French phonology is the sound system of
French. This article discusses mainly the
phonology
Phonology is the branch of linguistics that studies how languages or dialects systematically organize their sounds or, for sign languages, their constituent parts of signs. The term can also refer specifically to the sound or sign system of a ...
of all the varieties of
Standard French
Standard French (in French: ''le français standard'', ''le français normé'', ''le français neutre'' eutral Frenchor ''le français international'' nternational French is an unofficial term for a standard variety of the French language. It ...
. Notable phonological features include its
uvular r
Guttural R is the phenomenon whereby a rhotic consonant (an "R-like" sound) is produced in the back of the vocal tract (usually with the uvula) rather than in the front portion thereof and thus as a guttural consonant. Speakers of languages w ...
,
nasal vowel
A nasal vowel is a vowel that is produced with a lowering of the soft palate (or velum) so that the air flow escapes through the nose and the mouth simultaneously, as in the French vowel or Amoy []. By contrast, oral vowels are produced wit ...
s, and three processes affecting word-final sounds:
*
liaison
Liaison means communication between two or more groups, or co-operation or working together.
Liaison or liaisons may refer to:
General usage
* Affair, an unfaithful sexual relationship
* Collaboration
* Co-operation
Arts and entertainment
* Li ...
, a specific instance of sandhi in which word-final consonants are not pronounced unless they are followed by a word beginning with a vowel;
*
elision
In linguistics, an elision or deletion is the omission of one or more sounds (such as a vowel, a consonant, or a whole syllable) in a word or phrase. However, these terms are also used to refer more narrowly to cases where two words are run toget ...
, in which certain instances of (
schwa
In linguistics, specifically phonetics and phonology, schwa (, rarely or ; sometimes spelled shwa) is a vowel sound denoted by the IPA symbol , placed in the central position of the vowel chart. In English and some other languages, it rep ...
) are elided (such as when final before an initial vowel);
* (resyllabification) in which word-final and word-initial consonants may be moved across a syllable boundary, with syllables crossing word boundaries:
An example of the above is this:
*Written: '
*Meaning: "We left the window open."
*In isolation:
*Together:
Consonants
![Uvular rhotics in Europe](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d2/Uvular_rhotics_in_Europe.png)
Phonetic notes:
* are
laminal
A laminal consonant is a phone (speech sound) produced by obstructing the air passage with the blade of the tongue, the flat top front surface just behind the tip of the tongue in contact
with upper lip, teeth, alveolar ridge, to possibly, as ...
denti-alveolar
In linguistics, a denti-alveolar consonant or dento-alveolar consonant is a consonant that is articulated with a flat tongue against the alveolar ridge and the upper teeth, such as and in languages such as French, Italian and Spanish. That is, ...
, while are dentalised laminal alveolar (commonly called 'dental'), pronounced with the blade of the tongue very close to the back of the upper front teeth, with the tip resting behind lower front teeth.
* Word-final consonants are always released. Generally, are voiced throughout and are unaspirated.
* is usually apical alveolar but sometimes laminal denti-alveolar . Before , it can be realised as
retroflex
A retroflex (Help:IPA/English, /ˈɹɛtʃɹoːflɛks/), apico-domal (Help:IPA/English, /əpɪkoːˈdɔmɪnəl/), or cacuminal () consonant is a coronal consonant where the tongue has a flat, concave, or even curled shape, and is articulated betw ...
.
* In current pronunciation, is merging with .
* The
velar nasal
The voiced velar nasal, also known as agma, from the Greek word for 'fragment', is a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages. It is the sound of ''ng'' in English ''sing'' as well as ''n'' before velar consonants as in ''Englis ...
is not a native
phoneme
In phonology and linguistics, a phoneme () is a unit of sound that can distinguish one word from another in a particular language.
For example, in most dialects of English, with the notable exception of the West Midlands and the north-west o ...
of French, but it occurs in
loan word
A loanword (also loan word or loan-word) is a word at least partly assimilated from one language (the donor language) into another language. This is in contrast to cognates, which are words in two or more languages that are similar because the ...
s such as , or . Some speakers who have difficulty with this consonant realise it as a sequence or replace it with . It could be considered a separate phoneme in
Meridional French
Meridional French (french: français méridional), also referred to as Francitan, is a regional variant of the French language. It is widely spoken in Marseille, Avignon and Toulouse and is influenced by the Occitan language.
