Re: E and e

En réponse à Christian Thalmann <cinga@...>:

> --- 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.
Too bad, that's the most common pronunciation.

  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.
>
Well, I doubt you can consider the Swiss dialects as having anything to do with
France's French. Swiss French sounds extremely special to my ears.

> 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].
>
Strange that you have [seziR] but [EmA~]. I would have understood that you
would close all /E/ in open vowels into [e], but what you have is just
strange :)) . I have [sEziR] and [Ema~].

> 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?
>
No. We pronounce as spelt (there's a reason for those spellings you
know :))) ). But as you said, those cases are *mirrored in the orthography*.
Those are well-known alternations, which don't have a different status from
alternations like "pair"-"parité" (/E/-/a/ alternation). But "saisir"
and "aimer" *don't* have such alternations, which is reflected in the different
spelling (actually, "aimer" used to have an /E/-/a/ alternation, but it was
levelled out in the 16th century).

> (I guess it would not be helpful if I mentioned that the
> Robert agrees with me on this. ;-)
>
On the pronunciation of "gréviste" and "sévérité"? Of course! I agree with you
too :)) . But it's a phone*m*ic alternation, very well-known, that words
like "aimer" don't have.

>
>  > 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.  ;-)))
I told you that Swiss French was not a good example :))) .

  Seriously:  I wouldn't recognize [Ze]
> as "jet" if I heard it...  even in "jet d'eau", I'd
> probably think of "Judo" first.  ;-)
>
And you'd be soooo wrong...

Well, I'm just talking about the French language I've heard everywhere I've
gone since my youth, and this is how about everyone who didn't have a strong
recognisable accent talked. Anyone who talked like you did would be immediately
recognise as not French (in the national sense) or extremely dialectical. It
would probably provoke difficulties of communication.

Christophe.

http://rainbow.conlang.free.fr

It takes a straight mind to create a twisted conlang.