Talk:French phonology

Moved section

I've made a lots of notes on allophones and phonemes. A good review from European speakers would be appreciated. I haven't quite started on the Orthography section. Feel free to have a go at it.--Circeus 19:05, 30 Dec 2004 (UTC)

From Peer Review:

The information is great (especially the Vowel part), but the arrangement could be improved.

• It would be nice to be able to see at a glance which vowels are most common (or occur in all dialects) and which ones are more exceptional. Also, an arrangement like the IPA vowel table helps greatly to get an impression of the vowel system of a language. The current table should be kept, I think, but maybe another one (or two, separating oral and nasal V's) could be added, cf. Nafaanra_language#Vowels (which is of course a much simpler vowel system).
  • Done. Lesgles (talk) 04:06, 4 May 2006 (UTC)
• Some visual distinction between oral and nasal vowels would clear things up as well.
  • Done. Lesgles (talk) 04:06, 4 May 2006 (UTC)
• I would join the approximant row with the other consonants, and move all footnotes to below the table.
  • done --Lenthe 1 July 2005 09:03 (UTC)
• I'm missing information about the distribution of phonemes (except for some notes on allophony), particularly in the Consonants section. Do all phonemes occur freely in every position? What consonant clusters are allowed? Etc.
• What role does nasalization play — what is its relation to nasal consonants?

— mark ✎ 18:06, 8 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Tidying up

I've done a bit of tidying up of the English and the punctuation, but I'm confused by the alternation between / / and [ ]. is this intended to reflect phonetic/phonemic, or is it just inconsistency that should be tidied up? rossb 07:23, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)

The [] are supposed to mark phonetic material (like laxed vowels) and // phonemes (I think I use (r) as the archiphoneme here. It's been a while since I checked back on the article o.o) Circeus 03:33, Feb 26, 2005 (UTC)

Parisian French

As far as I know the Parisian r is not a trill, it's a fricative: ʁ ---moyogo 05:09, 2005 May 12 (UTC)

Both are used. The fricative is a common allophone, though I'm quite sure that the uvular trill is perceived as being the more correct pronunciation. I think this feature is common to most languages or dialects that use uvular trills. I know it's true for Scanian, a southern Swedish dialect group. In everyday speech it will frequently be realized as a fricative, but when asked to emphasize a word, the trill will be used.

Peter Isotalo 08:34, May 12, 2005 (UTC)

IPA and SAMPA

I propose we remove the SAMPA from this article, on the basis that IPA is the Wikipedia standard, SAMPA is merely a kludge for situations when the character set is limited to 7-bit ASCII, two pronunciation schemes is one too many, and now that we have the IPA template, the IPA characters should be viewable correctly in pretty well any browser. Any views? rossb 00:17, 26 Feb 2005 (UTC)

It's actually X-SAMPA (French SAMPA annoyingly doesn't offer a rendition for /3:/), but I agree with the point, mostly. Circeus 03:35, Feb 26, 2005 (UTC)

I've removed the SAMPA from the table (there wasn't any in the rest of the article). rossb 20:01, 27 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Reversed front and back a

I would appreciate some informative comment here instead of just a blunt reversal. I really think you are mistaken. −Woodstone 18:18, 2005 Mar 12 (UTC)

I think it is more relevant to keep them separate and note their merge in European dialects than just keep one and make as if 6 million Quebecers (among others) pronounce the same [a] in "patte" and "pâte". Circeus 18:29, Mar 12, 2005 (UTC)

I'm not saying both "a's" are the same. Just that in my view you reversed the IPA symbols. I just double checked with the spoken version of the chart. Also in France they are different:

• the one in pâte is long and is a front vowel, with IPA symbol [aː]
• the one in patte is short and a back vowel, with IPA symbol [ɑ]

−Woodstone 20:28, 2005 Mar 12 (UTC)

Even the old version of French Language agreed with me ("standard" french has merged "a" and "â"). Also, I certainly didn't mix up the /a/ and /ɑː/ vowels, at least as far as they are pronounced in Quebec French. I'd be extremely surprised if two historically confirmed sounds inverted themselves. Whereas I'm sure your "a" in pâte might very well be long, please cite sources (and btw, where are you from, it's a notable hint in guessing your pronounciation.) for patte being /pɑt/ (that's normally the same "a" as in "mâle", "râle" and "âge"). and BTW, you did delete (maybe accidentally) the row for one of them. Circeus 02:32, Mar 13, 2005 (UTC)

