French phonology

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This article discusses the phonological system of standard French based on the Parisian dialect (unless otherwise noted). French is notable for its uvular r, nasal vowels, and a certain type of Sandhi called liaison wherein word-final consonants are not pronounced unless followed by a word beginning with a vowel.

1 Vowels
2 Consonants
3 See also
4 External links
5 Notes
6 References

[edit] Vowels

Standard French contrasts up to thirteen oral vowels and four nasal ones. Some speakers contrast a front /a/ vs a back /ɑ/ but there are wide differences amongst such speakers as to which words have which vowel.^[1] Some speakers distinguish between long and short /ɛː/ and /ɛ/; maître [mɛːtʁ] ('teacher') vs mettre [mɛtʁ] ('to put'). Such minimal pairs are rare.^[2] 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 /ɑ̃/ and /ɔ̃/ is the extra lip rounding of the latter. Many speakers have merged /œ̃/ with /ɛ̃/.^[3]

Vowels of French. from Fougeron & Smith (1993:73)

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

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. [ɛ] and [e] contrast in final-position open syllables (e.g. poignée [pwaɲe] 'handful' vs poignet [pwaɲɛ] 'wrist'). Likewise, open-mid [ɔ] and [œ] contrast with close-mid [o] and [ø] mostly in closed monosyllables.^[4] Beyond this general rule, there are some complications. For instance, [o] and [ø] are found in closed syllables ending in [z] while only[ɔ] is found in closed monosyllables before [ʁ], [ɲ], and [g]^[5]

Schwa (also called "e caduc" ("decrepit e") and "e muet" ("mute e") is a mid central vowel with some rounding.^[6] It is always dropped ("muet") before another vowel (un(e) âme [ynɑːm]), and usually when following a single consonant (rapp(e)ler [ʁaple]). On the other hand, it is usually pronounced when its omission would create a cluster of three consonants or more (gredin [gʁədɛ̃], une porte [ynpɔʁt], une porte fermée [ynpɔʁtəfɛʁme]).^[7]

Stress falls on the final syllable of a phrase unless that syllable has schwa as its vowel, in which case the penultimate vowel is stressed.^[8]

Example words
Vowel	Example		Gloss
IPA		Orthography	Gloss
/i/	[si]	si	'if'
/y/	[sy]	su	'known'
/u/	[su]	sous	'under'
/e/	[se]	ses	'his'
/ø/	[sø]	ceux	'those'
/o/	[so]	sot	'silly'
/ɛ/	[sɛ]	sait	'knows'
/œ/	[sœːʁ]	sœur	'sister'
/ɔ/	[sɔːʁ]	sort	'fate'
/a/	[sa]	sa	'his'
/ɑ/	[pɑːt]	pâte	'dough'
/ə/	[sə]	ce	'that'
Nasal vowels
/ɑ̃/	[sɑ̃]	sans	'without'
/ɔ̃/	[sɔ̃]	son	'his'
/ɛ̃/	[sɛ̃]	saint	'saint'
/œ̃/	[bʁœ̃]	brun	"brown"

With the exception of the distinction made by some speakers between /ɛː/ and /ɛ/, variation in vowel length is entirely allophonic. /o/, /ø/, /ɑ/, and the nasal vowels are lengthened in closed, stressed syllables:^[9]

long		short
jeûne	[ʒøːn]	jeu	[ʒø]
saute	[soːt]	sot	[so]
pâte	[pɑːt]	pas	[pɑ]
sainte	[sɛ̃ːt]	saint	[sɛ̃]
emprunte	[ɑ̃pʁœ̃ːt]	emprunt	[ɑ̃pʁœ̃]
honte	[ɔ̃ːt]	bon	[bɔ̃]
vente	[vɑ̃ːt]	vent	[vɑ̃]

Also, any vowel followed by (/v/, /z/, /ʒ/), /ʁ/, or the consonant cluster /vʁ/ is lengthened; e.g. sœur, [sœːʁ] ('sister'); brave, [bʁaːv] ('nice'), juge [ʒyːʒ] ('judge'), topaze [tɔpaːz] ('topaz'), lèvre [lɛːvʁ] ('lip'), but not other consonants or clusters, e.g. porte [pɔʁt] ('door'), larve [laʁv] ('larva').^[10]

When syllables otherwise satisfying these conditions are not stressed, they may not be long. The vowel [o] of saute is long in Regarde comme elle saute!, but may not be in Qu'est-ce qu'elle saute bien!.^[11] In this case, the vowel is unstressed because it is not phrase-final. An exception occurs however with the phoneme /ɛː/ because of its distinctive nature, provided it is word-final, as in C'est une fête importante, where fête is pronounced with long /ɛː/.^[12]

[edit] Consonants

Where symbols for consonants occur in pairs, the left represents the voiceless consonant and the right represents the voiced consonant.

