Re: French vowel distribution, was: a verb aspect...

On Mon, 23 Oct 2000 15:21:47 +0200, Christophe Grandsire
<christophe.grandsire@...> wrote:

>En réponse à Vasiliy Chernov <bc_@...>:
>> So, French permits [e] in closed final syllables?
>Normally not, "mél" is the only word I can think of that has it (and it's a
>recent coinage, so I don't think it's representative).
Even a single word is kinda... ominous. If _mél_ doesn't sound especially
artificial to French speakers, this means that no ban is in force any
more.

>Yet it's possible in
>non-final closed syllables, like in "événement" /even'ma~/: event (which
the
>allegedly sages of the French Academy would like us to write "évènement",
as if
>it was pronounced /evEn'ma~/, a pronunciation I never heard anywhere in
France!

Interesting.

>> And if you tell me that word-final [O] is possible too, I'll consider
>> such a project seriously ;)
>
>Unfortunately, I don't think I ever heard it, though I have to think about
it a
>little more...
Imagine you are referring to some foreign placename, while speaking French.
Will it sound too odd if you preserve the foreign /O/? And is your French
interlocutor likely, without knowing the foreign lang, to preserve the /O/
while replying to you?

I think word-final open [ö] is possible (prend-le, IIRC). Am I wrong?


Basilius