There are speakers ...
, e.g. pain ('bread') vs. penne ('quill').
* The approximants correspond to the close vowels . While there are a few
minimal pair
In phonology, minimal pairs are pairs of words or phrases in a particular language, spoken or signed, that differ in only one phonological element, such as a phoneme, toneme or chroneme, and have distinct meanings. They are used to demonstrate ...
s (such as 's/he rented' and 'law'), there are many cases where there is free variation.
*Belgian French may merge with or .
* Some dialects of French have a palatal lateral (French: ''l
mouillé
Palatalization is a historical-linguistic sound change that results in a palatalized articulation of a consonant or, in certain cases, a front vowel. Palatalization involves change in the place or manner of articulation of consonants, or th ...
'', 'wet l'), but in the modern standard variety, it has merged with . See also
Glides and diphthongs, below.
* The French
rhotic has a wide range of realizations: the
voiced uvular fricative
The voiced uvular fricative is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , an inverted small uppercase letter , or in broad transcription if rhot ...
, also realised as an
approximant
Approximants are speech sounds that involve the articulators approaching each other but not narrowly enough nor with enough articulatory precision to create turbulent airflow. Therefore, approximants fall between fricatives, which do produce a ...
, with a
voiceless
In linguistics, voicelessness is the property of sounds being pronounced without the larynx vibrating. Phonologically, it is a type of phonation, which contrasts with other states of the larynx, but some object that the word phonation implies ...
positional allophone , the
uvular trill
The voiced uvular trill is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , a small capital letter ''R''. This consonant is one of several collectively ...
, the
alveolar trill
The voiced alveolar trill is a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents dental, alveolar, and postalveolar trills is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is r. ...
, and the
alveolar tap Alveolus (; pl. alveoli, adj. alveolar) is a general anatomical term for a concave cavity or pit.
Uses in anatomy and zoology
* Pulmonary alveolus, an air sac in the lungs
** Alveolar cell or pneumocyte
** Alveolar duct
** Alveolar macrophage
* M ...
. These are all recognised as the
phoneme
In phonology and linguistics, a phoneme () is a unit of sound that can distinguish one word from another in a particular language.
For example, in most dialects of English, with the notable exception of the West Midlands and the north-west o ...
, but and are considered dialectal. The most common pronunciation is as a default realisation, complemented by a devoiced variant in the positions before or after a voiceless obstruent or at the end of a sentence. See
French guttural r and map at right.
* Velars and may become
palatalised to and before , and more variably before . Word-final may also be palatalised to . Velar palatalisation has traditionally been associated with the working class, though recent studies suggest it is spreading to more demographics of large French cities.
Geminates
Although double consonant letters appear in the orthographic form of many French words,
geminate
In phonetics and phonology, gemination (), or consonant lengthening (from Latin 'doubling', itself from '' gemini'' 'twins'), is an articulation of a consonant for a longer period of time than that of a singleton consonant. It is distinct from ...
consonants are relatively rare in the pronunciation of such words. The following cases can be identified.
The geminate pronunciation is found in the future and conditional forms of the verbs ('to run') and ('to die'). The conditional form ''il mourrait'' ('he would die'), for example, contrasts with the imperfect form ''il mourait'' ('he was dying'). In some other words, most modern speakers have reduced to , such as "il pourrait" ('he could'). Other verbs that have a double orthographically in the future and conditional are pronounced with a simple : ''il pourra'' ('he will be able to'), ''il verra'' ('he will see').