**IPA chart French consonants**
	Bilabial	Labio- dental	Dental	Palato- alveolar	Palatal		Velar		Uvular
	Bilabial	Labio- dental	Dental	Palato- alveolar	plain	round	plain	round	Uvular
Nasal	m		n		ɲ		ŋ¹
Plosive	p b		t d				k g
Fricative		f v	s z	ʃ ʒ					ʁ²
Approximant					j^{3, 4}	ɥ³		w ³
Liquid			l		(ʎ)⁴

Phonetic notes:

The velar nasal is not a native phoneme of French, but occurs in loan words such as parking or camping.^[13] Many speakers (mostly old people and those who are not accustomed to this foreign sound) replace it with a prenasalized [ŋg] sequence. . The velar nasal is also heard in the accent of the city of Marseille after nasal vowels, e.g. malin, [malɛ̃ŋ].^{[citation needed]}
The French rhotic has a wide range of realizations. [ʀ], [ʁ] (both the fricative and the approximant), [r], [ɾ], and [χ] will all be recognized as "r",^[14] but most of them will be considered dialectal. For example, [ʁ] is considered typical of a Parisian accent, while [r] is sometimes found in southern France, less and less in the Montreal area and in Cajun French.^{[citation needed]}
The approximants [j], [ɥ] and [w] correspond to [i], [y] and [u] respectively. While there are a few minimal pairs (such as loua [lu.a] 'he rented' and loi [lwa] 'law'), there are many cases where there is free variation.^[15]
/ʎ/ has merged with /j/ in a number of dialects (including the standard). This accounts for the appearance of [j] in the syllable coda and minimal pairs like ail [aj] ('garlic') vs haï [ai] ('hated').^[16]

Example words^[17]
IPA	Example		Gloss	IPA	Example		Gloss
/m/	[mu]	mou	'soft'	/n/	[nu]	nous	'we'
/ɲ/	[aɲo]	agneau	'lamb'	/ŋ/	[paʁkiŋ]	parking	'parking lot'
/p/	[po]	peau	'skin'	/b/	[bo]	beau	'beautiful'
/t/	[tu]	tout	'all'	/d/	[du]	doux	'sweet'
/k/	[kø]	queue	'tail'	/g/	[gɛ̃]	gain	'gain'
/f/	[fu]	fou	'crazy'	/v/	[vu]	vous	'you'
/s/	[su]	sous	'under'	/z/	[zɛ̃]	zain	'whole-colored'
/ʃ/	[ʃu]	chou	'cabbage'	/ʒ/	[ʒu]	joue	'cheek'
/l/	[lu]	loup	'wolf'	/ʁ/	[ʁu]	roue	'wheel'

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

[edit] Notes

^ Schane (1968:19)
^ Walker (1984:26-27)
^ Fougeron & Smith (1993:74)
^ Fougeron & Smith (1993:73)
^ Léon (1992:?)
^ Fougeron & Smith (1993:73)
^ Le e muet. Etat de la question et vérification sur un corpus de français parlé
^ Schane (1968:131)
^ Walker (1984:25)
^ Walker (1984:26)
^ Walker (2001:46)
^ Walker (2001:46)
^ Wells (1989:44)
^ Fougeron & Smith (1993:75)
^ Fougeron & Smith (1993:75)
^ Schane (1968:?)
^ Fougeron & Smith (1993:75)

[edit] References

Fougeron, Cecile & Caroline L Smith (1993), "Illustrations of the IPA:French", Journal of the International Phonetic Association 23 (2): 73-76
Léon, P. (1992), written at Paris, Phonétisme et prononciations du français, Nathan
Schane, Sanford A (1968), French Phonology and Morphology, M.I.T. Press
Walker, Douglas (1984), written at Ottawa, The Pronunciation of Canadian French, University of Ottawa Press, ISBN 0-7766-4500-5
Walker, Douglas (2001), French Sound Structure, University of Calgary Press, ISBN 1552380335
Wells, J.C. (1989), "Computer-Coded Phonemic Notation of Individual Languages of the European Community", Journal of the International Phonetic Association 19 (1): 31-54