On the structure of rime in Standard French

Abstract

In Standard French, -tense vowels (see Morin 1983) have the same distribution within masculine word-final sequences as sequences comprising a lax vowel and a liquid;-unlike final obstruents, which are very often latent, liquids are almost invariably fixed in word-final position;-alternating nasal vowels, which are tense, usually alternate with a lax oral vowel followed by a nasal consonant. These remarks suggest that in French, rime is composed of two slots, both restricted to sonorants, the first being linked to a vowel autosegment, and the second to the selfsame autosegment (hence tense vowels), or to a sonorant consonant.To describe the difference in behavior which distinguishes latent obstruents from fixed obstruents, it is necessary to posit a special feature, which also accounts for exceptions to the nasalization rule, and for the unusual behavior of certain liquids. Marked consonants are probably fixed consonants which the special feature requires to be appended outside the rime proper, as our investigation of a morphological peculiarity concerning reduplicated diminutives tends to suggest.

The longitudinal development of clusters in French

“…/pER.dRØ/). This is similar to Plénat's (1987) analysis, except that here word-final singleton sonorants are syllabified as an onset to an empty-headed syllable (beurre ' butter ' /boe.RØ/). Crucially, both analyses syllabify final clusters in the same way, with a singleton sonorant coda followed by a singleton onset to an empty-headed syllable in the case of porte ' door ' /pcR.tØ/, but a branching onset to an empty-headed syllable in case of autre 'other' /o.tRØ/.…”

“…Rialland (1994) suggests that the first consonant of a final cluster is syllabified in the coda, whereas a subsequent consonant is 'extrasyllabic ', onset rhyme nucleus coda /b l a n d or prosodified outside the syllable (CVC<C>) at the higher level of the prosodic word, as show in Figure 4. Plénat (1987) andFéry (2003) further propose that French rhymes are maximally bipositional, with limitations on the consonants that can appear in coda position. They suggest that only a sonorant consonant may be syllabified in the coda (beurre ' butter ' /boeR/), whereas an obstruent must be syllabified in the onset of an empty-headed syllable (truc 'thing ' /tRy.kØ/).…”

Markedness, Faithfulness, Vowel Quality and Syllable Structure in French

“…The inventory of General French (GF) segments is given in (2) for consonants, and in (3) for vowels (see Plénat 1987, Tranel 1987 Additionally, French has four nasals, two liquids and three glides, but no laryngeals.…”

“…Plénat (1987) also proposes that rimes consist maximally of two positions, but he assumes that the two rime slots can be occupied by sonorants only. He thus analyzes [l] in mal [mal] as part of the core syllable, but excludes [t] in mat [mat] from the coda.…”

“…Bimoraicity is not automatically associated with length, but determines the number of tautosyllabic postvocalic consonants (see also Plénat 1987 The question sometimes raised as to whether the lengthening observed in French is phonological or phonetic does not find a clear answer. Marc van Oostendorp (p.c.…”