C’est encœur plus jeuli, le Mareuc: some evidence for the spread of //‐fronting in French

Abstract

Abstract This paper examines / /‐fronting in French, the centralising or fronting of the back rounded mid‐vowel / /. Using variationist methodology, we present some results from a corpus of speech recorded in Roanne in central eastern France. After an analysis of the co‐articulatory factors that endorse and disfavour / /‐fronting, we present results suggesting that young females may be leading a change in the direction of the supralocal frontmost variant. We also examine evidence that points to the unrounding of / / after /r/, a phenomenon that appears to give the effect of fronting. We conclude with a consideration of the nature of the phonological levelling which characterises the current French situation, and which / /‐fronting exemplifies.

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