When the prefix combines with a base that begins with ''n'', the resulting word is sometimes pronounced with a geminate and similarly for the variants of the same prefix ''im-'', ''il-'', ''ir-'':
* ('innate')
* ('immortal')
* ('illegible')
* ('irresponsible')
Other cases of optional gemination can be found in words like ('syllable'), ('grammar'), and ('illusion'). The pronunciation of such words, in many cases, a
spelling pronunciation
A spelling pronunciation is the pronunciation of a word according to its spelling when this differs from a longstanding standard or traditional pronunciation. Words that are spelled with letters that were never pronounced or that were not pronounc ...
varies by speaker and gives rise to widely varying stylistic effects. In particular, the gemination of consonants other than the liquids and nasals is "generally considered affected or pedantic". Examples of stylistically marked pronunciations include ('addition') and ('intelligence').
Gemination of doubled and is typical of the
Languedoc
The Province of Languedoc (; , ; oc, Lengadòc ) is a former province of France.
Most of its territory is now contained in the modern-day region of Occitanie in Southern France. Its capital city was Toulouse. It had an area of approximately ...
region, as opposed to other southern accents.
A few cases of gemination do not correspond to double consonant letters in the orthography. The deletion of word-internal schwas (see below), for example, can give rise to sequences of identical consonants: ''là-dedans'' ('inside'), ''l'honnêteté'' ('honesty'). The elided form of the object pronoun ''l
''' ('him/her/it') is also realised as a geminate when it appears after another ''l'' to avoid misunderstanding:
*''Il l'a mangé'' ('He ate it')
*''Il a mangé'' ('He ate')
Gemination is obligatory in such contexts.
Finally, a word pronounced with
emphatic stress can exhibit gemination of its first syllable-initial consonant:
*''formidable'' ('terrific')
*''épouvantable'' ('horrible')
Liaison
Many words in French can be analyzed as having a "latent" final consonant that is pronounced only in certain syntactic contexts when the next word begins with a vowel. For example, the word ('two') is pronounced in isolation or before a consonant-initial word (''deux jours'' → 'two days'), but in ''deux ans'' (→ 'two years'), the linking or liaison consonant is pronounced.
Vowels
Standard French contrasts up to 13 oral vowels and up to 4 nasal vowels. The schwa (in the center of the diagram next to this paragraph) is not necessarily a distinctive sound. Even though it often merges with one of the mid front rounded vowels, its patterning suggests that it is a separate phoneme (see the subsection
Schwa
In linguistics, specifically phonetics and phonology, schwa (, rarely or ; sometimes spelled shwa) is a vowel sound denoted by the IPA symbol , placed in the central position of the vowel chart. In English and some other languages, it rep ...
below).
The table below primarily lists vowels in contemporary Parisian French, with vowels only present in other dialects in parentheses.
While some dialects feature a long distinct from and a distinction between an open front and an open back , Parisian French features only and just one open vowel realised as central . Some dialects also feature a rounded , which has merged with in Paris.
In French French, while is phonologically distinct, its phonetic quality tends to coincide with either or .
Close vowels
In contrast with the mid vowels, there is no tense–lax contrast in close vowels. However, non-phonemic lax (near-close) appear in Quebec as allophones of when the vowel is both phonetically short (so not before ) and in a closed syllable, so that e.g. ''petite'' 'small ()' differs from ''petit'' 'small ()' not only in the presence of the final but also in the tenseness of the . Laxing always occurs in stressed closed syllables, but it is also found in other environments to various degrees.
In French French, are consistently close , but the exact height of is somewhat debatable as it has been variously described as close and near-close .
Mid vowels
Although the mid vowels contrast in certain environments, there is a limited distributional overlap so they often appear in complementary distribution. Generally,
close-mid vowel
A close-mid vowel (also mid-close vowel, high-mid vowel, mid-high vowel or half-close vowel) is any in a class of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a close-mid vowel is that the tongue is positioned one th ...
s () are found in open syllables, and
open-mid vowels () are found in closed syllables. However, there are minimal pairs:
* open-mid and close-mid contrast in final-position open syllables:
*: ('was going'), vs. ('gone');
* likewise, open-mid and contrast with close-mid and mostly in closed monosyllables, such as these:
*: ('young'), vs. ('fast', verb),
*: ('rock'), vs. ('hoarse'),
*: ('Rhodes'), vs. ('
lurk'),
*: ('Paul', masculine), vs. ('Paule', feminine),
*: ('good', feminine), vs. ('
Beaune
Beaune () is the wine capital of Burgundy in the Côte d'Or department in eastern France. It is located between Lyon and Dijon. Beaune is one of the key wine centers in France, and the center of Burgundy wine production and business. The annua ...
