Re: E and e

--- In conlang@yahoogroups.com, Christophe Grandsire
<christophe.grandsire@F...> wrote:

 > > So you pronounce "baiser", "appaiser", "baigner", "j'ai"
 > > etc. with /E/?
 > >
 >
 > Yes.

I find that surprising.  I have an [e] in those cases,
which kinda proves that it represents an actually spoken
pronunciation (if only in the local environment of my
relatives, my teachers and Télé Suisse Romande), since
I've learnt my French pronunciation by ear exclusively.

I'm not pronouncing "ai" as [e] in general, it seems to
happen only in non-final syllables with a front-vowel
syllable following, such as in "aimer" [eme] or "saisir"
[seziR], but "aimant" [EmA~] and "aime" [Em].

This phenomenon /E/->[e] before front syllables is even
mirrored in the orthography in cases like "lèse" and
"léser" or "grève" and "gréviste" or "sévère" and
"sévérité".  Do you say "grèviste", "sévèrité" in real
French?

(I guess it would not be helpful if I mentioned that the
Robert agrees with me on this. ;-)



 > /e/ and /E/ are phone*m*es in French,

Agreed.



 > so "jet" /Ze/ and "j'ai" /ZE/ are a
 > minimal pair for instance.

Yes, "jet" /ZE/ and "j'ai" /Ze/ are indeed a minimal
pair.  ;-)))  Seriously:  I wouldn't recognize [Ze]
as "jet" if I heard it...  even in "jet d'eau", I'd
probably think of "Judo" first.  ;-)



-- Christian Thalmann

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