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French open and closed vowels | ||
Tags: Pronunciation | French | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| berabero89 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 4644 days ago 101 posts - 137 votes  Speaks: English, Amharic* Studies: Spanish, Japanese, French | Message 1 of 12 11 February 2013 at 6:33am | IP Logged | ||
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At the moment, I am studying French full-time and have come across something that leaves
me perplexed--the distribution of open and closed o's in French. The rule functions well enough with the eu digraph and ai/e, but it seems to me that syllabification is completely ignored in the distribution of open and closed o's. For example, I read that "phantomatique" contains an open o, although if broken apart, it would become: phan-to- ma-tique, leaving the o in an open syllable. Thus, following the "rules", that o should have been closed, but it isn't. I also believed that open/closed distinctions were the reason for the writing of words like "homme" and "bonne" with double letters and that words ending in -one and -ome were to be closed. Yet, in the word "téléphone", the o is open, as it is (optionally, i believe) in "polygone". I do realize that southern speakers tend to follow the "rules" more, but I am modeling my speech on the Parisian accent, so help with this would be appreciated. Thank you. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5383 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 2 of 12 11 February 2013 at 4:11pm | IP Logged | ||
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Fantomatique has a closed o, or so says Le Petit Robert, as does fantôme.
However, in several dialects of French, closed o tends to disappear, so many would say fantôme with an open o, which would be unthinkable for speakers of other dialects (such as mine). For many, the distinction between cote and côte no longer exists, for instance. This issue is probably, more than anything else, at the source of your confusion. As for the spelling of single or geminate consonants, I think you'll have to look at etymology more than pronunciation. Edited by Arekkusu on 11 February 2013 at 4:15pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Ogrim Heptaglot Senior Member France Joined 4641 days ago 991 posts - 1896 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Spanish, French, Romansh, German, Italian Studies: Russian, Catalan, Latin, Greek, Romanian | Message 3 of 12 11 February 2013 at 5:21pm | IP Logged | ||
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I've tried to pay attention to the pronunciation by my French colleagues (admittedly many of them are from Alsace, but they speak pretty "standard" French), and it is very difficult to hear any clear difference between open and closed o, like in the example Arekkusu referes to (cote-côte). I guess that it follows the same development as for open and closed a, /a/ et /ɑ/ (patte/pâte) or /œ/ et /ø/ (jeune/jeûne), which have become interchangeble in many French dialects, and including people who speak "standard" French.
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4709 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 4 of 12 11 February 2013 at 5:41pm | IP Logged | ||
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This distinction is maintained in Belgian French, usually (maybe under influence of the
Dutch language, where vowel quality and length is important?) According to the French wikipedia on Belgian French: Le parler des locuteurs belges a cependant de nombreux traits communs 53: maintien d'une opposition entre [a] et [aː] (patte et pâte se prononcent différemment) ; maintien d'une opposition entre [ɛ̃] et [œ̃] (brin et brun se prononcent différemment) ; maintien d'une opposition entre [ɛ] et [ɛː] (mettre et maître se prononcent différemment) ; maintien d'une opposition entre au [o] et o [ɔ]: peau, beau, d'eau ne riment pas avec pot, bot, dos. prononciation de la finale -osse avec o ouvert bref [ɔ]: fosse, grosse riment avec bosse mais pas avec fausse, Beauce prononciation de [ɛ] au lieu de [e] dans les syllabes ouvertes atones (les est prononcé [lɛ]) ; One of the consequences of this trait is that in Belgium, the conditional and future tense are not pronounced the same (as they are not in standard French either), and thus Belgians make much less mistakes with that stumbling block. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5383 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 5 of 12 11 February 2013 at 6:01pm | IP Logged | ||
Open o in an open syllable word-finally? Really? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4709 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 6 of 12 11 February 2013 at 6:09pm | IP Logged | ||
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That sounded weird to me too, to be honest, but I copied it from the wiki. However it is
