Re: French spelling scheme

En réponse à Raymond Brown <ray.brown@...>:

>
> [Thinks: Christophe, doesn't "home" suggest /om/ (helmet) rather than
> /Om/
> "man" ?]
>
Indeed. That's the reason why French uses double consonnants after {e} or {o},
to indicate whether we have low-mid or high-mid vowels.

>
> There's no underlying /p/ in "trop" - the sound became utterly silent
> centuries ago.
I have to disagree here. I, and every French I ever talked to for that matter,
pronounce a /p/ of liaison when "trop" is followed by a word beginning with a
vowel (except when it begins with the so-called "h aspiré" which merely prevents
liaison). Saying /troabO~da~/ instead of /tropabO~da~/ for "trop abondant"
sounds extremely clumsy to me.

>
> The final -t in "et" was _never_ pronounced at any period in French.  In
> Vulgar Latin it was already /e/.  The final -t is merely an etymology
> spelling.
>
> The final -p in "coup" is never pronounced in modern and has been
> completely silent for a few centuries now.
>
I agree for those ones.

>
> Not utter chaos - but chaos certainly.  If I come across an unknown
> French
> words ending in -s, I'm never sure whether it is (a) always pronounced
> /s/,
> or (b) generally silent, but pronounced /z/ in liaison.  I have to ask
> my
> wife (who is pretty fluent) or, if she doesn't know, my daughter-in-law
> who
> was born & brought up right in the center of the Hexagon.
>
Well, for that matter, for most words that do have an ending -s which has to be
pronounced (like "pastis" for instance :) ), even French speakers uses both
possibilities to pronounce it or not, depending on their idiolect. So you
wouldn't make that many mistakes. The "normal" pronunciation is silent -s.
Pronounced -s is considered exceptional, the words that have it usually are of
clear foreign origin (at least to us French :) ).

> And then, of course, we have those lovely words "tous", "six" and "dix"
> where the final consonant can be pronounced /s/, /z/ or zero according
> to
> context  :)
>
He he... The context is easy for those ones: /s/ when pronounced in isolation
(as nouns), /z/ when pronounced in front of a vowel (as adjectives), silent when
pronounced in front of a consonnant (as adjectives). I've heard the zero
pronunciation instead of /s/ though (very dialectical...).

> Ray.
>
> PS - I'll reply to Christophe's mail when I have more time.
>
OK :)

Christophe.

http://rainbow.conlang.free.fr

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