', the city).
Beyond the general rule, known as the ''loi de position'' among French phonologists, there are some exceptions. For instance, and are found in closed syllables ending in , and only is found in closed monosyllables before , , and .
The Parisian realization of has been variously described as central and centralized to before , in both cases becoming similar to .
The phonemic opposition of and has been lost in the southern half of France, where these two sounds are found only in complementary distribution. The phonemic oppositions of and and of and in terminal open syllables have been lost in almost all of France, but not in
Belgium
Belgium, ; french: Belgique ; german: Belgien officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. The country is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeast, France to th ...
or in areas with an
Arpitan substrate, where and are still opposed as and .
Open vowels
The phonemic contrast between front and back is sometimes not maintained in Standard French, which leads some researchers to reject the idea of two distinct phonemes. However, the distinction is still clearly maintained in other dialects such as
Quebec French
Quebec French (french: français québécois ), also known as Québécois French, is the predominant variety of the French language spoken in Canada. It is the dominant language of the province of Quebec, used in everyday communication, in educa ...
.
While there is much variation among speakers in France, a number of general tendencies can be observed. First of all, the distinction is most often preserved in word-final stressed syllables such as in these minimal pairs:
: → ('stain'), vs. → ('task')
: → ('leg'), vs. → ('paste, pastry')
: → ('rat'), vs. → ('short')
There are certain environments that prefer one open vowel over the other. For example, is preferred after and before :
: ('three'),
: ('gas').
The difference in quality is often reinforced by a difference in length (but the difference is contrastive in final closed syllables). The exact distribution of the two vowels varies greatly from speaker to speaker.
Back is much rarer in unstressed syllables, but it can be encountered in some common words:
: ('castle'),
: ('past').
Morphologically complex words derived from words containing stressed do not retain it:
: → ('aged', from → )
: ''rarissime'' → ('very rare', from → ).
Even in the final syllable of a word, back may become if the word in question loses its stress within the extended phonological context:
: ''J'ai été au bois'' → ('I went to the woods'),
: ''J'ai été au bois de Vincennes'' → ('I went to the Vincennes woods').
Nasal vowels
The phonetic qualities of the back nasal vowels differ from those of the corresponding oral vowels. The contrasting factor that distinguishes and is the extra lip rounding of the latter according to some linguists, and tongue height according to others. Speakers who produce both and distinguish them mainly through increased lip rounding of the former, but many speakers use only the latter phoneme, especially most speakers in northern France such as Paris (but not farther north, in
Belgium
Belgium, ; french: Belgique ; german: Belgien officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. The country is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeast, France to th ...
).
In some dialects, particularly that of Europe, there is an attested tendency for nasal vowels to shift in a counterclockwise direction: tends to be more open and shifts toward the vowel space of (realised also as ), rises and rounds to (realised also as ) and shifts to or . Also, there also is an opposite movement for for which it becomes more open and unrounds to , resulting in a merger of Standard French and in this case. According to one source, the typical phonetic realization of the nasal vowels in Paris is for , for and for , suggesting that the first two are unrounded open vowels that contrast by backness (like the oral and in some accents), whereas is much closer than .
In Quebec French, two of the vowels shift in a different direction: → , more or less as in Europe, but → and → .
In the Provence and Occitanie regions, nasal vowels are often realized as oral vowels before a stop consonant, thus reviving the otherwise lost in other accents: quarante → .
Contrary to the oral , there is no attested tendency for the nasal to become central in any accent.
Schwa
When phonetically realised,
schwa
In linguistics, specifically phonetics and phonology, schwa (, rarely or ; sometimes spelled shwa) is a vowel sound denoted by the IPA symbol , placed in the central position of the vowel chart. In English and some other languages, it rep ...
(), also called ''e '' ('dropped e') and ''e '' ('mute e'), is a mid-central vowel with some rounding. Many authors consider it to be phonetically identical to .
