Peter Sipes

Ling 401

Class Project: French

Technical note: many IPA symbols did not combine with the

diacritics. That's life.

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Background Facts

History

French is a language with a long history. Depending on the stage of its development, we may refer to it

by one of several names. Under the name Old Latin, it is traceable to the 6th Century BCE, where it

first appears in central Italy as one of the languages on the Italic branch of the Indo-European family.

Once the Romans gained control of the Italian peninsula, they started to spread their military influence

—and language, Latin—across the Mediterranean basin. In the 1st Century BCE under the leadership

of Julius Caesar, the Roman army invaded and conquered Transalpine Gaul, which roughly corresponds

to modern France. Over the next centuries spoken Latin gained linguistic ground on the native Celtic

languages to the point that the only Celtic language spoken today in France (Breton) finds its origins in

Insular Celtic and not the previously existing Continental branch of the Celtic languages. (Latin

likewise supplants the non-Latin Italic languages of modern Italy and all languages of Spain, except for

the Basque-speaking areas near the Spain-France border.) Over the following centuries the Roman

Empire rose and fell.

Latin's grip on the western part of the Empire never waned. It continued to be spoken despite waves of

Germanic invaders across Western Europe. Though they conquered the political portion of life, their

influence on the spoken language, called Romance at this stage, was mostly in the realm of vocabulary

—particularly vocabulary having to do with war. As Romance broke up, it broke in to far more

languages than one might suspect given a cursory knowledge of the languages of Europe. One stage of

this development in France is called Old French.

With the welter of dialects across France, political leaders—first royal, later republican and imperial—

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wanted to standardise the French language. The first step was the foundation of the French Academy.

Later the Parisian dialect was used as the exclusive language of instruction of schools in France, which

in turn led to the spread of Parisian French as the standard variety. (My informant confirmed that this

was still the case while her mother was in school in the 1960s.) Throughout the 19th Century and into

the 20th, French was a worldwide language of diplomacy, and even today many English speakers

consider it to be a prestigious language to know rather than merely useful like Spanish.

The vitality of modern French can also be seen in its literature (e.g. The Little Prince), journalism (e.g.

Le Monde), grapic novels (e.g. The Airtight Garage), cinema (e.g. Jean de Florette) and websites (e.g.

fr.wikipedia.org).

Further reading

Caesar, Gaius Julius. (1917). Caesar: The Gallic War (Loeb Classical Library). (H. J. Edwards,

Trans.). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Nadeau, Jean-Benoit & Barlow, Julie. (2008). The story of French. New York: St. Martin's Press.

Ostler, Nicholas. (2007). Ad infinitum: A biography of Latin. New York: Walker Publishing Company.

History with English

French has a complex relation to English. After the Norman invasion of 1066, French became a

prestige language since the new kings and noblility spoke French. Many words in English have both a

French derived and Anglo-Saxon derived synonym (e.g. royal/kingly, pig/pork). In other cases, French

derived words completely supplanted the native words (e.g. malignant/yfelcund).

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Even after the English kings resumed speaking Enligsh, French maintained its place. Kings of England

either ruled large portions of France or attempted to assume the French crown outright. This led to

many English soldiers spending time in France over the course of the Hundred Year War. Additionally

after the Reformation the many French Protestants (Huguenots) settled in England bringing their

language with them.

As French came to assume its role as a diplomatic language, it maintained its prestige in the minds of

English speakers. Directly borrowed terms in this area include coup [d'etat] and detente. Since France

was also an innovator in cooking, art and fashion, many English terms in these areas were borrowed

from French as well (e.g. restaurant, trompe l'oeil and couture). Even now, when a company wants to

brand itself as being exceptional in these areas, French words come in to use. A sandwich shop can

differentiate itself by chosing the name Pret A Manger instead of Burger King. Where would be

makeup be better? Lancôme or Mabelline?

