Re: French spelling scheme

At 5:09 am -0400 2/5/01, Oskar Gudlaugsson wrote:
[snip]
>"au chateau"
>"a l'homme"
>"beau chateau"
>"bel homme"
>
>In my version:
>
>"al chatel"
>"al home"
>"bel chatel"
>"bel home"
But surely, on that argument:
"du chataeu"
"de l'homme"
"vieux chateau"
"viel homme"

..should also become:
"del chateau"
"del home"
"viel chateau"
"viel home"

[Thinks: Christophe, doesn't "home" suggest /om/ (helmet) rather than /Om/
"man" ?]

>
>I have no knowledge of modern French linguistics, but someone could easily
>make me believe that there's an _underlying /l/_ in "au"; it seems justified
>for all practical purposes. At least as much as there's an underlying /p/ in
>"trop" and /s/ in "pas", which linguists do seem to agree on, at least
>according to what I've read.
There's no underlying /p/ in "trop" - the sound became utterly silent
centuries ago.  But there is indeed an underlying /z/ (not /s/) in "pas" in
that it is actually pronounced /paz/ in some contexts.

But IMO /pa(z)/ is very different from /bo/ ~ /bel/.

I regret I cannot agree on the "silent l" - I'm with Christophe on that one.

>
[snip]

>I've included my original post below, for your convenience :)
>
>As to the "disappearing" final consonants, it would simply be detrimental
>not to represent them in the orthography. Very detrimental. I'll rather
>learn French with a rule saying "don't pronounce the p, t, s at the end of
>words, and nasalize + cut the m, n - except if a vowel follows",
But that doesn't represent the pronunciation of modern French.

>than a
>non-rule which would say "If a vowel follows "pa" as in "step", pronounce
>[z], if a vowel follows "e" as in "and", pronounce [t], if a vowel follows
>"cou" as in "blow", pronounce [p]..."

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.

>The silent finals are, whether we like
>it or not, phonemic,
No they are not - only some of them.

>and must be represented by the orthography. Otherwise
>there'd be utter chaos for the foreign student.
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.

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  :)

Ray.

PS - I'll reply to Christophe's mail when I have more time.

=========================================
A mind which thinks at its own expense
will always interfere with language.
                   [J.G. Hamann 1760]
=========================================

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