Re: Phonetic question...

For what it's worth, I have a French/English dictionary that gives
pronunciations in IPA, and it says "union" has [nj] while "oignon" has a
palatal nasal.

In a message dated 3/23/2002 6:32:50 PM Eastern Standard Time,
christophe.grandsire@FREE.FR writes:


> I've been repeating and repeating "oignon" and "union" until my head began
> to
> spin :)), and I'm still not sure whether I'm imagining the difference I
> hear or
> not (a place where the conjunction paa of Itakian would fit perfectly: it
> indicates distrust of your own senses :)) ). I am under the impression that
> the
> nasal sound in "union" starts more in front of the mouth than the nasal
> sound
> of "oignon" (which would be the principal difference between a palatalised
> alveolar nasal and a palatal nasal), but I'm afraid that my linguistic
> knowledge makes me think that (I know too much in this case :)) . And I
> don't
> have another French speaker handy to ask him/her :)) ).
>
> I think a normal French speaker would say that both words have the same
> nasal
> sound. There may be a little difference due to the fact that "union" is
> complex
> (the radical "un-" plus ending "-ion") while "oignon" is a single radical,
> but
> I don't think anyone would hear it or even pronounce it consistently...
>
> Christophe.
>