Use of The Circumflex in French - Distinguishing Homographs

Distinguishing Homographs

Although normally the grave accent serves the purpose of differentiating homographs in French (là ~ la, où ~ ou, çà ~ ça, à ~ a, etc.), the circumflex, for historical reasons, has come to serve a similar role. In fact, almost all the cases where the circumflex is used to distinguish homographs can be explained by the reasons above: it would therefore be false to declare that it is in certain words a sign placed solely to distinguish homographs, as with the grave accent. However, it does allow one to remove certain ambiguities. For example, in words that underwent the change of "eu" to "û", the circumflex avoids possible homography with other words containing "u":

• sur ~ sûr(e)(s) (from seür → sëur): The homography with the adjective sur(e), "sour", justifies maintaining the accent in the feminine and plural. The accent is also maintained in derived words such as sûreté.
• du ~ dû (from deü): As the homography disappears in the inflected forms of the past participle, we have dû but dus / due(s).
• mur ~ mûr(e)(s) (from meür): The accent is maintained in all forms as well as in derived words (mûrir, mûrissement).