The Mid-Vowels in Figures: Hard Facts.

Abstract

THE ARTICLE WHICH FOLLOWS outlines briefly two surveys carried out in Paris region in 1986 and 1988. While surveys outlined below did include recordings of more spontaneous speech which are still being analyzed, current figures, based in part on a reading style, are presented for interest they represent and ease with which they may be compared with previous survey results. Teachers of French may need to bear in mind current trends in evolution of French pronunciation so that they do not strive to impose an obsolescent norm. The two surveys were to establish distribution of mid-vowels e O o ce 3 as in the [te] peu [po] mot [mo] terre [ter] peur [pcer] mort [mor] and assess extent of linguistic change since last surveys of a similar type.1 The mid-vowels occupy a special position in French vowel system and instability of system is well attested.2 The four-vowel-height system is moving towards a simplified system such as that described by Gadet.3 While certain usages may be represented by four-vowelheight system in table A, table B shows only oppositions one may be sure of in all linguistic and social contexts. The capitals mark result of unstable oppositions (i.e. those between /e/ and /e/, /e/ and /e:/, /o/ and/ce/, /o/ and /o/.

Cite this work

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 68 citations exist upstream.