v. French ọ (eu, ou) from Latin ō (not before nasal).
The only cases that I propose to speak of here are the terminations of substantives and adjectives corresponding to the Latin -orem, -osus, or in imitation of these forms. Our author has here regularly ou; there is hardly a trace of the older forms in -or, -ur, and -os, -us, and surprisingly few accommodated to the Continental -eur and -eus. The following are most of the words of this class which occur with the -eur, -eus, endings: pescheur (piscatorem), fleur, greigneur, honeur, meilleur, seigneur (usually flour, greignour, honour, meillour, seignour); boscheus, honteus (usually hontous), joyeuse (fem.) but joyous (masc.), oiceus (oiseus), perceus, piteus (more often pitous). We have also blasphemus, 2450, which may be meant for blasphemous, and prodegus, 8425 ff., which is perhaps merely the Latin word ‘prodigus.’ Otherwise the terminations are regularly -our, -ous, except where words in -our vary to -ure, as chalure, for the sake of rhyme. The following are some of them, and it will be seen that those which passed into the literary English of the fourteenth century for the most part appeared there with the same forms of spelling as they have here. Indeed not a few, especially of the -ous class, have continued unchanged down to the present day.
In -our: ardour, blanchour, brocour, chalour (also chalure), colour, combatour, confessour, conquerour, correctour, currour, desirour, despisour, devorour, dolour, emperour (also empereour, emperere), executour, favour, gouvernour, guerreiour, hisdour, honour, irrour, labour, langour, lecchour (also lecchier), liquour, mockeour, palour, pastour, persecutour, portour, possessour, pourchaçour (also pourchacier), priour, procurour (also procurier), professour, proverbiour (-ier, -er), questour (-ier), rancour, robbeour, seignour, senatour, supplantour, terrour, tricheour, valour, ven(e)our, venqueour, vigour, visitour.
In -ous: amorous, averous, bataillous, bountevous, busoignous, chivalerous, contagious, coragous, corouçous, covoitous, dangerous, despitous, dolourous, enginous, envious, famous, fructuous, glorious, gracious, grevous, irrous, joyous, laborious, leccherous, litigious, malencolious, merdous, merveillous, orguillous, perilous, pitous, precious, presumptuous, ruinous, solicitous, tricherous, venimous, vergondous, vertuous, vicious, victorious, viscous.
vi. French ọ before nasal, Latin ō, ŏ, u.
(a) Except where it is final, on usually remains, whether followed by a dental or not. The tendency towards ou, which produced the modern English amount, account, abound, profound, announce, &c., is here very slightly visible. Once blounde occurs, in rhyme with monde, confonde, &c., and we have also rounge 2886 (runge 3450) and sounge 5604 (also ronge, songe), and in ante-tonic syllables bounté, bountevous, nouncier (also noncier), plunger (also plonger), sounger, and words compounded with noun, as nounsage, nouncertein, &c. On the other hand seconde, faconde, monde, abonde, rebonde, responde, 1201 ff., monde (adj.), bonde, redonde, 4048 ff., suronde, confonde, 8199 ff., monde, onde, confonde, 10838 ff., amonte, honte, accompte, conte, surmonte, demonte, 1501 ff. The -ount termination in verbal inflexion, which is common in Bozon, ount, sount, fount, dirrount, &c., is not found here except in the Table of Contents.