I just checked my version in the history list and I did NOT delete a line. I reversed the lines with patte and pâte (keeping the IPA symbols in the original sequence). If you see something different then the Wiki servers have a big problem. The original version states already that the vowel as in pâte is "almost always long". The dispute is not about long or short, but about back or front. I will try to find sources. (Incidentally, there is no need to indent indefinitely, alternation is good enough) −Woodstone 10:25, 2005 Mar 13 (UTC)

According to my Larousse (95, Grand Format), patte has /a/ and pâte has /ɑ/.

some sound files from native french speakers would be quite helpful WilliamJuhl

Why does [ʝ] appear in the consonants section? I've never heard it used in french. Is it from a certain dialect? If so, it should be marked as such.

I just checked my Collins English-French pocket dictionary and it too shows "patte" with /a/ and "pâte" with /ɑ/.

By the way, I came to this article looking for something that fully treats the relationship between French orthography and pronunciation. This article is good but it doesn't help me know what sounds to make when I'm reading a French book. Is there a better article for what I'm looking for? — Hippietrail 00:41, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Media:FR_pattepate.ogg Here you go, "patte" and "pâte", spoken by me (who is a native Quebec French speaker). As you can see, the vowel of "pâte" is back and other other is front.

Valkari 18:30, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Missing information

Some details still seem to be missing here. Especially for people who are trying to learn a bit of French. For instance, I've heard that the final "-ent" of 3rd person plural verbs is silent. But I've never heard how this affects pronunciation or liaison. Should the reader simply treat the word as if the "-ent" isn't there at all or are there some exceptions or subtleties.

Another thing I'm unsure about also deals with liaison. I usually hear that the final consonants of a word are not pronounced unless the following word begins with a vowel or silent h. But I never hear what happens when the word ends with a consonant cluster. Are all the consonants pronounced or just the final one. Also, I'm pretty sure I've heard that "et" is not the only exception to the liaison rules. Are there times when liaison depend on grammar or syntax rather than just which words occur together? And what about where a comma, period, or other punctuation comes between? — Hippietrail 09:28, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)

lateral flap

i would like some evidence / more information on the lateral flap allophone of /r/. i've never heard the phoneme nor of the phoneme before.

The article doesn't have a lateral flap as an allophone of /r/. It does have the alveolar flap, though, which is the sound of Spanish pero. Circeus 11:47, May 2, 2005 (UTC)

it doesn't have the lateral flap because i deleted it because of lack of evidence. gaidheal 03:56, 8 May 2005 (UTC)

Separating the orthography

I'm on a mission to cleanse all phonologies of the impureness that is orthography ;-). Would anyone mind if we moved this to French phonology and encouraged people to write a separate French orthography instead?

Peter Isotalo 12:56, May 8, 2005 (UTC)

I wouldn't mind too much, though I feel they are often hard to separate. Circeus 15:17, May 8, 2005 (UTC)

French phonology has nothing to do with French orthography, even though French orthography has lots to do with it. For example, a totally illiterate native French speaker uses French phonology all the time but no orthography. Languages are first spoken, then written. I use this example abusively of course, just to make a point. Go ahead and split it into two articles; you have my vote. ---moyogo 04:54, 2005 May 12 (UTC)

I'm going to do this now, as no one seems to have any major objections. Lesgles (talk) 01:44, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

Photocopie/Photo

I find strange the pronunciation of the words "photocopie" and "photo", I have never heard these (in France) but rather like /fotokopi/ and /foto/. So unless these are pronunciations used somewhere outside of France, this is an error.

Actualy it's a bit more complex than that, but I think my notation is wrong. The second <o> truely is /o/, not /ɔ/, But I don't think the third is ever /o/. Circeus 14:52, August 2, 2005 (UTC)

Hmm... I never pronunce "photocopie" other than /fotokopi/. Or "copie" other than /kopi/ for that matter. The third o as /ɔ/ sounds more like a southern accent to me ? → SeeSchloß 16:58, 2 August 2005 (UTC)

SeeSchloß, thanks for these remarks. It had me confused as well, but I'm not a native French speaker. Your name does not seem French, but if you are, what do you think of the "patte"/"pâte" discussion e few items up from here. It keeps confusing me. I have been taught to pronounce patte as /pɑt/ and pâte as /pa:t/. What is your opinion?