Geoff Lindsey suggests the symbol . state, more specifically, that it merges with before high vowels and glides:
: → ('clarity'),
: → ('workshop'),
in phrase-final stressed position:
: ''dis-le !'' → ('say it'),
and that it merges with elsewhere. However, some speakers make a clear distinction, and it exhibits special phonological behavior that warrants considering it a distinct phoneme. Furthermore, the merger occurs mainly in the French of France; in Quebec, and are still distinguished.
The main characteristic of French schwa is its "instability": the fact that under certain conditions it has no phonetic realization.
* That is usually the case when it follows a single consonant in a medial syllable:
*: → ('to call'),
* It is occasionally mute in word-final position:
*: → ('door').
* Word-final schwas are optionally pronounced if preceded by two or more consonants and followed by a consonant-initial word:
*: ''une porte fermée'' → ('a closed door').
* In the future and conditional forms of ''-er'' verbs, however, the schwa is sometimes deleted even after two consonants :
*: ''tu garderais'' → ('you would guard'),
*: ''nous brusquerons
es choses
Es, ES, or similar may refer to:
Arts and entertainment
* An alternate name for the musical note#Accidentals, musical note E♭ (E-flat)
* ''E's'', a manga series by Satoru Yuiga
* Es (film), ''Es'' (film), the German title of ''It'', a 1966 West ...
' → ('we will precipitate
hings).
* On the other hand, it is pronounced word-internally when it follows more pronounced consonants that cannot be combined into a complex onset with the initial consonants of the next syllable:
*: → ('scoundrel'),
*: ''sept petits'' → ('seven little ones').
In French
versification, word-final schwa is always elided before another vowel and at the ends of verses. It is pronounced before a following consonant-initial word. For example, ''une grande femme fut ici, '' in ordinary speech, would in verse be pronounced , with the enunciated at the end of each word.
Schwa cannot normally be realised as a front vowel () in closed syllables. In such contexts in inflectional and derivational morphology, schwa usually alternates with the front vowel :
: → ('to harass'), with
: ''il harcèle'' → ('
eharasses').
A three-way alternation can be observed, in a few cases, for a number of speakers:
: → ('to call'),
: ''j'appelle'' → ('I call'),
: → ('brand'), which can also be pronounced .
Instances of orthographic that do not exhibit the behaviour described above may be better analysed as corresponding to the stable, full vowel . The
enclitic
In morphology and syntax, a clitic (, backformed from Greek "leaning" or "enclitic"Crystal, David. ''A First Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics''. Boulder, CO: Westview, 1980. Print.) is a morpheme that has syntactic characteristics of a w ...
pronoun , for example, always keeps its vowel in contexts like ''donnez-le-moi'' → ('give it to me') for which schwa deletion would normally apply (giving *), and it counts as a full syllable for the determination of stress.
Cases of word-internal stable are more subject to variation among speakers, but, for example, ''un rebelle'' ('a rebel') must be pronounced with a full vowel in contrast to ''un rebond'' → or ('a bounce').
Length
Except for the distinction still made by some speakers between and in rare minimal pairs like ('to put') vs. ('teacher'), variation in vowel length is entirely allophonic. Vowels can be lengthened in closed, stressed syllables, under the following two conditions:
*, , , and the nasal vowels are lengthened before any consonant: ('dough'), ('sings').
*All vowels are lengthened if followed by one of the voiced fricatives—, , , (not in combination)—or by the cluster : / ('sea/mother'), ('crisis'), ('book'), However, words such as ''(ils) servent'' ('(they) serve') or ('pie') are pronounced with short vowels since the appears in clusters other than .
When such syllables lose their stress, the lengthening effect may be absent. The vowel of is long in ''Regarde comme elle saute !'', in which the word is phrase-final and therefore stressed, but not in ''Qu'est-ce qu'elle saute bien !'' In accents wherein is distinguished from , however, it is still pronounced with a long vowel even in an unstressed position, as in ''fête'' in ''C'est une fête importante.''
The following table presents the pronunciation of a representative sample of words in phrase-final (stressed) position:
Devoicing
In Parisian French, the close vowels and the mid front at the end of utterances can be
devoiced
Voice or voicing is a term used in phonetics and phonology to characterize speech sounds (usually consonants). Speech sounds can be described as either voiceless (otherwise known as ''unvoiced'') or voiced.