true that in Belgium the vowels sound a bit different, just because Belgian French has been influenced by Dutch (there are plenty of loans in use in Belgian French that would never be accepted in standard French. I for example would say "kot" for a student's dormitory, as in Flemish). If you want to know more, I suggest that you hit up the wiki page and check the source, I just copied the first couple lines about vowel pronunciation, there are some other differences as well (for example, loanwords with a "w" are pronounced /w/ in Belgium, not /v/ - 'wagon' and not 'vagon'. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| michaelyus Diglot Groupie United Kingdom Joined 4567 days ago 53 posts - 87 votes Speaks: Mandarin, English* Studies: Italian, French, Cantonese, Korean, Catalan, Vietnamese, Lingala, Spanish Studies: Hokkien | Message 7 of 12 12 February 2013 at 2:15am | IP Logged | ||
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I thought the rule in unstressed syllables (mainly non-final syllables in polysyllabic
words) that the "o" was realised as "o moyen", of short length, between [ɔ] and [o] in standard French. But the "o moyen" is now usually realised as [ɔ], especially in French from France (and on a side note is being fronted ever more towards cardinal [ɞ]). For me, what has always been a source of confusion how stress works for disyllabic words and how this affects the distribution of the open/close /e/ and /o/ vowels. E.g. oser and poser I always use [o] despite its not being the non-final syllable (which would lead me to default to [ɔ]). I've always rationalised it as being because in infinitives in -er and -ir the stress is not as firmly on the end syllable; hence having to check whether /ɔ/ or /o/ is employed in such disyllabic verbs. Compare it with pronouncing "j'oserai" as [ʒɔz(ə)ʁe] with [o] having changed to [ɔ] by its position in a polysyllabic word. I don't know how other speakers across the Francophonie realise that. But it's been a long time since I've read anything on "la loi de position" with respect to vowels in standard classical French, much less anything on the changes happening! Edited by michaelyus on 12 February 2013 at 2:37am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Medulin Tetraglot Senior Member Croatia Joined 4670 days ago 1199 posts - 2192 votes Speaks: Croatian*, English, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Norwegian, Hindi, Nepali | Message 8 of 12 12 February 2013 at 6:46am | IP Logged | ||
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You shouldn't forget about the existence of semi/closed ~ semi/open vowels à la Spanish/Latin/Croatian.
In many situations, either open O/E or close O/E can be pronounced as ''o/e moyen'', which is neither open or close. Furthermore, more often than not, modern Parisian French does not ''respect'' vowel qualities indicated in French dictionaries, just like Milan Italian does not ''respect'' Italian vowel distribution shown in Italian dictionaries. -- ''(i) Despite what has been said in 10.6.4, it must be noted that there is a widespread tendency, in open unstressed syllables, to use instead of either /e/ or /ε/ an intermediate vowel (known in French as e moyen), i.e. a vowel whose degree of aperture is between those of /e/ and /ε/; instead of /e/: défend , effort, présence , téléphone; this also applies to the determiners les, des,mes, tes, ses and ces, e.g. les hommes, des fruits, mes amis; instead of /ε/: embêtant, pêcher , prêter, maison ; this also applies to the verb forms (tu) esand (il, elle)est, e.g. tu n’es pas beau, il est là. (ii) Furthermore, many speakers sometimes or always even use /e/ instead of e moyen in words which, under 10.6.4, would otherwise have /ε/, e.g. pêcheur , profession, laideur, prêter, maison, aimer , baiser , aider , cesser , neiger , meilleur, terrible, erroné , perroquet/, tu n’es pas beau, il est là ; this pronunciation is particularly common with c’est /se/. (iii) This is particularly so before stressed /i/ or /y/ – i.e. the vowel is raised to /e/ in anticipation of the following high vowel, e.g.: Stressed /ε/ Unstressed /e/ aigre /εgr/ aigrir /egri:r/ bête /bεt/ bêtise /beti:z/ tête /tεt/ têtu /tety/ – likewise colloquial vêtir,vêtu /veti:r, vety/ beside more formal /vεti:r, vεty/ and stressed (il)vêt /vε/ and (except that there is no corresponding stressed /ε/ ), aigu /egy/. This phenomenon (which applies only to the pair /ε/ ~ /e/ ) is sometimes referred to as vowel harmony (or, in French, l’harmonisation vocalique). The term is sometimes extended to cover the pronunciation of unstressed êor ai as /e/ in open syllables before a following /e/, as in prêter /prete/, etc.; there is some justification for this in the fact that, though /e/ also occurs elsewhere, as in pêcheur /peʃœ:r/ (see above), the use of /e/ rather than /ε/ is more widespread in forms such as aimer,blesser,cesser, than in forms such as aimable, blessant, (nous) cessons. '' (G. Price) Edited by Medulin on 12 February 2013 at 7:11am 3 persons have voted this message useful |
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