Question about verbs in Canadian French.

[BettyCross]

I spent some time in Montreal last month, and shared a joke with a bilingual (but raised francophone) resident of Ontario. I made a joke for which the punch line is, "I have peed in my hat." Then I realized I knew just enough French to translate the sentence. My effort was, /ZE pi'se O~ mO~ Sa'po/. She laughed and said, "Right!" Then she repeated my sentence back to me, as /Spi'se O~ mO~ Sa'po/. It occured to me that if /Spi'se/ starts the sentence, it could mean either

J'ai pissé en mon chapeau
or
Je pissai en mon chapeau

I suspect that in at least the first person singular, the distinction between perfect and past imperfect has been lost in French as spoken in Canada. Am I right about this?

Full disclosure: I had two years of High School French, more than 40 years ago.

Betty Cross

[Wattmann]

I believe not, because <je pissai> would be along the lines of /ʒə.pi.se/ and <j'ai pissé> would likely (by way of what you had said) be /ʃpisɛ/ or something.

I believe the contrast of <ai> : <é> finally is that of /ɛ/ : /e/ pretty much everywhere Francophone.

Source: French lessons in elementary and highschool of which I remember little, Wikipedia
Of course, don't listen to me much, because I'm far from Francophone, and I'm as Germanic as it gets (except when Uralic)

[Hakaku]

J'ai pissé en mon chapeau
or
Je pissai en mon chapeau

To start, it should be "dans mon chapeau" rather than "en mon chapeau", and 'en' is pronounced /A~/, not /O~/ which is 'on'.

The difference between the two forms here is that the second one uses the passé simple, which is a strictly literary form and never used in speech. In terms of pronunciation, because the second one is literary, it would be pronounced with stress on the schwa, resulting in /Z9 pi.se dA~ mO~ Sapo/. The first one is distinguished by the fact that "j'ai" is distinctively pronounced /Ze/. Like the first, the vowel doesn't elide.

Why she pronounced it with an elision is probably because she wasn't using either of these forms, but rather the imparfait: "Je pissais dans mon chapeau", meaning "I was peeing in my hat" or "I had been peeing in my hat". This form is used in speech, so the schwa is predictably elided, resulting in "j'pissais" /ZpisE/ [SpisE]. Note the vowel difference, the ending is distinctively pronounced /E/ and not /e/. So if you originally mispronounced the vowel, it would indicate why she shifted the tense when repeating it to you, believing that's what you meant to say. There's also the possibility you misheard her repeat "j'ai pissé" if she said it rapidly.

[Astraios]

I believe not, because <je pissai> would be along the lines of /ʒə.pi.se/ and <j'ai pissé> would likely (by way of what you had said) be /ʃpisɛ/ or something.

No.

I believe the contrast of <ai> : <é> finally is that of /ɛ/ : /e/ pretty much everywhere Francophone.

No.

Of course, don't listen to me much, because I'm far from Francophone, and I'm as Germanic as it gets (except when Uralic)

Yes.

You got the last bit right at least!