With this place of prestige, English speakers are familiar with the accent of French speakers—ahem,

Francophones—using English. Or at least familiar enough that a characters in cartoons and movies may

use French accents as a shorthand for being romantic (e.g. Miss Piggy), or for comic effect (e.g.

Inspector Clouseau).

Further reading

McWhorter, John. (2009). Our magnificent bastard tongue: The untold history of English. New York:

Gotham Press.

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Distribution

There are about 53 million native speakers of French in France and a further 15 million native speakers

in other countries. French is an official language in many countries of the Americas, Europe, Africa and

Asia. Their distribution is a reflection of French colonialism. There are an estimated 55 million second

language speakers of French worldwide (Lewis, 2009).

French is a commonly taught language in secondary and post-secondary schools throughout the

Chicago area. While there is a branch of Alliance Française in Chicago, I neither am aware of a large

French-speaking community nor have heard French spoken in the Chicago area.

On the other hand I can vouch for a strong presence of French speakers in other parts of North

America, as I have heard people speak French—presumably natively—in the Canadian provinces of

Quebec, Ontario, Manitoba and the Northwest Territories as well as the US state of Maine.

Further ReadingLewis, M. Paul (ed.), 2009. Ethnologue: Languages of the World, Sixteenth edition. Dallas, Tex.: SIL

International. Online version: http://www.ethnologue.com/.

Informant

My informant is a 37 year-old woman, who is English/French bilingual. She is a native of San

Francisco, CA, whose mother spoke French and father spoke English with her from infancy.

Interestingly Ms Stark does not know how to read or write French despite a full command of the

spoken language. She assumes she speaks Norman French, since her mother is from Normandy. I

cannot comment on what differences there may be between Norman French and Standard French.

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LexiconEach word will be presented in the following order: English word, IPA transcription of informant's

response, dictionary entry as found in WordReference.com's Enlgish-French dictionary, Latin word. I

include the Latin word to give an idea of the continuity of French from its Latin origin, though I have

one caveat. Latin, as received, is a literary language related to spoken Latin. French is a spoken

language derived from spoken Latin. French words do not necessarily derive from literary Latin.

It is interesting to see how the spelling of French words is less divergent from Latin than the

pronunciation in some cases. Some words do not seem to have anything to do with the Latin word.

Body parts

English word French IPA French written Latin

finger lə dwɑ le doigt digitus

hand lɑ mɑ˜ la main manus

arm lə bʁɑ le bras bracchium

head la tɛt la tête caput

nose lə ne le nez nasus

eyes ləz ju les yeux oculi

mouth lɑ buʃ la bouche os

ear lɑ ʁej la oreille auris

neck lɑ gɑ˜z la ganse collum

leg lɑ ʒɑm la jambe crus

foot lə pie le pied pes

toe lə dwɑ (dœ pie) le doigt (de pied) digitus pedis

tongue lɑ lɔ˜g la langue lingua

teeth lə dɔ˜ les dents dentes

Family and people

mother mɛʁ mère mater

father pɛʁ père pater

mom mɑmɔ˜ maman mama

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English word French IPA French written Latin

dad pɑpɑ papa papa

sister sɔʁ sœur soror

brother fʁɛʁ frère frater

son fis fils filius

daughter fi fille filia

aunt tɑ˜nt tante amita (m's sister)

uncle ɑ˜nc oncle avunculus (m's brother)

grandmother gʁɑmɛʁ grand-mère avus

grandfather gʁɑ˜pɛʁ grand-père avia

girl fi fille puella

boy gɑʁsɔ˜ garçon puer

man lum l'homme vir

woman lɑ fɑm la femme femina

Everyday nature

sun lə solel* le soleil sol

moon lɑ lun la lune luna

sky lə siel le ciel caelum

cloud nejɑʒ nuage nubis

rain lɑ plui la pluie pluvium

snow lɑ nɛʒ la neige nix

water lo l'eau aqua

hot ʃo chaud caldus

cold fʁɑ froid frigidus

winter livɛʁ l'hiver hiems

spring pʁɑ˜tɔ˜ printemps ver

summer lɛte l'ete aestas

fall lɔtũm l'automne autumnus

day ʒuʁ jour dies

night lɑ nui la nuit nox

*informant insisted there was something at the end of this word, but I could not tell what it was. I put /l/.

