360

The Loom oj Language

tions The preposition of Vulgar Latin was unstressed, like the demon-
strative (definite article) which often went With it So the two got fused
Such agglutination did not go very far in Spanish It is confined to the
singular masculine article and the two prepositions de and a, de + el
became del (of the), and a + el became al (to the, by the), e g el mal
humor del maestro = the bad mood of the teacher (but de los maestros),
el bote alfaro = the boat at the lighthouse (but a los faros) In written
Spanish these two are the only contractions of the land In French,
agglutination is confined to the same prepositions, but extends to the
plural form, as shown in the following table

OLD FRENCH
MODERN FRENCH

Sing Plur
del (de + le) dels (de -j- les)
du
des

Sing Plur
a! (Jf + le) ah (a + les)
an aux

In ancient French the masculine singular and plural article also agglu-
tinated with the preposition en (Latin in) to el and es The former died
out Tne latter survives in the titles of University degrees such as docteur
es lettres, doctor of literature, doctem es sciences^ doctor of science

From this point of view, French is a half-way house between Spanish
and Portuguese Portuguese is a half-way house between French and
Italian The agglutination of Portuguese prepositions to the article,
which has lost the initial Latin L, are as follows

PREPOSITION
DEFINITE ARTICLE

(Latin equivalent

in italics)
O
A
OS
AS

a (= ad)
ao
a
aos
as

de
do
da
dos
das

em (= in)
no
na
nos
nas

por (= per)
pelo
pela
pelos
pelas

The Portuguese prepositions de and em also agglutinate to the
pointer-words of which the masculine singular forms are gste, ewe,
aquele This gives rise to deste, desse, daquele, or neste, nesse, naquele,