I don't know where to answer in the other discussion, so I'll just post here. I'm a French speaker from the west of France (and as far as I know we don't have a specific accent here), I've always learnt that pâte is /pɑ:t/ (like bâtiment, mât...) and patte is /pat/ (like chat, bras...). My dictionary even takes them as examples for the /ɑ/ and /a/ sounds. The "correct" usage is "â" = /ɑ/ and "a" = /a/. Most often people just use /a/ for everything though. → SeeSchloß 22:09, 2 August 2005 (UTC)

Actually, as far as I know, official usage in European french is toward merging both a's, but I could be mistaken. It's extremely diffcult to write this article, since I am myself living in Quebec. Circeus 23:00, August 2, 2005 (UTC)

It's /fɔtokɔpi/ and /kɔpi/ in "standard" French. You should check Trésor de la Langue Française when unsure about a "standard" pronunciation, there is no better reference available on the web so far. Maybe we should have detailed section or article about the French language variations. ---moyogo 05:21, August 3, 2005 (UTC)

o and ɔ

It is untrue that o and ɔ are in allophonic distribution, at least in standard French and in Parisian French. Minimal pairs are easily found with o/ɔ in arbitrary position

• côté [cote] ("side") ~ coté ("rated")
• beauf [bof] (~ "red-neck") ~ bof [bɔf] (~ "hmmm")
• maul [mol] (rugby: "maul") ~ mol/molle [mɔl] ("soft")
• saule [sol] ("willow") ~ sol [sɔl] ("ground")
• saute [sot] ("jumps") ~ sotte [sɔt] ("inane").
• Paule [pol] (woman's name) ~ Paul [pɔl] (corresponding men's name)
• ôte [ot] ~ hotte [ot] ("hood")
• heaume [om] ("helmet") ~ homme [ɔm] ("man")
• cône [con] ("cone") ~ conne [cɔn] ("twat ")
• paumerait [pom(ə)rɛ] ("would lose") ~ pommeraie [pɔm(ə)ʀɛ]
• rôde [rod] ("hang around") ~ Rhodes [rɔd]
• nôtre [notχ] ("ours") ~ notre [nɔtχ]("our")

This opposition disappears in many (Southern) dialects. The opposition is mostly found in a syllable followed by an "e muet" (neutral e that may or must be dropped).

Senseless formulation needs fixing

French phonology and orthography#Consonants says [ua] or [ua] which doesn't make sense:

1. [ɥ] and [w] in French are mostly allophones of [y] and [u] before a vowel. The only case where [w] contrasts with [u] is when there is a morphemic boundary, causing some forms of verbs ending in -oua ([ua] or [ua]) such as ...

--Imz 00:23, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

If you argue that they are allophones of /y/ and /u/ in the syllable onset or coda, then you've covered all exceptions. Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 00:09, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Vowel chart?

Hello... I've "just started" studying the language... And I kind of miss a vowel chart for it. IPA defines a quite informative chart that can be used, i.e., for Portuguese like this. Could someone provide it for french please? :) - Ekevu (talk) 01:19, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Done (a few weeks ago). I don't know if it would be better to have a graphic, but the text one was easier to make on the spot, and it will be more flexible if we need to make changes. Lesgles (talk) 04:01, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

Shouldn't it be alveolar?

I've noticed that the consonant table states that /s/ and /z/ in French are dental fricatives. Shouldn't they be under alveolar fricatives? Snodawg 19:14, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

Indeed. And perhaps we should revise the categorization of French /t/, /d/, and /n/ as dental consonants. The article on dental seems to suggest that these are actually denti-alveolar or alveolar, with a change in the part of the tongue that contacts the roof of the mouth. Lesgles (talk) 21:45, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

No, I've read proper manuals and handbooks on French which explicitly say that t, d are dental. The s, z are of course alveolar.Cygnus_hansa 16:07, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

I agree that many phonetic texts claim that t & d are dental. The point made in the article Dental consonant is that the commonly used terminology is wrong. The tip or apex of the tongue does touch the teeth, but the rearmost point of articulation is what is most important in determining the place of articulation. The "dental" label confuses many people into producing t's and d's with the whole front of the tongue touching the teeth, which is plainly wrong.

