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French orthography encompasses the spelling and punctuation of the French language.It is based on a combination of phonemic and historical principles. The spelling of words is largely based on the pronunciation of Old French c. 1100 –1200 AD, and has stayed more or less the same since then, despite enormous changes to the pronunciation of the language in the intervening years.
French grammar is the set of rules by which the French language creates statements, questions and commands. In many respects, it is quite similar to that of the other Romance languages . French is a moderately inflected language.
The imperative suffixes moi + en and moi + y give as a result m’en and m’y, and analogically toi + en and toi + y become t’en and t’y. However, in colloquial speech the expressions moi-z-en, toi-z-en; moi-z-y and toi-z-y have become widespread (also registered as -z’en and -z’y).
1 A spelling rule applies here. 2 +t if ends with vowel, else +s. Present participle: 1P-ant Past participle: PP. Spelling rules In the indicative present third person singular the -t is regularly dropped when directly following a d or t (e.g. il vend "he sells", not *il vendt).
Weasel words are words and phrases aimed at creating an impression that something specific and meaningful has been said, when in fact only a vague or ambiguous claim has been communicated. A common form of weasel wording is through vague attribution, where a statement is dressed with authority, yet has no substantial basis. Phrases such as ...
French verbs have a large number of simple (one-word) forms. These are composed of two distinct parts: the stem (or root, or radix), which indicates which verb it is, and the ending (inflection), which indicates the verb's tense (imperfect, present, future etc.) and mood and its subject's person (I, you, he/she etc.) and number, though many endings can correspond to multiple tense-mood-subject ...
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The prepositions à (' to, at ') and de (' of, from ') form contracted forms with the masculine and plural articles le and les: au, du, aux, and des, respectively.. Like the, the French definite article is used with a noun referring to a specific item when both the speaker and the audience know what the item is.