Re: French spelling scheme

On Wed, 2 May 2001 21:19:14 +0000, Raymond Brown <ray.brown@...>
wrote:

>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"
In a sense :)

This is all getting kind of out of hand... I should have made it clearer
that my conspelling is more just "artistic" and "for fun" than "practical"
and "serious". But I don't mind it being criticized :) And if anyone with
the means to change French spelling would take this whole system with the
intention of implementing it, I might protest to certain features on
practical grounds, though I like them aesthetically.

Hope I haven't wasted your gunpowder... :) :)

>[Thinks: Christophe, doesn't "home" suggest /om/ (helmet) rather than /Om/
>"man" ?]
I guess that's true; you guys have just alerted me to that /o/ ~ /O/
distinction; this is all proving quite useful indeed :)

>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.
Hey, you're right about "trop"... Thanks! :) But that doesn't change my
argument much; I'm still saying that representation of the underlying
elements - wherever they may be - is both practical and necessary.

>But IMO /pa(z)/ is very different from /bo/ ~ /bel/.
... The rime of the word changes in a prevocalic environment... they seem
to have that in common, as far as I can see. The level of change is
admittedly different - I'd compare it to "bon" [bo~] ~ [bO~n] instead.

>>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.
Not in the strictest sense, but it is a more useful guide to correct
pronunciation than a strictly phonetic representation would be, IMHO.

I think we have differing views on how orthographies should work; I
recognize and respect yours (which I believe to be of the "phonetic" kind),
but do not favor it myself.

>>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.
Oops; I meant so say: "e" as in "is". My scheme would do away with the -t
in "et", and the -s- in "est", leaving "e" and "et".

>The final -p in "coup" is never pronounced in modern and has been
>completely silent for a few centuries now.
Now that I think about it, that's quite true; which means that I'd not have
that -p in my scheme.

>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  :)
That's a good point; I'd very much like any orthographic reform to clarify
that whole thing. Perhaps it cannot be clarified, as there seems to be some
idiolectic factor going on... Cristophe?

Regards,
Óskar

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