(b) When a word ends with the nasal, -on is usually developed into -oun. In Gower’s French a large proportion of the words with this ending have both forms (assuming always that the abbreviation -o̅n̅ is to be read -oun, a point which will be discussed hereafter), but -oun is the more usual, especially perhaps in rhyme. The older Anglo-Norman -un has completely disappeared. Words in -oun and -on rhyme freely with one another, but the tendency is towards uniformity, and at the same time there is apparently no rhyme sequence on the ending -on alone. The words with which we have to deal are, first, that large class of common substantives with terminations from Lat. -onem; secondly, a few outlandish proper names, e.g. Salomon, Simon, Pharaon, Pigmalion, with which we may class occasional verbal inflexions as lison, soion; and, thirdly, a certain number of other words, chiefly monosyllables, as bo(u)n, doun, mo(u)n, no(u)n (= non), noun (= nom), reboun, renoun, so(u)n (pron.), soun (subst.), to(u)n, also respoun (imperative). In the first and third class -oun is decidedly preferred, but in the second we regularly find -on, and it is chiefly when words of this class occur in the rhyme that variations in the others are found in this position. Thus l. 409 ff. we have the rhymes noun, temptacioun, soun, resoun, baroun, garisoun; 689 ff. contemplacioun, tribulacioun, temptacioun, collacioun, delectacioun, elacioun; so also in 1525 ff., and even when Salomon comes in at ll. 1597 and 1669, all the other rhymes of these stanzas are -oun: presumpcioun, respoun, resoun, noun, doun, &c. At 2401 however we have maison, noun, contradiccioun, lison; 2787 Salomon, leçon, enchesoun, resoun; 4069 noun, tençon, compaignoun, feloun, Catoun, confessioun; and similarly façon 6108, religion (with lison) 7922, lison, lion, giroun, enviroun, leçon, noun, 16801 ff. (yet lisoun is also found, 24526). On the whole, so far as the rhymes of the Mirour are concerned, the conclusion must be that the uniformity is broken chiefly by the influence of those words which have been noted as written always, or almost always, with -on. In the Balades and Traitié, however, the two terminations are more equally balanced; for example in Bal. xxxv we find convocacion, compaignon, comparison, regioun, noun, supplicacion, eleccion, condicioun, &c., without any word of the class referred to, and Traitié xii has four rhymes in -on against two in -oun. On the whole I am disposed to think that it is merely a question of spelling, and it must be remembered that in the MSS. -oun is very rarely written out in full, so that the difference between the two forms is very slight even in appearance.
vii. The Central-French u was apparently identified in sound with eu, and in some cases not distinguished from ui. The evidence of rhymes seems quite clear and consistent on this point. Such sequences as the following occur repeatedly: abatu, pourveu, deçu, lieu, perdu, salu, 315 ff.; truis, perduz, Hebrus, us, jus, conclus, 1657 ff.; hebreu, feru, eeu, tenu, neveu, rendu, 4933 ff.; plus, lieus, perdus, conçuz, huiss, truis, 6723 ff.; fu, lu (for lieu), offendu, dieu, in Bal. xviii; and with the ending -ure, -eure: demeure, l’eure, nature, verdure, desseure, mesure, 937 ff.; painture, demesure, aventure, jure, hure, controveure, 1947 ff., &c. This being so, we cannot be surprised at such forms as hebru for hebreu, lu for lieu, fu for feu, hure, demure, plure, for the Continental French heure, demeure, pleure, or at the substitutions of u for ui, or ui for u (eu), in aparçut aparçuit, huiss huss, plus pluis, pertuis pertus, puiss pus, construire construre, destruire destrure, estruis estrus, truis trieus. As regards the latter changes we may compare the various spellings of fruit, bruit, suit, eschuie, suie[G], in Middle English. It should be mentioned however that luy rhymes regularly with -i (-y), as chery, servi, dy. In some cases also ui interchanges with oi, as in buiste beside boiste, enpuisonner beside poisoun. This is often found in early Anglo-Norman and is exemplified in M.E. buyle boyle, fuysoun foysoun, destroye destruien. On this change and on that between ui and u in Anglo-Norman see Koschwitz on the Voyage de Charlemagne, pp. 39, 40.
viii. aun occurs occasionally for an final or before a consonant e.g. in aun (annum) Mir. 6621, Bal. xxiii. 2, saunté(e) Mir. 2522, Ded. ii. 5, &c., dauncer 17610, paunce 8542, fiaunce, sufficaunce, Bal. iv, governaunce, fraunchise, fraunchement, in the Table of Contents; but much more usually not, as Alisandre, an (1932), avant, dance (1697), danger, danter, France, change, fiance (Bal. xiii. &c.), lance, lande, pance (5522 &c.), sergant, sufficance (1738 &c.), vante, and in general the words in -ance.
ix. Contraction or suppression of atonic vowels takes place in certain cases besides that of the termination -ée, which has already been discussed.