The simple past presented weak and strong forms. Weak forms included all -er, -ier, most
-ir, and many -re verbs. Of the four types of Classical Latin strong perfects, three
survived, in altered form, into Old French. Because of the effects of stress, strong forms
presented greater paradigmatic variation than weak forms. Syntactically, the simple past
was primarily a narrative tense with punctive aspect, but it could also be used
descriptively, especially in the earlier period when the imperfect was infrequent. Unlike
the modern passé simple, the simple past was used in conversation.
Although the imperfect tense had competing dialectal endings in the 12th century, the
predecessor of the modern form was common: vend-eie, vend-eies, vend-ei(e)t, vend-
iiens, vend-iiez, vend-eient.
Of the Classical Latin subjunctive forms, only the present and pluperfect survived into
French. The Latin pluperfect subjunctive became the Old French imperfect subjunctive,
its endings not very different from the modern imperfect subjunctive.
Middle French. Significant vocalic changes of the Middle French period include the
continued reduction of diphthongs to simple vowels (there are no diphthongs in modern
French). The diphthong au reduced to and the triphthong eau reduced to very late in
this period. Vowels in hiatus were reduced to just their stressed element
(meïsmes>mesmes). Before a stressed syllable, was effaced (armëure>armure). In late
Middle French, a process of denasalization began, affecting first the vowels that had been
the last to nasalize. Other vowel changes occurred, but it was not until the late 16th
century that the vowel system of modern French was in place.
The erosion of final consonants continued in Middle French, encouraged by a shift,
evident even in the 12th century, from word to group stress, the pattern of modern
French. Under that type of stress, groups of words are run together, making a phrase or
locution into a unit. As words are linked, some of their final consonants weaken and
disappear; that was the case for final plosives and fricatives before a consonant. Even
final consonants preceded by another consonant (and thus supported) were generally
effaced in this period. Final r weakened.
As for the case system, virtually all texts show traces of it, but none uses case
systematically or coherently. The nominative inflection had yielded to the accusative with
few exceptions.
Middle French literary practice took advantage of old and new forms, as well as of
regionalisms. Although leveling of dialectal features in scriptas had begun early,
radiating outward from the area around Paris, a common stock of forms, which included
regional variants, nevertheless remained available to writers from all areas. Their use was
not necessarily a true indication of the writer’s own dialect. Regionalisms like the Picard
word-final reduction of -ié and -iée to -ie can be found at the rhyme in texts from many
regions. The raising of a before or was an eastern trait that appeared broadly in
literary texts in the form of -aige for -age and -aigne for -agne (as Bretaigne rhyming
with enseigne, or couraige with sai je). In this period, it is not unusual to find rhymes
between -eu and -ou (gracious, gracieux with nous), and -ui could rhyme either with -u
or with -i, and both in the same text (huis with lassus, je vi with bui). Rhymes also attest
the spread later in the period of such Parisian pronunciations as -ar for -er(as in the
rhyme Robert with Lombart, found in the poetry of François Villon).
Word Order, Sentence Structure, Vocabulary. Word order in Old French was fairly
flexible, owing in part to the two-case system. While the modern French order subject-
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