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English word French IPA French written Latin

river ʁivjɛʁ rivière fluvius

ocean lɑ mɛʁ la mer oceanus

lake lə lɑc lake lə lɑc

mountain mõtɑɲə montagne mons

hill kɔlin colline collis

Animals

dog ʃiẽ chien canis

cat ʃɑ chat felis

mouse suʁi souris mus

wolf lu loup lupus

bird wɑzo oiseau avis

cow vɑʃ vache vacca

horse ʃɛvɑl cheval equus

Actions

sit ɑswɑ asseoir sedere

stand døbu debout stare

walk mɑʁʃe marcher ambulare

talk pɑʁle parler loqui

run kuʁiʁ courir currere

cook feʁ lɑ kwizin faire la cusine

kwizine cuisinier coquere

read liʁ lire legere

love əme aimer amare

be born nesɑ˜s naître nasci

die muʁiʁ mourir moriri

Numbers

one ɑ˜ un unus

two dø deux duo

three tʁɔ trois tres

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English word French IPA French written Latin

four kɑtʁ quatre quattuor

five sɑ˜nk cinq quinque

six sis six sex

seven sɛt sept septem

eight uit huit octo

nine nøf neuf novem

ten dis dix decem

eleven ɔ˜z onze undecim

twelve døz douze duodecim

thirteen tʁɛz treize tredecim

fourteen kɑtɔʁz quatorze quattuordecim

fifteen kɑnz quinze quindecim

sixteen sɛz seize sedecim

seventeen disɛt dix-sept septendecim

eighteen dizuit dix-huit duodeviginti

nineteen diznøf dix-neuf undeviginti

twenty vɛ˜ vingt viginti

thirty tʁɑnt trente triginta

forty kɑʁɔnt quarante quadraginta

fifty sɑnkɔnt cinquante quinquaginta

sixty swɑsɔnt soixante sexaginta

seventy swɑsɔnt diz soixante-dix septuaginta

eighty kɑtʁɛ vɛ˜ quatre-vingts octoginta

ninety kɑtʁɛ vɛ˜diz quatre-vingt-dix nonaginta

hundred sɔ˜ cent centum

two hundred dø sɔ˜ deux cents ducenti

thousand mil mille mille

two thousand dø mil deux mille duo mille

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Phonology

This area presented some difficulties for me. The first of which is that French and English have

different inventories of phonemes.

This caused three sorts of problems. It was at times difficult to distinguish /Vn/ and /V [+nasal]/. The

biggest problem of this nature was /ɔ˜/. In my variety of English we have /ɔ/ and we have nasalized

vowels—though they aren't phonemic—but we don't have /ɔ˜/ (that I can easily think of). Then there

were sounds that I could hear and distinguish, but not effectively reproduce to my informant's

satisfaction. The biggest offender in this category was /ʁ/. Finally there were sounds I was not at all

familiar with, such as /ø/ and /œ/. I did my best with those.

The other difficulty is that different sources indicate different inventories of phonemes. As the French

might say: c'est la vie.

Vowels

i+y--------------+---+u \ | | \ | | \ | | e+ø----------+---+o \ | | \ ə | \ | | ɛ+œ------+---+ɔ \ | | \ | | \ | | a+---+--ɑ+

There is also a phonemic distinction between several nasal and non-nasal vowels. The are: /ɑ/ and

/ɑ˜/; /ɔ/ and /ɔ˜/; /ɛ/ and /ɛ˜/; and /œ/ and /œ˜/. There are also several diphthongs: /aj/, /ɛj/, /œj/ and /ij/.

