Phonetics, elision, assimilation and liaison

optional elision

- before a consonant e.g. la fnetre - avoided for hard to pronounce pairs of consonants and to avoid 3 in a row - of l in il va and r in parce que - after another consonant at the end of a word e.g. quatre - discourse markers- puis (pi), c'est a dire (s a diR) - subject pronouns- tu as (t a), qui est (K E)

obligatory elision

In je, le, que, te, se, de + vowel Also si + il(s) but not si + elle

obligatory liaison

- determiner + noun- les arbres, ces hommes - adjective + noun- petit incident -conjunctive pronoun + verb - ils ont, nous en avons - verb + conjunctive pronoun- ont-ils - some set phrases- comment-allez vous?

impossible liaison

- singular noun + .... soldat anglais, son plan - et + .... et également - h aspiré - en haut, des héros - ... + huit, onze - en onze jours, cent huitieme - ... + loan words starting with a semi-vowel e.g. un yacht

optional assimilation

- voiceless to voiced /s/ - /z/ je paz vite, /k/ - /g/ chag jour - voiced to voiceless /ʒ/ - /ʃ/ she crois, /d/ - /t/ chemin te fer - two adjacent consonants may coalesce to combine features of the two- /ʒ/ + /s/ - /ʃ/ je sais- shais - a normally oral consonant may change to a nasal one- /d/- /n/ un nmi kilo, /g/- /ŋ/ une longue marche

Optional liaison

-plural nouns- des soldats francais -verb + .... vais essayer, est intelligent - monosyllabic invariable words- tres interessant, moins aisé - polysyllabic invariable words, assez intéressant, toujours utile

obligatory assimilation

/b/ - /p/ apsolu, opserver /k/ - /g/ segond, anegdote

Assimilation

a consonant changes to become more similar to a neighbouring sound. Usually a consonant and especially in terms of voicing.

Elision

the omission of a phoneme from the citation form of a word.

liaison

the pronunciation of an otherwise word final consonant, before a word beginning with a vowel. Also before a semi-vowel provided it is a native French word. Usually involves, /t, z, n/ but sometimes /R, p/