consonnes" and  "consonantique"  -what is  a "consonantique" -a group of consonants?

I cannot say I  am  really "au fait" with   this subject.

[Sandra]

I'm sorry if I don't give an academic  answer, this is just my feeling as a native french speaker:

This difference is related to  the "narration time" = where is the author placing himself regarding the event  he is talking about. In his own time ? Or at the time he is writing about ? Here we have the second case.

"Les routes qu'utilisaient les romains dans l'antiquité ne sont plus utilisées au Vème siècle. A cette époque on privilégie les petits chemins."

"The roads used by the Romans during the antiquity are not used any more in the V century. At this time, people prefer small paths."

Here I talk about the V century, I'll use past for anything before but present for anything regarding the V century. It's a way to place yourself in the historical context you are talking about and insist on the chronology of the events.

In the quote given in the question, it's very likely that the author will speak about the XVe and  XVIe centuries in his next sentence.

NB: "sont" here is the present form of "être" but is paired with the verb "pononcer" in its Participe Passé form. This combination gives "sont" the value of the main verb and "prononcées" the value of an adjective.

For course, we can choose to go with full past:

"Les routes qu'utilisaient les romains dans l'antiquité ne furent plus utilisées à partir du Vème siècle"

"The roads used by the Romans during the antiquity were not used any more from the V century"

Here there is no real distinction between before and after the Ve century... it's just a general story taught using past. (Using two times the same verb so close is very "ugly" in french, I'm doing it on purpose in my examples so you can see the different tenses)

I hope I'm clear and the English translations help... :x

It's a very tricky thing to explain/understand even for a French native speaker...

[Curt Jugg]

Thank you for your interesting reply, Sandra. Having read it (and yes, the translations did help), I realise that I should have quoted the rest of the sentence. I didn't think it was important but I now think I was wrong. The full sentence reads:

“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, ou lorsqu'elles se trouvaient à une pause dans la phrase (les noms de nombre, cinq, six, sept, huit, neuf, dix, et l'adjectif tous, offrent encore une trace de cette étape).”

Here the writer has reverted to the imperfect tense even though he is still referring to the pronunciation used in the 15^th/16^th century. unless I have misunderstood. So the situation seems to be:

pronunciation in Old French described in imperfect tense

pronunciation in 15^th/16^th century described in present tense and imperfect tense.

Why do you think the writer reverted to the imperfect in this case?

[George Hunt]

I think the "se trouvaient" (which is a reversion as you say to a past tense) is here used in the context of with "que devant...." being set against with "ou lorsque......"

Anyway I think you are allowed ,within reason to switch between what Sandra called the "narration time" and a simple past tense as the mood takes you.

[Curt Jugg]

Thanks for your thoughts, George. I think the meaning of the sentence is that many consonants which were pronounced in Old French even before a word beginning with a consonant ceased to be pronounced around the 15^th and 16^th centuries except before a word beginning with a vowel.

But I may be wrong!

[Sandra]

I confirm you perfectly understood the meaning of the sentence. :)

(by the way this pronunciation rule isn't applied any more today, except for the few examples he gave at the end of the quote).

I'm really confused by this new use of the imperfect....sounds odd to me...

Can you please quote one full sentence before the quote and one after ?

I would like to see more of his writing style before accusing him of breaking the sequence of tenses rule ...

[George Hunt]

Ok I withdraw my comment about "this new use of the imperfect". It sounded alright to me but I am sure you will have a much better "feel" for the language than myself.

[Sandra]

I may have the "feeling" of something odd to my ears but you have probably a better knowledge of the conjugation rules than me, being a teacher.

I'm a very bad writer because the sequence of tenses (specially with past)  is a real pain for me ....

People helped me learn English and I really appreciated so I'm just trying to help other people with French in return but please do not take my words for absolute truth...

You would be amazed by how little French people know of their own language and the tons of rules and tricks it contains....

[George Hunt]

I am not a teacher. My French was simply learned in school although I did live and work in France over a good few years.

I do like languages though and French would be the language ,after English that I feel most comfortable with.

I understand that there are no hard and fast "rules" in language but if something sounds "odd" to a native speaker then that can be ,at least a barrier to communication.

[Curt Jugg]

The article containing the sentence in question begins two sentences earlier so I'll quote them both (and two sentences after as well):

“Le sort des consonnes, à la finale, a grandement varié en français aux différentes époques de la langue. Leur évolution naturelle y a été contrariée par diverses circonstances, et surtout par la présence d'un s de flexion dans les formes du pluriel des noms.”

Then comes the sentence in question and then:

“D'ailleurs la tendance populaire était d'effacer toutes les consonnes finales. 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» .”

[George Hunt]

I don't know if there is any likelihood that the author could have intended to write
“Beaucoup de consonnes .........., ne se sont plus prononcées vers le XVe et le XVIe siècle que devant une initiale vocalique "

as I think that would be correct and might have been an easy mistake to make (for me anyway)

[Curt Jugg]

I see what you mean. But I wonder why he didn't use the imperfect tense.