The term, however, is used to refer ...
. A devoiced vowel may be followed by a sound similar to the
voiceless palatal fricative
The voiceless palatal fricative is a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is C. It is the non-sibilant equi ...
:
: ''Merci.'' → ('Thank you.'),
: ''Allez !'' → ('Go!').
In Quebec French, close vowels are often devoiced when unstressed and surrounded by voiceless consonants:
: ''université'' → ('university').
Though a more prominent feature of Quebec French, phrase-medial devoicing is also found in European French.
Elision
The final vowel (usually ) of a number of monosyllabic
function words is
elided
In linguistics, an elision or deletion is the omission of one or more sounds (such as a vowel, a consonant, or a whole syllable) in a word or phrase. However, these terms are also used to refer more narrowly to cases where two words are run toget ...
in syntactic combinations with a following word that begins with a vowel. For example, compare the pronunciation of the unstressed subject pronoun, in ''je dors'' ('I am sleeping'), and in ''j'arrive'' ('I am arriving').
Glides and diphthongs
The glides , , and appear in syllable onsets immediately followed by a full vowel. In many cases, they alternate systematically with their vowel counterparts , , and such as in the following pairs of verb forms:
:''nie'' ; ('deny')
:''loue'' ; ('rent')
:''tue'' ; ('kill')
The glides in the examples can be analyzed as the result of a glide formation process that turns an underlying high vowel into a glide when followed by another vowel: → .
This process is usually blocked after a complex onset of the form obstruent + liquid (a stop or a fricative followed by or ). For example, while the pair ''loue''/''louer'' shows an alternation between and , the same suffix added to ''cloue'' , a word with a complex onset, does not trigger the glide formation: ''clouer'' ('to nail'). Some sequences of glide + vowel can be found after obstruent-liquid onsets, however. The main examples are , as in ''pluie'' ('rain'), , as in ''trois'' ('three'), and , as in ''groin'' ('snout'). They can be dealt with in different ways, as by adding appropriate contextual conditions to the glide formation rule or by assuming that the phonemic inventory of French includes underlying glides or rising
diphthong
A diphthong ( ; , ), also known as a gliding vowel, is a combination of two adjacent vowel sounds within the same syllable. Technically, a diphthong is a vowel with two different targets: that is, the tongue (and/or other parts of the speech o ...
s like and .
Glide formation normally does not occur across morpheme boundaries in compounds like ''semi-aride'' ('semi-arid'). However, in colloquial registers, ''si elle'' ('if she') can be pronounced just like ('sky'), or ''tu as'' ('you have') like ''tua'' ('
s)hekilled').
The glide can also occur in syllable coda position, after a vowel, as in ('sun'). There again, one can formulate a derivation from an underlying full vowel , but the analysis is not always adequate because of the existence of possible minimal pairs like ('country') / ('paycheck') and ('abbey') / ('bee'). Schane (1968) proposes an abstract analysis deriving postvocalic from an underlying lateral by palatalization and glide conversion ( → → ).
Stress
Word stress is not distinctive in French, so two words cannot be distinguished based on stress placement alone. Grammatical stress is always on the final full syllable (syllable with a vowel other than schwa) of a word. Monosyllables with schwa as their only vowel (, , , etc.) are generally
clitic
In morphology and syntax, a clitic (, backformed from Greek "leaning" or "enclitic"Crystal, David. ''A First Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics''. Boulder, CO: Westview, 1980. Print.) is a morpheme that has syntactic characteristics of a w ...
s but otherwise may receive stress.
The difference between stressed and unstressed syllables in French is less marked than in English. Vowels in unstressed syllables keep their full quality, regardless of whether the rhythm of the speaker is syllable-timed or mora-timed (see
isochrony
Isochrony is the postulated rhythmic division of time into equal portions by a language. Rhythm is an aspect of prosody, others being intonation, stress, and tempo of speech.
Three alternative ways in which a language can divide time are postula ...
).
