Re: CHAT French unde's (was: French undies (was: Re: Linguistic Terminology))

Raymond A. Brown wrote:

> Douglas Koller wrote:
> >Ennuye, declasse, outre, touche, rose, blase, souffle, parfait, charge,
> >distingue, fiance, divorcee, ballet, bidet, cafe (au *lait*), naivete,
> >beret,
> Some words here are pretty rare in current speech over here
I think in the US also. A few of these, if used today, would be code for
snobbery, feigned jocular snobbery (a la Target), or illusions of
grandeur (I use all of these freely, though [:)]).

> - and those we
> do use we tend to stress a la anglaise on the first syllable so that, e.g.
> 'ballet' is normally "bally" (or ['b&lei'] if we're being a bit more
> careful) and 'cafe' is almost invariably  "caffy"
> We might have a ['bi:dai] in the house and wear a ['bErei] but more likely
> a "berry".  And a divorcee is always [dIvO:'si:] - all formations ending in
> -ee are pronounced [i:] over here even though they're stressed on the
> ending.
I hadn't considered this. Beyond employee and referee, though, for me,
the ending -ee pronounced stressed /i/ is normally used in contrast to
-er; i.e. -er is the one who does, -ee is the one who is done to.
Probably starting from familiar distinctions like employer - employee,
this usage has extended to almost any ol' transitive verb: kisser -
kissee; caller - callee; groper - gropee (not attested forms, we'll
grant you, but particularly when you set the contrast in motion by
stressing the -er: [For the gropER..., but for the gropEE...], the
meaning is clear). Thus, divorcee as /dIvOrsej'/ refers in my idiolect
to anyone who is divorced (admittedly a slightly dated-sounding
expression, but one I would use, just 'cause), perhaps even by choice
(eg. "The Gay Divorcee"), while divorcee as /dIvOrsi'/ sounds to me like
you were dumped against your will. Fiancee /fiansi/ just doesn't work
for me (as what is a fiancer?).

> >Accent on the last syllable, ending in /ej/ lets us know immediately
> >we're in French country,
> Not here, it doesn't.  A few nasalized vowels are required and, preferably,
> one or two [Z] sounds - and the uvular approximate for [R] helps.
> /lE~ZRi] has the lot   ;-)
We've agreed before that /Z/ definitely helps ratchet up the level of
exotisme. I'd agree with Tom that if Americans are going to nasalize at
all, they'll probably head for /a~/ (bon-bons most likely as /banbanz/
but perhaps /ba~ba~z/ if you're trying to impress your date;
/lan(d)Z@rej/ - /la~Z@rej/ already discussed). I have a hard time
imagining most Americans really trying hard for the French "r".

Kou