In the grammatical system of the language of Joinville we find the connecting link between the case terminations of the classical Latin and the prepositions and articles of modern French. It is generally supposed that the terminations of the Latin declension were lost in French, and that the relations of the cases were expressed by prepositions, while the s as the sign of the plural was explained by the s in the nom. plur. of nouns of the third declension. But languages do not thus advance per saltum. They change slowly and gradually, and we can generally discover in what is, some traces of what has been.
Now the fact is that in ancient French, and likewise in Provençal, there is still a system of declension more or less independent of prepositions. There are, so to [pg 168] say, three declensions in old French, of which the second is the most important and the most interesting. If we take a Latin word like annus, we find in old French two forms in the singular, and two in the plural. We find sing. an-s, an, plur. an, ans. If an occurs in the nom. sing. or as the subject, it is always ans; if it occur as a gen., dat., or acc., it is always an. In the plural, on the contrary, we find in the nom. an, and in all the oblique cases ans. The origin of this system is clear enough, and it is extraordinary that attempts should have been made to derive it from German or even from Celtic, when the explanation could be found so much nearer home. The nom. sing. has the s, because it was there in Latin; the nom. plur. has no s, because there was no s there in Latin. The oblique cases in the singular have no s, because the accusative in Latin, and likewise the gen., dat., and abl., ended either in vowels, which became mute, or in m, which was dropped. The oblique cases in the plural had the s, because it was there in the acc. plur., which became the general oblique case, and likewise in the dat. and abl. By means of these fragments of the Latin declension, it was possible to express many things without prepositions which in modern French can no longer be thus expressed. Le fils Roi was clearly the son of the King; il fil Roi, the sons of the King. Again we find li roys, the King, but au roy, to the King. Pierre Sarrasin begins his letter on the crusade of St. Louis by A seigneur Nicolas Arode, Jehan-s Sarrasin, chambrelen-s le roy de France, salut et bonne amour.
But if we apply the same principle to nouns of the first declension, we shall see at once that they could not [pg 169] have lent themselves to the same contrivance. Words like corona have no s in the nom. sing., nor in any of the oblique cases; it would therefore be in French corone throughout. In the plural indeed there might have been a distinction between the nom. and the acc. The nom. ought to have been without an s, and the acc. with an s. But with the exception of some doubtful passages, where a nom. plur. is supposed to occur in old French documents without an s, we find throughout, both in the nom. and the other cases, the s of the accusative as the sign of the plural.
Nearly the same applies to certain words of the third declension. Here we find indeed a distinction between the nom. and the oblique cases of the singular, such as flor-s, the flower, with flor, of the flower; but the plural is flor-s throughout. This form is chiefly confined to feminine nouns of the third declension.
There is another very curious contrivance by which the ancient French distinguished the nom. from the acc. sing., and which shows us again how the consciousness of the Latin grammar was by no means entirely lost in the formation of modern French. There are many words in Latin which change their accent in the oblique cases from what it was in the nominative. For instance, cantátor, a singer, becomes cantatórem, in the accusative. Now in ancient French the nom., corresponding to cantator, is chántere, but the gen. chanteór, and thus again a distinction is established of great importance for grammatical purposes. Most of these words followed the analogy of the second declension, and added an s in the nom. sing., dropped it in the nom. plur., and added it again in the oblique cases of the plural. Thus we get—
| Singular. | Plural. | ||
| Nom. | Oblique Cases. | Nom. | Oblique Cases. |
| chántere | chanteór | chanteór | chanteórs |
| From baro, baronis | baron | baron | barons |
| (O. Fr. ber) | |||
| latro, latronis | larron | larron | larrons |
| (O. Fr. lierre) | |||
| senior, senioris | seignor | seignor | seignors |
| (O. Fr. sendre) (sire) |
Thus we read in the beginning of Joinville's History:—
A son bon signour Looys, Jehans sires de Joinville salut et amour;
and immediately afterwards, Chiers sire, not Chiers seigneur.
If we compare this old French declension with the grammar of modern French, we find that the accusative or the oblique form has become the only recognized form, both in the singular and plural. Hence—