Caitlin Bould

What is Etymology and Historical Context of the French Adverb Suffix -ment?

Started Nov. 1, 2023

Abstract or project description

ABSTRACT. In this paper, I sought to discover the etymology of the French adverbial suffix -ment, strictly concerning the Parisian French dialect. With French’s Proto-Indo European roots, we would assume that -ment is derived from Latin. However, French and Latin adverbial suffixes are not directly related. This paper investigates the following research questions: If the adverbial suffix -ment is not directly derived from a Latin suffix, where does it come from? Furthermore, how did -ment emerge as an adverbial suffix in the Parisian French dialect? To answer these questions, I primarily consulted French etymological dictionaries, as well as various linguistic publications that cover adjacent topics. However, there is a lack of existing scholarly research on the specific questions I aimed to answer. In my research, I used Romance languages, Arabic, Latin, and Indo-European as points of comparison with the Parisian French dialect and examined the topic through the lens of Linguistic Anthropology, Comparative Linguistics, Contact Languages, and Morphology. I found that the French suffix -ment, as used in the Parisian French dialect, is derived from the Latin word for “mood.”