French, Italian, and Spanish t, d, n, and l are often called dental for the sake of simplicity. However, in French these sounds are actually alveolar, or perhaps denti-alveolar; the difference between these sounds in French and English is not so much where the tongue contacts the roof of the mouth as which part of the tongue makes the contact. In English it is the tip of the tongue (such sounds are termed apical), whereas in French it is the blade, or area just behind the tip of the tongue (such sounds are called laminal).

Is this true?

The velar nasal is not a native phoneme of French, but occurs in loan words such as parking or camping. Many speakers (mostly old people and those who are not accustomed to this foreign sound) replace it with a prenazalized [ŋg] sequence. In Quebec French, /ɲ/ is used instead, so these loanwords rhyme with ligne and signe.

I find it hard to believe that Quebecois speakers say "un parkigne". From the few I've spoken with, I don't recall ever hearing this, and they certainly used lots of loanwords... where did this come from? Stevage 14:48, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

Haven't witnessed it in Montreal, might be true in some parts of Quebec. ---moyogo 06:08, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

It is done with lexicalized English loadwords such as screen - pronounced "scrigne", sink - pronounced "signe" and string (g-string) pronounced "strigne" by some. I have heard it for parking, though I remember it used for un parking (meaning, a parking SPOT, not LOT) and not dans le parking. However, the French vowel /i/ should be looked at as an environmental factor, since it is the phonological framework of French.CJ Withers 08:12, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

Just to say that, in Quebec, "on se parque dans le stationnement", though in France they "stationnnent dans le parking"...--Boffob 19:18, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

Example for syllables followed by schwa makes no sense

a syllable followed by a schwa is normally considered closed: évènement /evɛnmɑ̃/.

This sentence is nonsensical because the phonetic pronunciation doesn't contain a schwa, only the spelling. Spelling is irrelevant to syllabification of the phonetic sequence. The syllable is closed because it has to be closed: nm is not an onset in French, thus n belongs to the previous syllable.

If someone can give an example where the syllable could be open, but isn't because the vowel is [ɛ], then please do so. Otherwise I believe this needs to be deleted. --Armchairlinguist 23:21, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

Form of IPA vowel space representation

Recently the traditional diagram of the vowel space:

	Front		Central		Back
Close	i • y  • u e • ø  • o ə ɛ • œ  • ɔ a •  ɑ •
Close-mid
Mid
Open-mid
Open

was replaced by a table:

	Front		Central	Back
	NR	R		NR	R
Close	i	y			u
Close-mid	e	ø	ə		o
Open-mid	ɛ ɛ̃	œ (œ̃)			ɔ ɔ̃
Open	a			(ɑ) ɑ̃

This table form is much less readable. Most other language and IPA articles follow the original presentation from the IPA handbook. For clarity, consistency and memorability it is better to stick to the original source form.

−Woodstone 17:46, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Can you point out the articles that use that top chart? Every other phonology article in the language phonologies category either uses a table similar to the one I made or has an image of the vowel chart showing the precise location of the vowels in that language (granted, I just changed the one for Ukrainian but that can be considered an exception). Each language is different and the chart that I have removed implies that the vowel realizations of French are exactly at the cardinal points when they are not.

Another fault of the chart that I removed is that it did not have the nasalized vowels and it would be difficult to include them. If someone can provide a source-backed image of a vowel chart in French that includes all the vowels that would be perfectly acceptable.

Now if there's something truly wrong with the table that I've made, I'm sure there are ways to remedy that with an alteration of the table rather than its removal or a revert. What are the problems with its readability? Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 20:55, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

I did not do an extensive search, but see for example IPA, English phonology, Dutch phonology, Swedish phonology. It is just so much easier to take in the diagram in one look, than absorbing the table by scanning it. Also, as you indicate, the diagram allows to place the vowels more accurately than the standard points. It is possible to include nasalised vowels with the standard diacritic sign, next to the non-nasalised ones. −Woodstone 23:03, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Like I said, an image of the vowel chart is fine, even better than the table that I've put. Notice that, for example with chart of California English vowels in the English phonology page, /ʌ/ is a central vowel. Even better for my point, /ɪ/ is more open than /e/ and doesn't conform to any cardinal point. I really doubt that French /e/ is exactly at cardinal point two and French /ə/ is certainly not a phonetically mid vowel.

