External sandhi in the French speech stream: theory and practice of enchaînement and liaison description

Abstract

There are two opposing tendencies in the French speech stream. As a vocal-type language with a dominant open syllable and the absence of lexical stress, French creates sequences of two vowel sounds (gaping/l’hiatus) on the border of words in speech. Phonetic processes such as coupling (enchaînement) and binding (liaison) are used to remove this coarticulatively unfavorable context at the word junction. It is obvious that the implementation of coupling and binding at the border of words in the speech stream creates a diffuse acoustic marking of the external sandhi: words merge into a continuous physical signal. How do speakers create this co-articulatory cohesion of sounds in the speech stream? How do listeners manage to recognize in a continuous stream separate words that enter into certain syntactic and semantic relationships with each other? The article considers the external sandhi from the point of view of its articulatory, acoustic, auditory and cognitive processing.

References

1. Bondarko L.V. 1981. Foneticheskoe opisanie yazyka i fonologicheskoe opisanie rechi [Phonetic description of language and phonological description of speech]. Leningrad: LSU Publishing House. (In Russ.)

2. Bubnova G.I. 2021. Pertseptivno-slukhovaya segmentatsiya ustno porozhdaemoi rechi [Perceptual-auditory segmentation of orally generated speech]. Moscow State University Bulletin. Series 19: Linguistics and Intercultural Communication, no. 3, pp. 51–64. (In Russ.)

3. Bubnova G.I. 2018. Lingvokognitivnaya spetsifika monologicheskoi rechi v usloviyakh ozvuchivaniya i spontannogo porozhdeniya (na materiale frantsuzskoi radioperedachi “La Danse des mots”) [Linguo-cognitive Specificity of Monologue Speech under Conditions of Scripted and Spontaneous Production: A Study of the French Radio Broadcast “La Danse des mots”]. Moscow State University Bulletin. Series 19: Linguistics and Intercultural Communication, no. 2, pp. 31–41. (In Russ.)

4. Edlichko А.I. 2020. Orfoepicheskie normi nemeckogo yazika_ problemi sistematizacii i kodifikacii [Оrthoepical norms of the german language: some problems of systematization and codification]. Moscow State University Bulletin. Series 19: Linguistics and Intercultural Communication, no. 3, pp. 72–82. (In Russ.)

5. Sokolova V.S. 1983. Fonetika frantsuzskogo yazyka [Phonetics of the French language]. Moscow: Vysshaya shkola. (In Russ.)

6. Trubetskoi N.S. 2000. Osnovy fonologii [Fundamentals of phonology]. Moscow: Aspent press. (In Russ.)

7. Boula de Mareüil Ph., Adda-Decker M. & Gendner V. 2003. Liaisons in French: a corpus-based study using morpho-syntactic information / ICPhS-5, pp. 1329–1332. Barcelona. URL: https://www.internationalphoneticassociation.org/icphs-proceedings/ICPhS2003/papers/p15_1329.pdf (accessed 30.12.2022)

8. Bybee J. 2005. La liaison: effets de fréquence et constructions [Liaison: frequency effects and constructions] Langages, 158, 24–37. URL: https://www.persee.fr/doc/lgge_0458-726x_2005_num_39_158_2660 (accessed 24.12.2022). (In French)

9. Delattre P. 1940. Le mot est-il une entité phonétique en français? [Is the word a phonetic entity in French?] Le Français Moderne, 8, 1, pp. 47–56. URL: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783112416105-020 (accessed 30.12.2022). (In French)

10. Delattre P. 1953. Les modes phonétiques du français [The phonetic modes of French] The French Review. Vol. 27, No. 1, pp. 59–63. URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/i216362 (accessed 30.12.2022). (In French)

11. Encrevé P. 1988. La liaison avec et sans enchaînement [Liaison with and without coupling]. Paris, Éditions du Seuil. (In French)

12. Fougeron C. Word boundaries and contrast neutralization in the case of enchaînement in French. In Cole, J. & Hualde J.I. (eds) Papers in Laboratory Phonology IX: Change in Phonology, Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 2007. pp. 609–642. URL: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/238086392_Word_boundaries_and_contrast_neutralization_in_the_case_of_enchanement_in_French (accessed 30.01.2023).

13. Fougeron C. & Delais-Roussarie E. 2004. Liaisons et enchaînements: “Fais_en à Fez_en parlant” [Liaison and coupling: “Fais_en à Fez_en parlant”]. URL: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/228527731 (accessed 28.12.2022). (In French)

14. Gadet F. 2003. La variation social en français [The social variation in French]. Paris, Ophrys. (In French)

15. Grosson C. 2011. Formes articulatoires et formes phonologiques : le cas de la liaison [Articulatory forms and phonological forms: the case of liaison]. Thèse de Docteur de l’Université de Provence. Aix-Marseille 1. URL: file:///C:/Users/Galina/Downloads/111215_Douchez_0294018489P_TH-2.pdf (accessed 30.01.2023). (In French)

16. Kaye J. & Lowenstamm J. 1984. De la syllabicité [Of syllabicity]. In F. Dell, D. Hirst, & J.-R. Vergnaud (Eds.) In: Forme sonore du langage: Structure des représentations en phonologie. Paris: Hermann. 1984, pp. 123–159. URL: http://tscheer.free.fr › scan › Kaye&Low84 (accessed 30.01.2023). (In French)

17. Laks B. & Calderone B. 2014. La liaison en français contemporain : approches lexicales et exemplaristes [The liaison in contemporary French: lexical and exemplaristic approaches]. In: La liaison: approches contemporaines. Soum Ch, Coquillion A. & Chevrot J.-P. (eds). Berlin: Peter Lang, pp. 79–109. URL: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/281185995_La_liaison_approches_contemporaines (accessed 24.12.2022). (In French)

18. Léon P. 1971. Aspects phonostylistiques des niveaux de langue [Phonostylistic aspects of language levels] / In: La grammaire du français parlé. Paris: Hachette, pp. 149–159. (In French)

19. Mallet G.-M. 2009. La liaison en français: descriptions et analyses dans le corpus [The liaison in French: descriptions and analyses in the corpus]. Thèse de doctorat: Université Paris Ouest Nanterre La Défense. URL: https://www.projet-pfc.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/these_mallet.pdf (accessed 24.12.2022). (In French)

20. Nguyen N., Wauquier-Gravelines S., Lancia L. & Tuller B. 2007. Detection of liaison consonants in speech processing in French: Experimental data and theoretical implications. Amsterdam studies in the theory and history of linguistic science series, 4, 282, pp. 3–23. URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1075/cilt.282.03ngu (accessed 30.12.2022).

21. Spinelli E., Cutler A. & McQueen J. 2002. Resolution of liaison for lexical access in French / Revue Française de Linguistique Appliquée, 1: Vol. VII, pp.83–96. URL: https://www.cairn.info/revue-francaise-de-linguistique-appliquee-2002-1-page-83.htm (accessed 30.12.2022).

22. Tremblay А. & Spinelli E. Utilisation d’indices acoustico-phonétiques dans la reconnaissance des mots en contexte de liaison. In: La liaison: approches contemporaines. Soum Ch., Coquillion A. & Chevrot J.-P. (eds). Berlin, Peter Lang, 2014, pp. 93–116.

23. Zwanenburg W, Ouweneel G.R.E. & Levelt W.J.M. 1977. La frontière du mot en français [The border of the word in French]. Studies in Language, 1:2, рр. 209–221. URL: https://www.mpi.nl/world/materials/publications/levelt/Zwanenburg_Frontiere_1977.pdf (accessed 24.12.2022). (In French)