in French, there is a long list of words the origin of which is
undetermined.

The language shares with the other southern Romance languages a fondness
for diminutives, augmentatives, and pejoratives, and is far richer than
French in terminations of these classes. Long suffixes abound, and the
style becomes, in consequence, frequently high-sounding and exaggerated.

One of the most evident sources of new words in the language of Mistral
is in its suffixes. Most of these are common to the other Romance
languages, and have merely undergone the phonetic changes that obtain
in this form of speech. In many instances, however, they differ in
meaning and in application from their corresponding forms in the sister
languages, and a vast number of words are found the formation of which
is peculiar to the language under consideration. These suffixes
contribute largely to give the language its external appearance; and
while a thorough and scientific study of them cannot be given here,
enough will be presented to show some of the special developments of
Mistral's language in this direction.


-a.

This suffix marks the infinitive of the first conjugation, and also the
past participle. It answers to the French forms in -er and -é. As the
first conjugation is a so-called "living" conjugation, it is the
termination of many new verbs.


-a, -ado.