I still don't agree with your argument that the table is less readable. Both the chart and the table can be "scanned" by one who has a cursory knowledge of the IPA. Something that might make the table more meaningful is to remove the redundant rounding/unrounding distinction in the back vowels like this:

	Front		Central	Back
	NR	R
Close	i	y		u
Close-mid	e	ø	ə	o
Open-mid	ɛ ɛ̃	œ (œ̃)		ɔ ɔ̃
Open	a			(ɑ) ɑ̃

The table is flexible and certainly subject to change by editors wishing to improve the article. Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 00:25, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

I personally think that the diagram form is more aesthetically pleasing (but maybe that's just because it's the version I made :) ). I think we all agree, though, that an image would be ideal, so that's what we should work on. Lesgles (talk) 01:39, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

Okay, I've added an image. The article I got it from points out that the nasal qualities are different (esp for the back vowels) from the oral qualities but didn't provide an image for that. So there's still room for improvement. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 09:09, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

Palatal nasal

Is it pronounced with a [j] offglide? So, cognac = [koɲak] or = [koɲjak]? The article says that some dialects have [konjak] but that's not what I'm asking about. -Iopq 00:31, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

I don't think it does. No more than is necessary anyway. Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 02:04, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Room for expansion

This article has lots of room for expansion! Liaison and elision, for example, should be at least summarized briefly (since they have articles of their own). —Angr 11:28, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Alveolo-palatal?

Table states alveolo-palatal, but symbols are for postalveolar (palato-alveolar) fricatives.SuperElephant 12:33, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Phonemic inventory

This article now focuses on standard Parisian French, which is defensible, since that variety is more or less the standard in the media, etc., for at least 85% of francophones. But it also seems to be intended to be the "basic" article on French phonology, which means it must also serve as a point of comparison for the other national varieties, especially Canadian French. The alternative would be to have one article called French Phonology, and then Parisian French phonology, Quebec French phonology, etc., which would really be ridiculous given the high degree of similarity. Therefore some concession must be made to the fact that this is the basic article on French phonology, and it cannot be identical in scope to an article concerned solely with Parisian French phonology, even though Parisian French makes a convenient reference point for other varieties.

Therefore it should include the full phonemic inventory. That means including the long e in maître, which is distinguished in pronunciation from mettre, universally in Canada and sometimes elsewhere.

This distinction is maintained by a minority of speakers of otherwise perfectly ordinary French in France, and is reflected for example in The New Cassell's French Dictionary (1962). The meaning of "minority" is not completely negligible and is quantified in Dictionnaire de la prononciation française dans son usage réel, par André Martinet et Henriette Walter (1973), which was concerned solely with Parisian French. According to [1], 7 of the 17 informants of Martinet-Walter had a long e in maître. It was already a much lower proportion for the vast majority of the 200-odd words which historically had long e, and it is true that the merger is quite advanced in Europe now.

Though vowel length is no longer phonemic for most Parisians, I would like to emphasize that non-phonemic variation in vowel length remains an important feature of the French spoken by all francophones and should not be eliminated from the article. (Vowel length is also all that distinguishes C'est difficile à prendre from C'est difficile à apprendre, but that's another matter.) Vowel length is not usually indicated in general dictionaries of French because it operates automatically (except possibly for e).

An online reference for standard European French phonology is one chapter of The Pronunciation of Canadian French (1984) by Douglas Walker, which was published as a book and is available online here: [2]. This is sure to contain the information questioned in the "vowel length" section of the article. Also, the treatment of European French in that book considers long and short e to be distinct, and can provide a basis for this article to cover essentially European French while nonetheless looking at that version of the phonemic system that is most reflective of "French" in general. The merger in Europe can then be mentioned. 136.152.196.169 (talk) 06:38, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm also of the opinion that having a "Parisian French phonology" that contrasts "Quebec French phonology" AND "French phonology" would be a bit much. Something similar was proposed for English recently and shot down. One thing we could do is have this article be about Parisian French but with constant reference to other European dialects (as 136. says, a "reference point for other varieties"). Not so many references to Quebec French since it has its own page.

I like Walker (1984). We should also use it for Quebec French phonology too.

I'm glad to be discussing my recent edits. You might have noticed that I've been inconsistant in my representation of the rhotic consonant. What is considered most standard? The trill or the fricative? — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 08:56, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

I assume you mean the uvular trill. The fricative tends to be more characteristic of European French, though you'll hear a great uvular trill if you listen to Jacques Brel singing. 136.152.196.5 (talk) 09:10, 20 January 2008 (UTC)