The subject pronoun, when unemphatic, is not expressed, but understood from the termination of the verb. Ieu (je), tu (tu), and eu (il) are used as disjunctive forms, in contrast with the French.  The possessive adjective leur is represented by si; and the reflective se is used for the first plural as well as for the third singular and third plural.

The moods and tenses correspond exactly to those of the French, and the famous rule of the past participle is identical with the one that prevails in the sister language.

Aside from the omission of the pronoun subject, and the use of one or two constructions not unknown to French, but not admitted to use in the literary language, the syntax of the Provencal is identical with that of the French.  The inversions of poetry may disguise this fact a little, but the lack of individuality in the sentence construction is obvious in prose.  Translation of Provencal prose into French prose is practically mere word substitution.

Instances of the constructions just mentioned are the following.  The relative object pronoun is often repeated as a personal pronoun, so that the verb has its object expressed twice.  The French continually offers redundancy of subject or complement, but not with the relative.

    “Estre, ieu, lou marran que touti L’estrangisson! 
    Estre, ieu, l’estrangie que touti LOU fugisson!”

    “Etre, moi, le paria, que tous rebutent! 
    Etre, moi, l’etranger que tout le monde fuit!”

(La Reino Jano, Act I, Scene III.)

The particle ti is added to a verb to make it interrogative.

E.g. soun-ti? sont-ils?  Petrarco ignoro-ti?
     ero-ti? etait-il?  Petrarque ignore-t-il?

This is the regular form of interrogative in the third person.  It is, of course, entirely due to the influence of colloquial French.

The French indefinite statement with the pronoun on may be represented in Provencal by the third plural of the verb; on m’a demande is translated m’an demanda, or on m’a demanda.

The negative ne is often suppressed, even with the correlative que.

The verb estre is conjugated with itself, as in Italian.

The Provencal speech is, therefore, not at all what it would have been if it had had an independent literary existence since the days of the Troubadours.  The influence of the French has been overwhelming, as is naturally to be expected.  A great number of idioms, that seem to be pure gallicisms, are found, in spite of the deliberate effort, referred to above, to eliminate French forms.  In La Reino Jano, Act III, Scene IV, we find Ie vai de nostis os,—­Il y va de nos os. Vejan, voyons, is used as a sort of interjection, as in French.  The partitive article is used precisely as in French.  We meet the narrative infinitive with de.  In short, the French reader feels at home in the Provencal sentence; it is the same syntax and, to a great degree, the same rhetoric.  Only in the vocabulary does he feel himself in a strange atmosphere.