(At least diphthongs as we indicated them in this class.)

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Vowels not present in English

/y/ – high, front rounded vowel

like /i/ but with rounded lips (Note: easy to distinguish, not too difficult to produce)

/ø/ – mid, front rounded vowel

like /e/ but with rounded lips (Note: hard to distinguish)

/œ/ – mid, front rounded vowel

like /ɛ/ but with rounded lips (Note: hard to distinguish, but I didn't hear it in the lexicon list.)

/a/ – low, front unrounded vowel

(Note: not too tricky to distinguish, not too tricky to produce. I'd be hard pressed to tell you that

I heard this sound.)

Vowel frequencyVowel Count

ɑ 33 Note: after the first appearance, I no longer counted the vowel sounds in the article.

None of the vowels seem to be overly dominant in the way that English has the “when it doubt schwa it out” rule of thumb. That said, /ɑ/ and /i/ stand out as much more frequent than the other vowels. This distribution is not too surprising since they are in opposite corners of the vowel grid, which makes them sound distinct.

Had I included the vowels in the article in the count /ɑ/ and /ə/ would have had much higher counts.

In no case does a nasalized vowel occur more often than its non-nasalized counterpart. /ɔ/ and /ɔ˜/ have the same number, but ths could be because I was struggling to differentiate between /ɔ˜/ and /ɑ˜/ even with multiple repititions. I figured if I couldn't tell the difference (as we do have /ɑ˜/ in English, even if it isn't phonemic), it must not be /ɑ˜/.

ɑ˜ 9

ɔ 8

ɔ˜ 8

o 4

u 14

ũ 1

i 29

y 0

e 13

ẽ 1

ø 7

ɛ 18

ɛ˜ 3

œ 0

ə 2Source for vowelshttp://www.ciltplus.org.uk/phonology/?q=content/phonemes

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Consonants

Labial Labiodental Alveolar Palatal Velar Uvular

Stop p b t d k g

Fricative f v s z ʃ ʒ ʁ*

Nasal m n ɲ

Glides w

Approximant

Lateral Approximant

l j

Consonants not present in English

/ʁ/ – voiced uvular fricative, distinctly an “r” sound.

(Note: easy to distinguish—perhaps a stereotypical French sound, difficult to produce to my

informant's satisfaction.)

/ɲ/ – voiced palatal nasal

like ñ in Spanish cañon. (Note: easy to distinguish, easy to produce)

Note: My informant told me her mother said that the r-sound in French is trilled like /r/ or /ʀ/. Many

online sources indicated /ʁ/, which is a fricative and not a trill. I'm going with /ʁ/, since I didn't hear

what I thought was a trill. If the Phonology class tell me I'm wrong about what I heard, I'll write an

apology note.

Source for consonantshttp://www.nou.edu.ng/noun/NOUN_OCL/pdf/edited_pdf3/FRE%20231%20Introduction%20to%20French%20Phonology%201.pdf

Sound combinations not allowed in Enlgish• French may start a word with /ʒ/

French phonology, while different from English, is amenable to lending words to English. CCVCC is

the maximum syllable structure in my lexicon. English, as mentioned in class, has a maximum of

CCCVCCCC. The limit of English is below French's. /ʁ/ might need to g to /ɹ/ or /ø/ might get

unrounded to /e/, but there is no need for an epenthetic /ə/ when English borrows from French.

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Morphology

Present and Past tense verb conjugationThe verb /fɛt/ — make, do

Present Past

Singular Plural Singular Plural

1st Person ʒø fɛ ɑ˜ fɛ ʒø fe ɑ˜ fe

2nd Person ty fɛ vu føze ty a fe vuz ave fe

2nd Person—alternate

vu føze vu zave fe

3rd Person—masculine

il fɛ il føzɑ˜ il a fe il zɔ˜ fe

3rd Person—feminine

ɛl fɛ il føzɑ˜ ɛl a fe il zɔ˜ fe

Before choosing this verb for inclusion as my example, I verified with my informant that this verb was

regular in its conjugation. That is to say that it was more like the English verb type

smack/smacked/smacked than sing/sang/sung and certainly not like the viciously irregular

go/went/gone.

