Jakobson's French

[Hugh McLean]

I think 'rendre' is used here in the sense of 'give up, surrender, 
lose.' The sentence might be translated, "The shortening of long vowels 
under certain musical conditions gave long vowels [or provided long 
vowels with] corresponding short ones, and thus length  lost its 
phonemic character."
> Dear Colleagues,
>
> There's one sentence in Roman Jakobson's 1929 dissertation _Remarques sur l'evolution phonologique du russe_ ,as reprinted in vol. 1 of his Selected Writings, p. 36, that gives me trouble, specifically the last 10 words (E for e grave, 'e for e acute).
>
> L'abrEgement des voyelles longues dans certaines conditions musicales donna aux voyelles longues des brEves corr'elatives, et ainsi la longueur se vit rendre le caract'ere phonologique.
>
> My colleague in the French Department interprets _se vit rendre_  'expressed the phonological characteristic', but that doesn't quite do it.
>
> Can someone out there do better?
>
> Merci a l'avance,
>
> Frank Y. Gladney
>
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