>Again, I'd like to know what French dictionary would ever describe
>French has having a phonemic three-way length contrast.
A two way contrast is understandable, but three way is bit over-precise - in
my opinion.
This may be of interest. It's from a beginners guide to French
pronunciation:
"Certain words that would normally have a short vowel may also be pronounced
with a long vowel, e.g. maître /mEtre/ or /mE:tr/. This feature affects
... the vowel /E/ exclusively, and of course only when it is in a closed
syllable and takes a main stress. Some speakers certainly do, at least on
occasion, make a distinction between, say, mettre /mEtr/ and maître /mE:tr/.
In so far as such a distinction does exist, one has to recognise that it its
phonemic, i.e. that /E/ and /E:/ count as separate phonemes. The number of
pairs in which it can occur is very small, and may be limited to the
following:
belle / bêle
bette / bête
elle / aile
faite / fête
laide / l'aide
lettre / l'être
mettre / maître
saine / scène, Seine
tette / tête
It must be pointed out, however, that the majority of French speakers do not
observe the distinction and, in so far as it exists at all, it tends to be
characteristic of the speech of the older generations... Furthermore few (if
any) speakers observe it in all the above pairs."
Peter