[Mora-timed speech is frequent in French, especially in Canada, where it is very much the norm.] Moreover, words lose their stress to varying degrees when pronounced in phrases and sentences. In general, only the last word in a phonological phrase retains its full grammatical stress (on its last full syllable).
Emphatic stress
Emphatic stress is used to call attention to a specific element in a given context such as to express a contrast or to reinforce the emotive content of a word. In French, this stress falls on the first consonant-initial syllable of the word in question. The characteristics associated with emphatic stress include increased amplitude and pitch of the vowel and gemination of the onset consonant, as mentioned
above. Emphatic stress does not replace, but occurs in tandem with, grammatical stress.
*''C'est parfaitement vrai''. ('It's perfectly true.'; no emphatic stress)
*''C'est parfaitement vrai.'' (emphatic stress on ''parfaitement'')
For words that begin with a vowel, emphatic stress falls on the first syllable that begins with a consonant or on the initial syllable with the insertion of a glottal stop or a
liaison
Liaison means communication between two or more groups, or co-operation or working together.
Liaison or liaisons may refer to:
General usage
* Affair, an unfaithful sexual relationship
* Collaboration
* Co-operation
Arts and entertainment
* Li ...
consonant.
*''C'est épouvantable.'' ('It's terrible.'; emphatic stress on second syllable of ''épouvantable'')
*''C'est épouvantable !'' (initial syllable with liaison consonant )
*''C'est épouvantable !'' (initial syllable with glottal stop insertion)
Intonation
French intonation differs substantially from that of English. There are four primary patterns:
*The continuation pattern is a rise in pitch occurring in the last syllable of a rhythm group (typically a phrase).
*The finality pattern is a sharp fall in pitch occurring in the last syllable of a declarative statement.
*The yes/no intonation is a sharp rise in pitch occurring in the last syllable of a yes/no question.
*The information question intonation is a rapid fall-off from a high pitch on the first word of a non-yes/no question, often followed by a small rise in pitch on the last syllable of the question.
See also
*
History of French
French is a Romance language (meaning that it is descended primarily from Vulgar Latin) that specifically is classified under the Gallo-Romance languages.
The discussion of the history of a language is typically divided into "external history ...
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Phonological history of French
French exhibits perhaps the most extensive phonetic changes (from Latin) of any of the Romance languages. Similar changes are seen in some of the northern Italian regional languages, such as Lombard or Ligurian. Most other Romance languages are ...
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Varieties of French
Varieties of the French language are spoken in France and around the world. The Francophones of France generally use Metropolitan French (spoken in Paris and considered standard) although some also use regional dialects or varieties such as ...
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French orthography
French orthography encompasses the spelling and punctuation of the French language. It is based on a combination of phonemic and historical principles. The spelling of words is largely based on the pronunciation of Old French c. 1100–1200 AD, a ...
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Reforms of French orthography
French orthography was already (more or less) fixed and (from a phonological point of view) outdated when its lexicography developed in the late 17th century and the Académie française was mandated to establish an "official" prescriptive nor ...
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Phonologie du Français Contemporain Phonologie du Français Contemporain (PFC) is an international linguistics research project devoted to the creation and use of resources for the study of the phonology of contemporary French language, French.
Activities
The main objective of the P ...
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Quebec French phonology
The phonology of Quebec French is more complex than that of Parisian or Continental French. Quebec French has maintained phonemic distinctions between and , and , and , and . The latter of each pair has disappeared in Parisian French, and o ...
References
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External links
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Foreign Service Institute's freely downloadable course on French phonology
''Introduction to French Phonology'' (audio)''Introduction to French Phonology'' (student & teacher texts)Large collection of recordings of French wordsmp3 Audio Pronunciation of French vowels, consonants and alphabetFrench Vowels Demonstrated by a Native Speaker (youtube)French Consonants Demonstrated by a Native Speaker (youtube)
{{DEFAULTSORT:French Phonology
Phonology
Phonology is the branch of linguistics that studies how languages or dialects systematically organize their sounds or, for sign languages, their constituent parts of signs. The term can also refer specifically to the sound or sign system of a ...
de:Französische Sprache#Aussprache