French phonology is the sound system of French. This article discusses mainly the phonology of all the varieties of Standard French. Notable phonological features include the uvular r present in some accents, nasal vowels, and three processes affecting word-final sounds:
liaison, a specific instance of sandhi in which word-final consonants are not pronounced unless they are followed by a word beginning with a vowel; elision, in which certain instances of (schwa) are elided (such as when final before an initial vowel); (resyllabification), in which word-final and word-initial consonants may be moved across a syllable boundary, with syllables crossing word boundaries.
An example of the above is this: Written: Meaning: "We left the window open." In isolation: Together: (Paris), (Northern)
Consonants +Consonant phonemes of FrenchLabialDental/AlveolarPalatalDorsal Nasal () Plosive Fricative Approximant
Phonetic notes: are laminal denti-alveolar , while are dentalised laminal alveolar (commonly called 'dental'), pronounced with the blade of the tongue very close to the back of the upper front teeth, with the tip resting behind lower front teeth. Word-final consonants are always released. Generally, are voiced throughout and are unaspirated. is usually apical alveolar but sometimes laminal denti-alveolar . Before , it can be realised as retroflex . In current pronunciation, is merging with .Phonological Variation in French: Illustrations from Three Continents, edited by Randall Scott Gess, Chantal Lyche, Trudel Meisenburg. The velar nasal is not a native phoneme of French, but it occurs in loan words such as , , and , and in the pseudo-anglicism ('jogging'). Some speakers who have difficulty with this consonant realise it as a sequence or replace it with . It could be considered a separate phoneme in Meridional French, e.g. pain ('bread') vs. penne ('quill'). The approximants correspond to the close vowels . While there are a few minimal pairs (such as 'rented' (third person sg.) and 'law'), there are many cases where there is free variation. Belgian French may merge with or . Some dialects of French have a palatal lateral (French: l mouillé, 'wet l'), but in the modern standard variety, it has merged with . See also Glides and diphthongs, below. The French rhotic has a wide range of realizations: the voiced uvular fricative , also realised as an approximant , with a voiceless positional allophone , the uvular trill , the alveolar trill , and the alveolar tap . These are all recognised as the phoneme , but and are considered dialectal. The most common pronunciation is as a default realisation, complemented by a devoiced variant in the positions before or after a voiceless obstruent or at the end of a sentence. See French guttural r and the map in this section. Velars and may become palatalised to and before , and more variably before . Word-final may also be palatalised to . Velar palatalisation has traditionally been associated with the working class, though recent studies suggest it is spreading to more demographics of large French cities.
+Example wordsVoicelessVoicedIPAExampleGlossIPAExampleGloss'louse''mud''all', 'anything' (possibility)'sweet' (food, feelings), 'gentle' (person), 'mild' (weather)'neck''taste''crazy''you (pl. or formal)''under', 'on' (drugs), 'in' (packaging), 'within' (times)'shoo''cabbage', 'lovely' (person, pet)'cheek''soft', 'weak' (stronger: person, actions)'we, us''gnu' (dated, in modern French)'kung-fu''wolf''wheel'
Geminates Although double consonant letters appear in the orthographic form of many French words, geminate consonants are relatively rare in the pronunciation of such words. The following cases can be identified.
The geminate pronunciation is found in the future and conditional forms of the verbs ('to run') and ('to die'). The conditional form il mourrait ('he would die'), for example, contrasts with the imperfect form il mourait ('he was dying'). Most modern speakers have reduced to in other words, such as il pourrait ('he could'). Other verbs that have a double orthographically in the future and conditional are pronounced with a simple : il pourra ('he will be able to'), il verra ('he will see').
When the prefix combines with a base that begins with n, the resulting word is sometimes pronounced with a geminate and similarly for the variants of the same prefix im-, il-, ir-: ('innate') ('immortal') ('illegible') ('irresponsible')
Other cases of optional gemination can be found in words such as ('syllable'), ('grammar') and ('illusion'). The pronunciation of such words, in many cases a spelling pronunciation, varies by speaker and gives rise to widely varying stylistic effects., cited in . In particular the gemination of consonants other than the liquids and nasals is "generally considered affected or pedantic". Examples of stylistically marked pronunciations include ('addition') and ('intelligence').
Gemination of doubled and is typical of the Languedoc region as opposed to other southern accents.
A few cases of gemination do not correspond to double consonant letters in the orthography. The deletion of word-internal schwas (see below), for example, can give rise to sequences of identical consonants: là-dedans ('inside'), l'honnêteté ('honesty'). The elided form of the object pronoun l' ('him/her/it') is also realised as a geminate when it appears after another l to avoid misunderstanding: Il l'a mangé ('He ate it') Il a mangé ('He ate') Gemination is obligatory in such contexts.