In the past tense, a French verb conjugation book, Barron's French Verbs (2011), confirmed what I was

told. The typical past tense is more like the English “I have made” and less like “I made.” In French,

there is a tense that more or less corresponds with “I made”, but it is not used in spoken French. To

reiterate, this information agrees with the data points my informant related.

Noun compoundspolice car /vwatuʁ dø polis/

car of policeThis is an actual compound

clown car /vwatuʁ dø clun/ car of clown

This one is made up.

idiot car /vwatuʁ dø idʒɔ/ car of idiot

So is this one.

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French would not seem to be able to make N-N compounds the way English does. French would prefer

to make compounds this way: head /dø/ modifier.

Note: I needed to grease the skids by suggesting a pre-existing compound (police car) to get the juices

flowing. For whatever reason, this section stumped my informant, though she knew how to do this in

both English and French.

Do-er compoundsgateau maker /lə pɛʁsɔ˜ ki fe lə gatɔ/

det person who makes det gateaua man gets /lə/

/lɑ pɛʁsɔ˜ ki fe lə gatɔ/det person who makes det gateau

a woman gets /lɑ/

I asked for a few other data points about various-thing-makers, but they were all prefaced with /lə

pɛʁsɔ˜ ki fe/…. It seems that while French may have simple words that correspond to butcher or baker,

there is no easy way to generalize to candlestick maker.

Adjective comparisonPositive /mɑ vwɑtuʁ ɛ ʁuʒ/

my car is redMy car is red.

• Word for word same as English

Comparative /ma vwɑtuʁ ɛ plu ʁuʒ/ my car is more redMy car is redder.

• This is different

than yours /ma vwɑtuʁ ɛ plu ʁuʒ kə votʁ/ my car is more red than yours.fml yours.plMy car is redder than yours.

• Showing how to add a compared thing

Superlative /ma vwɑtuʁ ɛ lɑ plu ʁuʒ/ my care is the more red.My car is the reddest.

French, despite its highly-inflected Latin origin, seems to completely lack any inflection in adjective

comparison. Instead it relies on /plu/ to form the comparative degree and /lɑ plu/ to form the

superlative degree. Presumably, a noun that had the article /lə/ would use that in place of /lɑ/.

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Syntax

The article•French has an article. Two actually. It seems to be much more tightly bound to the noun than the

English article. Nearly every vocabulary term in the lexicon was given—and recorded where

given—with a definite article.

•I heard several forms of the definite article: /l/, /lɑ/, /lə/ and /ləz/. There seems to be some sort of

sandhi (or maybe crassis, I'm not quite sure on the technical term) going on between /lɑ/ /lə/

and /l/. So far as I can tell, words that begin with consonants get /lɑ/ and /lə/. Words that begin

with vowels get /l/. I cannot generalize about /ləz/ as it only occurred once—though with a

plural noun. On the other hand, another plural noun had /lə/ as its article.

•There is also an indefinite article /un/. I was not careful enough to elicit a plural.

•Given what I know about Spanish, I would assume that the /lɑ/ /lə/ difference is gender. If so, French

would appear to have two genders, though /ləz/ could be a 3rd gender (but I doubt it).

•The article always comes before the noun, and any pre-noun adjectives.

Verbs•Verbs inflect for person and number in writing. In speech there looks to be three distinct the present

tense verb forms: 2nd person plural, 3rd person plural and everything else. Since four

combinations require the same verb form, it is no surprise that pronouns are required.

•Masculine and femine agents use the same pronouns until third person. Then gender is distinguished.

