>>Again, I'd like to know what French dictionary would ever describe
>>French has having a phonemic three-way length contrast.
Miguel:
> Any good French pronouncing dictionary.
Whatever. You're blowing it out your toothole because there's no
such thing, you've avoided for the longest time to provide us with
your holy Jacques quote and just like in the "alveolar French s"
debate, the following Canadian university article contradicts you:
http://www.ucalgary.ca/~dcwalker/PronCF.pdf
Of course, it's from the University of Calgary and no doubt you'll
find some reason to diminish it once more, but then again, it's you
versus a university. I know which I'm gonna bet my rodeo on. Here,
you might learn a thing or two about French, and who knows, maybe
you'll teach me something about Dutch:
Let us now turn to a process of lengthening which produces
two allophones for each SF vowel (except /´/): a long and
a short.
Note how the author doesn't say "a long and a short and a double
long"? It goes on (and SF = Standard French):
Basically, there are two major causes of lengthening in SF.
Certain vowels, called inherently long, are always long in
closed syllables. Other vowels may be long if the syllable
in which they occur is closed by a so-called consonne
allongeante. The inherently long vowels are /O o A/ and
the nasal vowels. Whenever they occur in closed, stressed
(final) syllables, they will be longer than the same vowel
in open syllables.
Now THAT makes sense and I have no trouble agreeing to the
pronunciations that they give for the words below it. But
luckily the essay pays attention to "e". Let's see what it
has to say:
As a final detail in the discussion of vowel length in SF,
we must mention a peripheral case where, in certain styles
or with certain speakers, there remains a phonemic difference
between long and short E - /E/ versus /E:/. This opposition
may occur in a few pairs of words, such as those in (14),
although not all speakers differentiate these forms
consistently, and the difference is not marked in standard
normative dictionaries
THANK YOU! I win. This is just as I had reasoned. As I figured,
this is a _rarer_ distinction if there is one at all, in "a few
pairs of words" even. You can only claim that you're correct in
a very, very, very specific sense. In general standard French,
this is just not the norm.
> Faut-il cependant révoquer la distinction classique entre
> séries de brèves en "-ette" ou "-ète", "-èle" ou "-elle",
> et séries de longues en "-ête" ou "-êle"? Olovsson suggère
> même une gradation "frêle" ([E] long) -"d'aile" ([E]
> demi-long) -"d'Elle" ([E] bref), [...]
Ignoring Olovsson's crazy suggestion, what is being discussed
here is a specific speech pattern in which "ê" is pronounced
as [E:] (or I gather even [e:]) due to historical reasons,
due to loss of former "s". This is an artifact that is mostly
died out from many varieties of French. You speak of it as
though this is the norm. This is misguided.
> Length contrast in French is on its way back (ca. 1900 there
> was still a distiction between ami /ami/ and amie /ami:/,
> which has now been given up), but it certainly exists,
> despite the fact that most French courses and dictionaries
> pretend it doesn't exist (and most French people think it
> doesn't exist, because they weren't taught it in school).
... Or maybe it's all in Miguel's head. You can say that everyone
including all Canadian universities are crazy or you can just admit
that you need to know more about French.
> I can certainly hear a distinction between <mettre>, <mètre>
> and <maître> in Parisian French, so by definition it's
> phonemic.
Did you forget that I live in Canada? And even with Parisian
French, I find what you say suspect. Either its a two-way
contrast or there is a quality difference between [E] and [e].
I doubt that it ever is truly a three-way contrast in any
variety of French, really, and as stated above, in a few words
only.
This still doesn't mean that French really shows a three-way
contrast. Maybe in some remote and isolated fishing village,
I guess, but is that what you need to prove your case? Sounds
kinda desperate.
= gLeN