zompist bboard

• What linguoboy mentions (['jɛsːə] for yes) does sound like Southern French. Again, Southern French speakers tend to pronounce all "e muets", and even sometimes add a schwa to break consonant clusters. For instance, in Marseilles, pneu becomes [pənø] instead of standard [pnø]. It's not a surprise if Southern French speakers end up adding schwas when speaking English.
• What Ars Lande mentions seems more of a tendency to add an "euh" sound at the end of sentences. That's a verbal tic more than a pronunciation difference, I think.

Ryusenshi wrote:What Ars Lande mentions seems more of a tendency to add an "euh" sound at the end of sentences. That's a verbal tic more than a pronunciation difference, I think.

Speaking of annoying pronunciations, another common feature of Parisian French is to add a voiceless fricative [ç] when a sentence ends with a high front vowel, e.g. merci becomes [mɛχsiç]. I recently realized, to my horror, that I do it all the time. I'm currently trying to stop doing it.

Ryusenshi wrote:Speaking of annoying pronunciations, another common feature of Parisian French is to add a voiceless fricative [ç] when a sentence ends with a high front vowel, e.g. merci becomes [mɛχsiç]. I recently realized, to my horror, that I do it all the time. I'm currently trying to stop doing it.

Ryusenshi wrote: Speaking of annoying pronunciations, another common feature of Parisian French is to add a voiceless fricative [ç] when a sentence ends with a high front vowel, e.g. merci becomes [mɛχsiç]. I recently realized, to my horror, that I do it all the time. I'm currently trying to stop doing it.

Pole, the wrote: Well, French /i/ is extremely close to a fricative anyway, so going → [ʝ̩] and then devoicing it phrase-finally doesn't seem unusual.

Qxentio wrote:

Ryusenshi wrote: Speaking of annoying pronunciations, another common feature of Parisian French is to add a voiceless fricative [ç] when a sentence ends with a high front vowel, e.g. merci becomes [mɛχsiç]. I recently realized, to my horror, that I do it all the time. I'm currently trying to stop doing it.

Pole, the wrote: Well, French /i/ is extremely close to a fricative anyway, so going → [ʝ̩] and then devoicing it phrase-finally doesn't seem unusual.

I've recently noticed that with lots of German speakers as well. For example, "die" becomes [dʝ̩] or something similar. I find it extremely annoying. My own [iː] is lowered and closer to [eː] than to a syllabic fricative.

Viktor77 wrote:My theory is that French often adds a final /2/ to the end of intonatonal phrases so the stress has somewhere to fall. When speaking French one doesn't always properly plan intonational phrases so if the phrase can't permit final stress on the last syllable another syllable is added. This can be done regardless of whether or not the last syllable has a schwa.

I think the fricatization of final /i/ is also due to stress. It may follow the same paradigm where additional force is added to the /i/ when the phrase isn't ready to be finished and so it's like carrying over the stress through fricatization. This isn't exclusive to Paris. I learned to do this in Belgium and it's common even in some very high registers.

What's interesting in French is that the "parler jeune" is losing more and more liaison. When I was in Belgium I was exposed to the local parler jeune and so when I taught French a few weeks ago I told my students that liaison in "ils sont allés" is optional. It turns out it's required in the standard but to my ears and several of my francophone friends there was nothing wrong with /il sO~ ale/.

Soap wrote:I remembered this one while i was in the shower this morning.

Qxentio wrote:<patio> baffles me every time I hear it spoken aloud as [ˈpæ.ɾi.o͜ʊ]. I always read the word as [ˈpe͜ɪ.ʃo͜ʊ] in my head.

frankskim wrote:Also, I used to [...] shift the initial stress of "alias" onto the following syllable (with accompanying incorrect vowels, schwa and /ai/)

linguoboy wrote:Someone just reminded me that for ages I thought febrile was /ˈfɛbrɪl/ or /ˈfɛbraɪl/. (I suppose I was taking my cue from February.)

Sumelic wrote:This one isn't incorrect, but I'm reconsidering my pronunciation of "feral" as /ferəl/ now that I've learned that the pronunciation /firəl/ also exists. I have to think about which one makes more sense to me.

jal wrote:I just (like minutes ago) learned that "preterite" isn't /pritərɑɪt/ but instead /prɛtərɪt/.


JAL

Salmoneus wrote:I actually have the opposite mistake, in 'preternatural', where I pronounce the first vowel short, as in 'preterite'...

linguoboy wrote:In short, if I'd been reading the name, I would've said /ˌloːsˈgatoːz/, but instead I imitated his /ˌlasˈgætoːz/.

Soap wrote:spurious

Soap wrote:puerile

I just (like minutes ago) learned that "preterite" isn't /pritərɑɪt/ but instead /prɛtərɪt/.

Boşkoventi wrote:

linguoboy wrote:In short, if I'd been reading the name, I would've said /ˌloːsˈgatoːz/, but instead I imitated his /ˌlasˈgætoːz/.

I can understand the pronunciation of "Los", esp. given "Los Angeles", but /ˈgætoːz/ makes my teeth curl a bit. Oh. But with t-flapping it's probably something like [ˈgæɾoʊz]. "gaddows". euggghhh.

Boşkoventi wrote:

Soap wrote:spurious

For whatever reason, I'm with you on "spurious". I even feel that pronouncing it with the /j/ would sound weird.

spurious

Ars Lande wrote:Actually, I think it also relates to class and education. I think it's more of a middle-class thing and that kind of demographic is over represented in Paris (though it's definitely more common here). I think women do it more than men too; I wish I could find a serious resource on the subject.

Boşkoventi wrote:Although, this makes me wonder ... is resistance [ˈfjuɾɪl] or [ˈfju.tʰaɪ̯l]?