Illustrations of the IPA: French

French G6CILE FOUGERON* AND CAROLINE L. SMITH** Phonetics Laboratory, UCLA, 405 Hilgard Avenue, Los Angeles,

CA

90095-1543,

USA

and *Institut

de Phonetique,

CNRS URA1027,

**Eloquent Technology

The following

description of French

is

Universite Paris

Inc, Ithaca,

NY,

based on the speech of a young Parisian female

speaker. Varieties of French have almost identical inventories; the

be

foutiidl

in the

France

III,

USA

main differences

are to

maintenance or loss of certain contrasts.

Vowels Oral vowels. French vowels, which are

all

monophthongs, are normally described using

four values for height and two or possibly three (front, central, back) for backness. All

back vowels are rounded; there are both rounded and unrounded

sets

of front vowels.

The mid-high and mid-low vowels have limited overlap in their cannot be regarded as allophones. The contrast between [e] and [e]

distributions, but is

found

syllables, in final position (e.g. [se] ses (3rd

person possessive, plural) vs.

and

poignee 'handful'). Elsewhere,

[pwa.jie]

poignet

open syllables and

'wrist' vs. [pwajie]

[e] in

closed syllables: compare [se.vir] sevir

servir 'to serve'. For the other pairs of

mid-low

is

open

[oe]

syllables.

and

[o]

However,

consonant also has an

i

[e]

in

open

'knows*

occurs in

'to rage' vs. [seK.vin]

the contrast between mid-high and

limited for the most part to closed monosyllables. In other environments, the

mid-low vowels in

mid vowels,

[se] sait

occur in closed syllables and the mid-high vowels

[0]

and

[o]

in addition to this general rule, the nature of the syllable-final

effect: the

mid-high vowels

[0]

and

[o] are

found

in syllables

ending

Illustrations

in [z],

and

1966;

Leon

[o] is not

found even

of the IPA

79

monosyllables ending in [k], [p], and [g] (Delattre noticeable that our speaker often produces a markedly centralized allophone of [o], especially before [k]. This is transcribed [o] in the passage below. 1992).

in

It is

Some

speakers have a contrast between two low vowels [a] and [a]; our speaker has only one low vowel, [a], which is central. Schwa, [o], is also a central vowel, with some rounding. Some speakers retain a contrast between long and short vowels in a very few words, but most speakers no longer maintain any length contrast.

Nasalized vowels. Traditionally, French nasalized vowels, [e], [a], [oe],

which

is

replaced by

The vowel counterpart

[e];

have suggested [a]

and

[o].

difference

is

The

[5],

and

[oe].

is described as having four distinctively However, our speaker, like many others, lacks

[e].

produced with tongue and lip position very similar to its oral however, several articulatory studies (e.g. Zerling 1984; Lonchamp 1988) [e] is

that [a]

and

[5] differ substantially

position of the tongue

is

from

their

supposed oral counterparts

similar in [a] and [5], and the

that [5] has a greater degree of lip rounding.

main

articulatory

These authors suggest

that other

symbols might be more appropriate for transcribing these two vowels, but we have retained the traditional usage as none of the alternative proposals has gained widespread acceptance.

a

80 Handbook of the IPA

ku

cou

'neck'

gout

'taste'

J

Illustrations

of the IPA

81

b soleJ S9 dispyte Jakg asyKQ kilete b ply f5K km ilzo vy g vwaja3oe ki savdse avlope da so mato ii so tSbe dako^ k© sslqi ki aKivKe bpKsmje a b liji feKOte sqks KsgaKde k5in b ply f5? alS^ la biz s§ miz a sufle do tut se foKs me ply el sufle ply b vwqjasoeif sene s5 mQtotuK do Iqi finalma el KonSsa b Iqi fcKOte alS? b soleJ komdsa bKije e o bu df momQ b vwajasoe Kejofe ota so mQto gsi la biz dy Kokonet ko b soleJ ete b ply f5K. la biz e

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II

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Orthographic version

La bise

et le soleil sc disputaient,

un voyageur qui

chacun assurant

qu'il aait le plus fort.

s'avan9ait, envelopp6 dans son manteau,

ils

celui qui arriverait le premier ^ le lui faire 6ter serait regard^

Quand

lis

ont vu

sont tomb^s d*accord que

comme

le

plus fort. Alors, la

hise s'est mise k souffler de toutes ses forces, mais plus elle soufflait, plus le voyageur

son manteau autour de

serrait

soleil

commen^a

manteau. Ainsi,

lui.

Finalement, elle renon9a k le

^ briller et au bout d*un

la bise dut reconnaitre

que

moment

le

lui faire 6ter. Alors, le

voyageur^ richauff^, dta son

le soleil 6tait le plus fort.

Acknowledgement I

The

first

author was supported by an Allocation de recherche M.R.T. awarded to ttifiD.EA. dephonitique

de Paris,

References

DELATTRE,

P. (1966). Studies in

French and Comparative Phonetics, The Hague:

Mouton.

L6ON,

P. (1992).

LONCHAMP,

Phonitisme et prononciations dufrangais,

F. (1988).

hude sur la production

Paris:

et la perception

de

Nathan. la parole, les indices

acoustiquesde la nasaliti vocalique, la modification du timbre par la frequence fondamentale. Thdse de Doctorat d'fitat, University de Nancy II. VAlSSlfeRE, J.,

J.

(1992).

Rhythm, accentuation and

Nord, L. and Carlson, R.

(editors),

final lengthening in French. In

Sundberg,

Music, Language, Speech and Brain

(Stockholm: Wenner-Gren International Symposium Series 59), 108-20.

Zerling,

J-P. (1984).

Ph^nomfenes de nasality

et

de nasalisation vocaliques: 6tude

cin^radiographique pour deux locuteurs. Travaux de

Strasbourg 16, 241-66.

I'Institut

de Phonitique de

Handbook

A Guide

of the International Phonetic Association

to the

Use

:

of the International Phonetic Alphabet

International Phonetic Association, July 1999.