Irregular pronounciation-orthography in French? - French Language2024-03-29T02:01:01Zhttp://www.forum.french-linguistics.co.uk/forum/topics/irregular-1?commentId=3179028%3AComment%3A19856&feed=yes&xn_auth=noI actually suspect that most…tag:www.forum.french-linguistics.co.uk,2010-12-18:3179028:Comment:198902010-12-18T03:46:12.405ZNeil Coffeyhttp://www.forum.french-linguistics.co.uk/profile/NeilCoffey
I actually suspect that most of the time in the singular, the [t] is pronounced. You mention what you call "exceptions", but it seems to me that these are very commom expressions, and that the use of "fait" without it being in one lof these expressions is possibly itself the exception. I confess I don't have raw data at hand just now to back this suspicion up, on the other hand.<br></br>
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I wouldn't overinterpret the transcription chosen by a particular dicitonary, incidentally. (By the way,…
I actually suspect that most of the time in the singular, the [t] is pronounced. You mention what you call "exceptions", but it seems to me that these are very commom expressions, and that the use of "fait" without it being in one lof these expressions is possibly itself the exception. I confess I don't have raw data at hand just now to back this suspicion up, on the other hand.<br/>
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I wouldn't overinterpret the transcription chosen by a particular dicitonary, incidentally. (By the way, there's no such thing as "the" dictionary-- just different ones compiled by different human editors, none of whom have any special relationship with any linguistic god to tell them the "right" answer.) The editor/transcriber probably isn't going off any actual data either... Sorry to be slightly nerdy, b…tag:www.forum.french-linguistics.co.uk,2010-12-17:3179028:Comment:198732010-12-17T13:56:16.071ZNeil Coffeyhttp://www.forum.french-linguistics.co.uk/profile/NeilCoffey
Sorry to be slightly nerdy, but I don't think strictly speaking you can class this as liaison-- it's simply a property of the word fait that in the singular, the final -t is usually pronounced.<br/>
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Compare: "le lait est froid"-- would you ever proounce the "t"...? If this was a liaison context and not just a property of the word "fait", then you'd probably expect it to work for other words too.
Sorry to be slightly nerdy, but I don't think strictly speaking you can class this as liaison-- it's simply a property of the word fait that in the singular, the final -t is usually pronounced.<br/>
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Compare: "le lait est froid"-- would you ever proounce the "t"...? If this was a liaison context and not just a property of the word "fait", then you'd probably expect it to work for other words too. What about "au fait"? It says…tag:www.forum.french-linguistics.co.uk,2010-12-17:3179028:Comment:198562010-12-17T12:16:11.635ZAdam Kimhttp://www.forum.french-linguistics.co.uk/profile/AdamKim
<p>What about "au fait"? It says that I should pronounce the "-t" in "fait" according to the dictionary.</p>
<p>What about "au fait"? It says that I should pronounce the "-t" in "fait" according to the dictionary.</p> Yes, the fact that agenda and…tag:www.forum.french-linguistics.co.uk,2010-05-29:3179028:Comment:144262010-05-29T15:00:48.926ZNeil Coffeyhttp://www.forum.french-linguistics.co.uk/profile/NeilCoffey
Yes, the fact that <b>agenda</b> and (arguably) <b>appendice</b> are "loanwords" is surely a factor, but they're still irregularities. Neither is particularly recent, incidentally-- they've both hand ample ample time for their spelling to be brought in line with the pronunciation if there was a desire to do so.
Yes, the fact that <b>agenda</b> and (arguably) <b>appendice</b> are "loanwords" is surely a factor, but they're still irregularities. Neither is particularly recent, incidentally-- they've both hand ample ample time for their spelling to be brought in line with the pronunciation if there was a desire to do so. Well, let's see.
From http:/…tag:www.forum.french-linguistics.co.uk,2010-05-29:3179028:Comment:144222010-05-29T03:00:28.825ZAdam Kimhttp://www.forum.french-linguistics.co.uk/profile/AdamKim
Well, let's see.<br />
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From <a href="http://shtooka.net/collections/fra/en/" target="_blank">http://shtooka.net/collections/fra/en/</a> abasourdir has either [s] or [z].<br />
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"agenda, appendice" are recently learned loanwords from Latin and possibly being read in a Catholic Church convention in France at that time.
Well, let's see.<br />
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From <a href="http://shtooka.net/collections/fra/en/" target="_blank">http://shtooka.net/collections/fra/en/</a> abasourdir has either [s] or [z].<br />
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"agenda, appendice" are recently learned loanwords from Latin and possibly being read in a Catholic Church convention in France at that time. Yes, absolutely, there are ir…tag:www.forum.french-linguistics.co.uk,2010-05-29:3179028:Comment:144172010-05-29T01:02:20.824ZNeil Coffeyhttp://www.forum.french-linguistics.co.uk/profile/NeilCoffey
Yes, absolutely, there are irregularities in the spelling>sound correspondence (though I think <b>Monsieur</b> is arguably as much an irregularity as any other case).<br />
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Some cases to think about:<br />
- In <b>suspect</b>, the final <b>-ct</b> isn't pronounced; in <b>abject</b>, it is;<br />
- In <b>cognac</b>, the <b>gn</b> is pronounced a bit like the <i>ni</i> in English <i>onion</i>; in <b>cognitif</b>, it's pronounced like <i>gn</i> in English <i>cognitive</i>;<br />
- In <b>aiguiser</b>, the <b>ui</b> is…
Yes, absolutely, there are irregularities in the spelling>sound correspondence (though I think <b>Monsieur</b> is arguably as much an irregularity as any other case).<br />
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Some cases to think about:<br />
- In <b>suspect</b>, the final <b>-ct</b> isn't pronounced; in <b>abject</b>, it is;<br />
- In <b>cognac</b>, the <b>gn</b> is pronounced a bit like the <i>ni</i> in English <i>onion</i>; in <b>cognitif</b>, it's pronounced like <i>gn</i> in English <i>cognitive</i>;<br />
- In <b>aiguiser</b>, the <b>ui</b> is normally pronounced as an <i>i</i>; but in <b>aguille</b>, it's pronounced as in the <b>ui</b> of <b>h<u>ui</u>t</b>;<br />
- There are cases were not all speakers agree on the pronunciation of <b>s</b> between two vowels (e.g. you'll hear people pronounce <b>aba<u>s</u>ourdir</b> with either [s] or [z]), and there are complications when the preceding vowel is a nasalised vowel-- e.g. in <b>tran<u>s</u>atlantique</b>, it tends to be a [z], but in <b>intrin<u>s</u>èque</b> it's a [s];<br />
- It's often not totally predictable whether a final consonant is pronounced or not: e.g. the final <b>-c</b> is pronounced in <b>lac</b>, but usually not in <b>estomac</b>;<br />
- The odd other isolated case, e.g. in the words <b>agenda</b>, <b>appendice</b>, the <b>en</b> is generally pronounced as through written <i>in</i>; the word <b>femme</b> as though written <i>famme</i> etc.<br />
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I'm not aware off the top of my head of a case where <b>ss</b> is pronounced [z], other than "acidentally" when followed by a <b>d</b> sound (which is a general process in French -- so e.g. in <b>pre<u>ss</u>e de France</b>, the <b>ss</b> would tend to be pronounced as a <i>z</i> because of the following <b>d</b>; but the same is true of <b>piè<u>c</u>e d'identité</b>, where the <b>c</b> would tend to be pronounced as a [z] for the same reason).