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

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

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