Peter:
> "Certain words that would normally have a short vowel may also be
> pronounced with a long vowel, e.g. maître /mEtre/ or /mE:tr/.
Yes, exactly. That's exactly what I was thinking. From what I can
tell with my own speech, I can admit that I might pronounce "maître"
and "mètre" longer than "mettre", if I even make a distinction at
all. There are probably other accents in French where they may
choose a different pair of the three to be "long". However, I still
don't know of or see how _any_ French area might contrast all three
and make it stick. I mean, this isn't Cantonese here. In Cantonese
a change of tone in "hai" makes all the difference between saying
"to be", "to be at" or "shoe". The contrast is really necessary to
distinguish in that language. If you say "mètre" with 'incorrect'
length, I doubt any francophone will notice because the word is
perfectly understood by context without cues of vocalic length just
like in English between "pour" and "pore".
So... this three-way-length-contrast-in-French farce is just making
me mad >:(
= gLeN