----- Original Message -----
From: "Christophe Grandsire" <christophe.grandsire@...>
To: <CONLANG@...>
Sent: Tuesday, April 22, 2003 1:41 PM
Subject: Re: Telona on the web at last
> En réponse à Jean-François Colson :
>
>
> >The [@] is deleted then [Z@tOfr] becomes [ZtOfr].
>
> Rather [R] than [r], unless you speak with alveolar trills ;))) .
Of course! To indicate the pronunciation of words many dictionaries use the
normal r instead of the turned r (in English) or the turned small cap. r (in
French). That's why I made that mistake.
>
> >Because of the following [t] the [Z] assimilates to a [S] ==> [StOfr].
>
> Yep :) .
>
> >But what I avoid (therefore I didn't think to it) is the deletion of the
> >final "r".
> >More I very rarely spend time in cafés...
>
> Me too ;)) . I personally never delete the final [R].
>
> >In fact the deletion (which I avoid) of the final consonant in words
ending
> >in a consonant cluster is quite common in Belgium and it is combined with
> >another phenomenon: the unvoicing of the final consonant. Then "table"
> >[tabl] becomes an homonym of "tape" [tap]!!!
>
> Hehe, never really heard that but it doesn't surprise me :)) .
Look at http://www.chez.com/belgicismes/ and click on "Prononciation".
Of course that's only a tendency and not everybody speak like that.
E.g. in § c.: I never say [mwatSe], [dZa:p] or [tSEd] but I find difficult
to hear the difference between the "-gn-" of "pignon" and the "-ni-" of
"opinion".
And about the § d.: When I was younger (more than 15 years ago -- I'll be 28
years old next month) I remember I said [fo~tE~nlevEk] instead of
[fo~tEnlevEk] (Fontaine-l'Évêque, a town when I lived during 7 years (où
j'ai vécu 7 ans)), [Z@tE~m] instead of [Z@tEm], [teknisjE~n] instead of
[teknisjEn] (technicienne, the feminine of technicien [teknisjE~]... Is that
a Belgian pecularity or is that predicted by some "universal"? -- I'm not a
linguist.
> The tendency
> for unvoicing final stops is there already in Standard French (where for
> instance the liaison consonant of a word like "grand", i.e. the final stop
> that appears in speech only when the next word begins with a vowel, is a
> [t] rather than a [d]), and deleting final liquids after a stop fits with
> the Sonority Sequencing Principle (a universal, thus only a tendency like
> every universal in linguistics ;)) ) which states that the maximum of
> sonority must be the syllable peak and that sonority must decrease around
> it, with stops being less sonorant than fricatives, themselves less
> sonorants than liquids and approximants. So for instance a coda like [bl]
> is breaking this principle, with sonority increasing rather than
> decreasing.
That's exactly why I sometimes pronounce the final "e".
> Standard French doesn't mind, but fast spoken French and
> obviously Belgian French seem to put more importance in this principle and
> thus delete the final liquid to erase the break :)) .
>
> Christophe Grandsire.
>
>
http://rainbow.conlang.free.fr
>
> You need a straight mind to invent a twisted conlang.
>