•There is an informal 2nd person singular /ty/ and formal 2nd person singular /vu/. The formal /vu/ is

the same as the 2nd person plural pronoun and inflects in the same way. This is different from

Spanish where /usted/ takes 3rd person singular verb inflection. There is also no formal 2nd

person, which is also different from Spanish, which has /ustedes/.

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Other items•For the most part, word order is on par with English in terms of flexibility.

•I tried to stay well away from pronouns as I know that they are a bear in Spanish, and I know they

share the same source.

Sample sentencesBasic declarative sentence /ʒø vwɑ lɑ ʃɑ/

I see.1s det catI see the cat.

•SVO order•relatively inflexible order•No case marking

/il vwɑ lɑ ʃɑ/he sees.3s det catHe sees the cat.

•with subject as pronoun•some sort of subject seems to be required (like English)

Basic question /ɛsku ʒø vwɑ lɑ ʃɑ/ do I see.1s det catDo I see the cat?

•seems to require a question word, like English does, for yes/no questions

Wh-question /ki vwɑ lɑ ʃɑ/who sees.3s det catWho sees the cat?

•No wh-move needed

/kɛsku ʒø vwɑ/what I see.1sWhat do I see?

•What do I see? Wh-movement.

Preparing to embed /ʒø di/ I said.1sI said.

•Apparently you can say this without an NP after V.

/ʒø di sɑ/ I said.1s itI said it.

•Another SVO sentence•Checking to see if /sɑ/ hangs around after the embed. (No.)

Embedding /ʒø di ku ʒø vwɑ lɑ ʃɑ/ I said that I see.1s det catI said that I see the cat.

•/ku/ is the C•Everything after /ku/ is the IP compliment to C

Passive /lɑ ʃɑ ɛ vu/det cat is.3s seenThe cat is seen.

•This looks a lot like English. •Copula and a passive participle.

Negative sentence /ʒø ne pɑ vu lɑ ʃɑ/I did not see.1s det catI didn't see the cat.

•Negative is two words.•Seems to affect the pronunciation of the main verb.

/ʒø vwɑ pɑ lɑ ʃɑ/I see.1s not det catI didn't see the cat.Lit: I see not the cat.

•Two ways to negate. This time with only one negating word.

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Adjective /ʒɛ un gʁɑn mezɔ˜/I.have det big house.I have a big house.

•Somehow the words corresponding to I and have are fused into /ʒɛ/. •Some adjectives take their position in front of the noun—big and small were the culprits I ran across.

/ʒɛ un vwɑtuʁ ʁuʒ/I.have det car redI have a red car.

•But usually adjectives come after the noun they modify.

Prepositions /ʒø vwɑ lɑ ʃɑ dɔ˜ lɑ ʁu/ I see.1s det cat in det streetI see the cat in the street.

•Unmarked order.•Preposition, not postposition

/dɔ˜ lɑ ʁu ʒø vwɑ lɑ ʃɑ/ in det street I see.1s det cat In the street, I see the cat.

•Moving the prepositional phrase here seemed odd, but acceptable.•Maybe a little non-native sounding, in the same way the corresponding English sentence sounds a bit off to a native speaker.•PP passes the move test, so it is a component on its own

*/ʒø vwɑ dɔ˜ lɑ ʁu lɑ ʃɑ/ I see.1s in det street det catI see in the street a cat.

•This was deemed to be irreparably wrong.•This V has NP as compliment

and not adjunct.

Causative sentences /ʒø fɛ lɑ ʃɑ un vwɑtuʁ/I make det cat det carI make the cat a car.

•Word for word the same as English.

/lə sole fɛ lɑ ʃɑ ʃo/det sun makes det cat hotThe sun makes the cat hot.

•Again.

/lə sole ʁɔ˜ lɑ ʃɑ ʃo/det sun makes det cat hotThe sun makes the cat hot.

•/fɛ/ and /ʁɔ˜/ seem to be synonyms here.