French phonology

This article mainly discusses the phonological system of standard French based on the Parisian dialect. French is notable for its uvular r, nasal vowels, and two processes affecting word-final sounds: liaison, a certain type of sandhi, wherein word-final consonants are not pronounced unless followed by a word beginning with a vowel; and elision, wherein a final vowel is elided before vowel initial words.

Vowels

Standard French contrasts up to thirteen oral vowels and up to four nasal vowels.

Some speakers contrast a front IPA|/a/ vs a back IPA|/ɑ/ but there are wide differences amongst such speakers as to which words have which vowel. [Harvcoltxt|Schane|1968|p=19] Similarly, some speakers distinguish between long and short IPA|/ɛː/ and IPA|/ɛ/; "maître" IPA| [mɛːtʁ] ('teacher') vs "mettre" IPA| [mɛtʁ] ('to put'). Such minimal pairs are rare. [Harvcoltxt|Walker|1984|p=26-27]

The phonetic qualities of the back nasal vowels are not very similar to those of the corresponding oral vowels, and the contrasting factor that distinguishes IPA|/ɑ̃/ and IPA|/ɔ̃/ is the extra lip rounding of the latter. Many speakers have merged IPA|/œ̃/ with IPA|/ɛ̃/. [Harvcoltxt|Fougeron|Smith|1993|p=74]

While the mid vowels contrast in certain environments, there is some distributional overlap. Generally speaking, close-mid vowels are found in open syllables while open-mid vowels are found in closed ones. IPA|/ɛ/ and IPA|/e/ contrast in final-position open syllables (e.g. "poignée" IPA| [pwa.ɲe] 'handful' vs "poignet" IPA| [pwa.ɲɛ] 'wrist'). Likewise, open-mid IPA|/ɔ/ and IPA|/œ/ contrast with close-mid IPA|/o/ and IPA|/ø/ mostly in closed monosyllables. [Harvcoltxt|Fougeron|Smith|1993|p=73] Beyond this general rule, there are some complications. For instance, IPA| [o] and IPA| [ø] are found in closed syllables ending in IPA| [z] while only IPA| [ɔ] is found in closed monosyllables before IPA| [ʁ] , IPA| [ɲ] , and IPA| [g] [Harvcoltxt|Léon|1992|p=?]

In verb conjugations of the first singular person (in present and future tense), the final mid-closed IPA|/e/ is frequently pronounced IPA| [ɛ] , e.g. "j’ai" IPA|/ˈʒe/ ('I have') may be IPA| [ˈʒe] or IPA| [ˈʒɛ] , "je ferai" IPA|/ʒə fə.ˈʁe/ ('I'll do') may be IPA| [ʒəfəˈʁe] or IPA| [ʒəfəˈʁɛ] .fact|date=May 2008

Schwa (IPA|/ə/ also called "e" caduc" ('decrepit "e"') and "e" muet" ('mute "e"') is a mid central vowel with some rounding. [Harvcoltxt|Fougeron|Smith|1993|p=73] It is always dropped ("muet") before another vowel ("un(e) âme" IPA| [yn.ɑːm] 'a soul'), and usually when following a single consonant ("rapp(e)ler" IPA| [ʁa.ple] 'to recall'). On the other hand, it is usually pronounced when its omission would create a cluster of three consonants or more ("gredin" IPA| [gʁə.dɛ̃] , "une porte" IPA| [yn pɔʁt] , "une porte fermée" IPA| [yn pɔʁ.tə.fɛʁ.me] ). [ [http://bach.arts.kuleuven.be/elicop/elilap4b.htm "Le e muet. État de la question et vérification sur un corpus de français parlé] ] This vowel is phonologically distinct from IPA| [œ] , but for most native speakers of French, they may be pronounced identically. For example, in "le bœuf" IPA|/lə bœf/ or "demi-heure" IPA|/dəmjœʁ/, most French native speakers won't make any phonetic difference between the two vowels, pronounced identically most of the time (or even swapped).fact|date=May 2008

While IPA|/wa/ and IPA|/ɥi/ may be considered diphthongs (that is, fully contained in the syllable nucleus), other sequences of a glide and vowel are considered part of a glide formation process that turns a high vowel into a glide (and part of the syllable onset) when followed by another vowel. While this process does not apply if the syllable onset contains more than one segment, the two diphthongs may appear after consonant clusters as in "trois" IPA|/tʁwa/ ('three') and "pluie" ('rain'). [Harvcoltxt|Chitoran|2002|p=206]

Consonants

Where symbols for consonants occur in pairs, the left represents the voiceless consonant and the right represents the voiced consonant. The "rounded" consonants are in fact mildly coarticulated with lips (like bilabials but without touching them).

