Variation in Breton word stress: new speakers and the influence of French

Abstract

This paper investigates stress patterns in Breton across speakers of different ages and with different linguistic backgrounds. Centuries of contact with French have led to French influence in Breton lexis, phonology and morphosyntax, and Breton's current status as an endangered minority language makes it vulnerable to further change. Additionally, younger ‘new speakers’ of Breton, who have acquired the language through Breton-medium education, are said to transfer features from French into their Breton. Analysis of stress usage shows that older, traditional speakers use stress largely as expected, while there is a greater degree of interspeaker variation among younger, new speakers. These data are used to form a metrical analysis of stress in Breton, taking into account lexical exceptions, loanwords and the variability of younger speakers. Rather than widespread transfer of French stress patterns into Breton, some younger speakers seem to be using two competing stress systems.

Prosodic Change in Breton: The Loss of Stressed Clitics1

“…As part of a larger study of metrical stress in Breton, fieldwork was undertaken in southwest Brittany, within the kerneveg dialect area (see Kennard 2021). Two groups of speakers were interviewed: older, traditional speakers aged 57-83 (mean age = 73.4) who had grown up speaking Breton at home with their families, and younger, 'new' speakers aged 27-52 (mean age = 38.3) who had acquired Breton largely through immersion or bilingual schooling, with no or little input from relatives at home.…”

“…Palosaari & Campbell (2011) note that morphophonological features of minority languages which are not found in the dominant language are susceptible to loss in the context of language shift. It has also been observed that younger Breton speakers may transfer French features into their Breton, and this includes the use of French‐influenced stress patterns (Madeg 2010; Kennard 2021).…”

“…5 Vowel length interacts with stress in Breton: stressed syllables must be bimoraic, and unstressed syllables are not usually able to have a long vowel. We, therefore, see alternations such as pesked [ˈpɛskɛt] or [ˈpɛskət] 'fish.PL' vs. peskedenn [pɛs ˈkeːdən] '(single) fish', where a vowel becomes lengthened when it appears in a penultimate open syllable and receives stress (Carlyle 1988;Kennard 2021). Unstressed vowels are short, and may be reduced to schwa (or omitted entirely), depending on the dialect.…”

“…Turning to vowel quality, however, we might be led to a different conclusion: in some (though not all) dialects of Breton, unstressed vowels are not only short but may also be reduced to schwa, particularly in post-tonic position. This is true in kerneveg, as discussed in Kennard (2021), where a word like balafenn 'butterfly', for example, might be pronounced [ba ˈlafːɛn], [baˈlafːən] or even [baˈlafːn̩ ], with the final vowel omitted completely. The first vowel may also be centralised, though this is less common among younger speakers.…”

Weight sensitivity and prominence in Laurentian French

“…Dialectal substrates (Carton et al 1983) and broader language contact (e.g. Sichel-Bazin et al 2011;Kaminskaïa & Poiré 2012;Mamode 2015;Kennard 2021) are particularly common explanations. Martin (2004), however, proposes that prominence shift is due to archaic tendencies and therefore that it is conservative, rather than innovated or induced by contact.…”