Re: CHAT: The [+foreign] attribute

Christophe Grandsire scripsit:

> For instance, how come your wife can pronounce the [pRi] part correctly
> (with a uvular r!),
No, I misled you: that was meant to be an English-type bunched "r", not uvular.

> but not the |fixe| part, while you have in English the word "fix"
> [fIks]? Is it that difficult to exchange [I] and [i]? Even pronouncing
> French "fixe" exactly as English "fix" wouldn't be a problem, we French
> people wouldn't hear the difference anyway :))) .
No, it's a matter IMO of over-applying pronunciation heuristics:

1) In English and French, final -e is silent;

2) In French, final consonants are dropped (more or less).

Unfortunately, if one applies both rules in succession, "fixe" gets
rendered [fi].  I think the fact of two {x}es in succession doesn't
help either: she remembers that the first {x} goes away, but then
overdoes it so that the second one disappears too.

Of course, when calm she knows the correct rules, but can't quite
keep them straight under the pressure of face-to-face conversation.
(Which is a strange expression: until the telephone, there was no
other kind!  Similar cases: "analog watch", "snow skiing", "postal mail".)

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