Finally, a word pronounced with emphatic stress can exhibit gemination of its first syllable-initial consonant: formidable ('terrific') épouvantable ('horrible')
Liaison
Many words in French can be analyzed as having a "latent" final consonant that is pronounced only in certain syntactic contexts when the next word begins with a vowel. For example, the word ('two') is pronounced in isolation or before a consonant-initial word (deux jours → 'two days'), but in deux ans (→ 'two years'), the linking or liaison consonant is pronounced.
Vowels
Standard French contrasts up to 13 oral vowels and up to 4 nasal vowels. The schwa (in the center of the diagram next to this paragraph) is not necessarily a distinctive sound. Even though it often merges with one of the mid front rounded vowels, its patterning suggests that it is a separate phoneme (see the subsection Schwa below).
The table below primarily lists vowels in contemporary Parisian French, with vowels present only in other dialects in parentheses.
+ Oral Front Central Back Close Close-mid Open-mid () Open ()+Nasal Front Back Open-mid () Open
While some dialects feature a long distinct from and a distinction between an open front and an open back , Parisian French features only and just one open vowel realised as central . Some dialects also feature a rounded , which has merged with in Paris.
In Metropolitan French, while is phonologically distinct, its phonetic quality tends to coincide with either or .
+ Example words Vowel Example IPA Orthography Gloss Oral vowels 'if' 'fairy' 'does' † 'party' 'known' 'those' 'sister' † 'this'/'that' 'under' 'silly' 'fate' 'his'/'her' † 'dough' Nasal vowels 'without' 'his' John C. Wells prefers the symbol , as the vowel has become more open in recent times and is noticeably different from oral : 'twig' † 'brown' Semi-vowels 'yesterday' 'eight' 'yes' † Not distinguished in all dialects.
Close vowels In contrast with the mid vowels, there is no tense–lax contrast in close vowels. However, non-phonemic lax (near-close) appear in Quebec as allophones of when the vowel is both phonetically short (so not before ) and in a closed syllable, so that e.g. petite 'small ()' differs from petit 'small ()' not only in the presence of the final but also in the tenseness of the . Laxing always occurs in stressed closed syllables, but it is also found in other environments to various degrees.
In Metropolitan French, are consistently close , but the exact height of is somewhat debatable as it has been variously described as close and near-close .
Mid vowels Although the mid vowels contrast in certain environments, there is a limited distributional overlap so they often appear in complementary distribution. Generally, close-mid vowels () are found in open syllables, and open-mid vowels () are found in closed syllables. However, there are minimal pairs: open-mid and close-mid contrast in final-position open syllables: ('was going'), vs. ('gone'); likewise, open-mid and contrast with close-mid and mostly in closed monosyllables, such as these: ('young'), vs. ('fast', verb), ('rock'), vs. ('hoarse'), ('Rhodes'), vs. ('[I] lurk'), ('apple'), vs. ('palm'), ('good', feminine), vs. ('Beaune', the city).
Beyond the general rule, known as the loi de position among French phonologists, there are some exceptions. For instance, and are found in closed syllables ending in , and only is found in closed monosyllables before , , and .
The Parisian realization of has been variously described as central and centralized to before , in both cases becoming similar to .
The phonemic opposition of and has been lost in the southern half of France, where these two sounds are found only in complementary distribution. The phonemic oppositions of and and of and in terminal open syllables have been lost in almost all of France, but not in Belgium or in areas with an Arpitan substrate, where and are still opposed as and .
Open vowels The phonemic contrast between front and back is sometimes no longer maintained in Parisian French, which leads some researchers to reject the idea of two distinct phonemes."Some phoneticians claim that there are two distinct as in French, but evidence from speaker to speaker and sometimes within the speech of a single speaker is too contradictory to give empirical support to this claim". However, the back is always maintained in Northern French, but only in final open syllables, (lawyer) , but in final closed syllables, the phoneme is fronted to , but it is always long, (pasta) . The distinction is still clearly maintained in many dialects such as Quebec French.Postériorisation du / a /
While there is much variation among speakers in France, a number of general tendencies can be observed. First of all, the distinction is most often preserved in word-final stressed syllables such as in these minimal pairs: → ('stain'), vs. → ('task') → ('leg'), vs. → ('paste, pastry') → ('rat'), vs. → ('short')
There are certain environments that prefer one open vowel over the other. For example, is preferred after and before : ('three'), ('gas').
The difference in quality is often reinforced by a difference in length (but the difference is contrastive in final closed syllables). The exact distribution of the two vowels varies greatly from speaker to speaker."For example, some have the front in 'breaks', and the back in 'cup', but for others the reverse is true. There are also, of course, those who use the same vowel, either or , in both words".
Back is much rarer in unstressed syllables, but it can be encountered in some common words: ('castle'), ('past').
Morphologically complex words derived from words containing stressed do not retain it: → ('aged', from → ) rarissime → ('very rare', from → ).
Even in the final syllable of a word, back may become if the word in question loses its stress within the extended phonological context: J'ai été au bois → ('I've been to the woods'), J'ai été au bois de Vincennes → ('I've been to the Vincennes woods').
Nasal vowels