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Re: OT: Conlangea Dreaming

From:Robert Hailman <robert@...>
Date:Monday, October 16, 2000, 20:29
Christophe Grandsire wrote:

> It was always marked by â (a-circonflexe) like in "pâtes" /pAt/: pasta, as > opposed to "pattes" /pat/: legs (of an animal). The opposition has now > disappeared. I think it's normal that in your L2 pronunciation of French, you > have both [9~] and [E~], but no [A]. As I said, the distinction between [a] and > [A] have vanished earlier than the one between [9~] and [E~] (which is still not > complete, as there are still people like me who oscillate between the two phones > when [9~] was supposed to be the correct one - but nobody ever says [9~] when > originally it must be [E~], the confusion seems to go only in one direction).
I haven't used my French in a long time, but I do read "pâtes" as /pat/, as a homonym to "pattes". I'd imagine I wouldn't notice if someone was using [9~] or [E~] where I'd use the other possibility, but then again I haven't spoken to an L1 French speaker in a good 3 or 4 years. -- Robert