Phonetic notes:
#The velar nasal IPA|/ŋ/ is not a native phoneme of French, but occurs in loan words in final position such as "parking" or "camping". [Harvcoltxt|Wells|1989|p=44] Many speakers (mostly old people and those who are not accustomed to this foreign sound) replace it with a prenasalized IPA| [ŋɡ] sequence instead of a single consonant IPA| [ŋ] . This sequence also appears almost systematically where there is a possible liaison with the initial vowel of a word pronounced just after it.fact|date=May 2008 The velar nasal is also heard in the accent of the city of Marseille after final nasal vowels, e.g. "malin" IPA| [malɛ̃] may be realized as IPA|/malɛ̃ŋ/.fact|date=January 2008
#The French rhotic has a wide range of realizations. IPA| [ʀ] , IPA| [ʁ] (both the fricative and the approximant), IPA| [r] , IPA| [ɾ] , and IPA| [χ] will all be recognized as "r", [Harvcoltxt|Fougeron|Smith|1993|p=75] but most of them will be considered dialectal. For example, IPA| [ʁ] is considered typical of a Parisian accent, while IPA| [r] is sometimes found in southern France, less and less in the Montreal area and in Cajun French.fact|date=January 2008
#The approximants IPA| [j] , IPA| [ɥ] and IPA| [w] correspond to IPA| [i] , IPA| [y] and IPA| [u] respectively. While there are a few minimal pairs (such as "loua" IPA| [lu.a] 'he rented' and "loi" IPA| [lwa] 'law'), there are many cases where there is free variation. [Harvcoltxt|Fougeron|Smith|1993|p=75]
#IPA|/ʎ/ has merged with IPA|/j/ in a number of dialects (including the standard). This accounts for the appearance of IPA| [j] in the syllable coda and minimal pairs like "ail" IPA| [aj] ('garlic') vs "haï" IPA| [ai] ('hated'). [Harvcoltxt|Schane|1968|p=?]

Notes

ee also

*History of the French language
*Reforms of French orthography
*Dialects of the French language
*French orthography

References

*citation
last=Chitoran
first=Ioana
year=2002
title=A perception-production study of Romanian diphthongs and glide-vowel sequences
volume=32
issue=2
pages=203-222
*citation
last=Fougeron
first=Cecile
last2=Smith
first2=Caroline L
year=1993
title=Illustrations of the IPA:French
journal=Journal of the International Phonetic Association
volume=23
issue=2
pages=73-76
*citation
last=Léon
first=P.
year=1992
title=Phonétisme et prononciations du français
place=Paris
publisher=Nathan
*citation
last=Schane
first=Sanford A
year=1968
title=French Phonology and Morphology
publisher=M.I.T. Press
*citation
last=Walker
first=Douglas
year=1984
title= [http://www.ucalgary.ca/~dcwalker/PronCF.pdf The Pronunciation of Canadian French]
place=Ottawa
publisher=University of Ottawa Press
ISBN=0-7766-4500-5
*citation
last=Walker
first=Douglas
year=2001
title=French Sound Structure
publisher=University of Calgary Press
ISBN=1552380335
*citation
last=Wells
first=J.C.
year=1989
title=Computer-Coded Phonemic Notation of Individual Languages of the European Community
journal=Journal of the International Phonetic Association
volume=19
issue=1
pages=31-54

External links

* [http://shtooka.net/collections/fra/en/ Large collection of recordings of French words]
* [http://www.parisbypod.com/category/weekly-french-program/pronunciation/ mp3 Audio Pronunciation of French vowels, consonnants and alphabet]