Re: French reform (Re: C.Thalmann, & #1)

damien perrotin wrote:

> Skrivet gant Joe:
>
>> Peter Kolb wrote:
>>
>>> I hope the diacritic marks show up properly. If not then as such î is
>>> i^, ï
>>> is i:, and ö is o: .
>>>
>>> On Sun, 10 Apr 2005 08:53:38 +0100, Joe <joe@...> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>>> Some more for the why-reform:
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>  English         Normal French   Transliteration -> Reformed French
>>>
>>>
>>>>> He is sitting:  Il est assis    /ay-tah-see/    -> **Ae tasï, **Aet
>>>>> asï?
>>>>> She is sitting: Elle est assise /ay-tah-seez/   -> **Ae tasïs,
>>>>> **Aet asïs?
>>>>> Why so different a spelling but so same a sound?
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>> Erm, I suspect that it's assuming you know how to pronounce 'il' and
>>>> 'elle', and so is skipping to the verbal construction.  'est' being
>>>> pronounced [et].
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>> I am not assuming that I know how to pronounce the above but whether
>>> the
>>> author (Joseph Lemaître) knows how to pronounce the above. The above
>>> and the
>>> below are correct transliteration as given by the author.
>>>
>>>
>>
>> No, I mean, it doesn't show 'il' and 'elle' on the transliteration,
>> because it's assuming that you already know about that.  So the
>> radically different pronunciation isn't really that different - the only
>> difference is assis > assise [assi]>[assiz].
>>
>> The problem, I think, with any French reform is that it tends to treat
>> each seperate word, as...well, seperate words.  If they were treated as
>> morphemes, the whole thing would be much clearer.
>>
>> Your sentences, in my preferred idea of reform would become 'i etassi'
>> and 'el etassiz', respectively, where the prefix 'et-' is a kind of
>> verbaliser. However, before a consonant, the 't' of the prefix is
>> elided.  'i emãzhe' (he is eaten), and of course, 'el emãzhe'.
>>
>> Or something like that.  Not being French, I'm somewhat unreliable.
>>
> Well, a few remarks from a native speaker :
>    - I would never say 'i etassi' but  'il etassi' (if I mean 'he's
> sitting') or 'i yetassi" (if I mean 'is sitting in it')
Noted.  It was just an anglophone's approximation, after all.

>    - in 'i emãzhe' the first e is not the same phonem as the second,
> but this may be a feature of my dialect

Ah, interesting.  What is the first, in your dialect?

>    -'pahr-lay frahN-sai'  doesn't only sound anglocentric but also
> plain wrong as 'parlez' is pronounced 'parle', unless you mean "spoke".
> Also, what the use of the h. Length is irrelevant in modern French
> (unless you happen to be from Belgium, that is)
>
I think that's a pronunciation guide for Anglophones.

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