yeux
Appearance
French
[edit]Etymology
[edit]From Middle French yeulx, yeux, from Old French ieuz ~ ialz, plural form of oeil ~ oil ~ ueil ~ uel. A regular[1] outcome of Latin oculōs, the accusative plural of oculus (the source of œil). Mildred Pope explains its phonetic development as becoming *[ˈɔːʎos] > *[ˈweʎts] > *[weuts] via regular sound changes, followed by a regular dissimilation of [weu] to [jeu] (see for example Latin locus > *[lweu] > Old French lieu, iocus > *[dʒweu] > Old French gieu > jeu).[2] The resulting [jeuts] then becomes modern [jø].
Old and Middle French present many variant forms of this plural, including, from Godefroy's Dictionnaire du Moyen Français: ialz/yalz, yolz, olz/ols, uelz/uels/eus, ils, oulz.
Pronunciation
[edit]- IPA(key): /jø/
Audio (Paris); [jø]: (file) Audio; “les yeux” [le.z‿jø]: (file) Audio (Paris); “les yeux” [lɛ.z‿jø]: (file) - Rhymes: -jø
Noun
[edit]yeux m pl
- plural of œil, eyes
- Il a les yeux bleus. ― He has blue eyes.
- Il a de beaux yeux bleus. ― He has beautiful blue eyes.
Usage notes
[edit]- Unlike most words beginning with a consonantal ⟨y⟩ /j/, this word triggers liaison with valid preceding words. For example: les yeux /le.z‿jø/, beaux yeux /bo.z‿jø/.
- Since the spoken form /jø/ is always plural, its occurrence without a preceding /z/ is rather rare. When it happens, speakers are likely to say /zjø/ nevertheless. For example: beaucoup d’yeux /bo.ku d‿jø/ is often said /bo.ku d(ə) zjø/. This phonemenon is more widespread in modern French, but it is particularly frequent with this word.
References
[edit]- ^ “œil”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.
- ^ Pope, Mildred (1934) From Latin to Modern French: with special consideration of Anglo-Norman, 2nd edition, Manchester: Manchester University Press, § 556:
- The triphthong ˈueu [...]; the first element was ordinarily differentiated to i and consonantalised to j, which merged in dž but differentiation was ordinarily checked by preceding labial and velar consonants: ueu > jö: ueuts > iös ieuz [...] džueu > džjö > žö jeu [...] fueu > fö feu
Categories:
- French terms inherited from Middle French
- French terms derived from Middle French
- French terms inherited from Old French
- French terms derived from Old French
- French terms inherited from Latin
- French terms derived from Latin
- French 1-syllable words
- French terms with IPA pronunciation
- French terms with audio pronunciation
- Rhymes:French/jø
- Rhymes:French/jø/1 syllable
- French non-lemma forms
- French noun forms
- French terms with usage examples