1. A corpus-based study of the distribution of word-final schwa in Standard French and what it teaches us about its phonological status
- Author
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Mathilde Hutin, Adèle Jatteau, Ioana Vasilescu, Lori Lamel, Yaru Wu, Martine Adda-Decker, Laboratoire Interdisciplinaire des Sciences du Numérique (LISN), Institut National de Recherche en Informatique et en Automatique (Inria)-CentraleSupélec-Université Paris-Saclay-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Traitement du Langage Parlé (TLP ), Institut National de Recherche en Informatique et en Automatique (Inria)-CentraleSupélec-Université Paris-Saclay-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Institut National de Recherche en Informatique et en Automatique (Inria)-CentraleSupélec-Université Paris-Saclay-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Sciences et Technologies des Langues (STL), Institut National de Recherche en Informatique et en Automatique (Inria)-CentraleSupélec-Université Paris-Saclay-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Institut National de Recherche en Informatique et en Automatique (Inria)-CentraleSupélec-Université Paris-Saclay-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Savoirs, Textes, Langage (STL) - UMR 8163 (STL), Université de Lille-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), LPP - Laboratoire de Phonétique et Phonologie - UMR 7018 (LPP), Université Sorbonne Nouvelle - Paris 3-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Université de Caen Normandie - UFR Humanités et Sciences Sociales (UNICAEN UFR HSS), Université de Caen Normandie (UNICAEN), Normandie Université (NU)-Normandie Université (NU), Laboratoire Interdisciplinaire des Sciences du Numérique [LISN], Savoirs, Textes, Langage (STL) - UMR 8163 [STL], LPP - Laboratoire de Phonétique et Phonologie - UMR 7018 [LPP], CentraleSupélec-Université Paris-Saclay-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), CentraleSupélec-Université Paris-Saclay-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-CentraleSupélec-Université Paris-Saclay-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Sciences et Technologies des Langues (STL), and CentraleSupélec-Université Paris-Saclay-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-CentraleSupélec-Université Paris-Saclay-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)
- Subjects
Standard French ,Standard french ,Pronunciation variation ,automatic alignment ,schwa ,P1-1091 ,large corpora ,[SCCO.LING]Cognitive science/Linguistics ,epenthesis ,Large corpora ,Automatic alignment ,pronunciation variation ,PC1-5498 ,Schwa ,[SHS.LANGUE]Humanities and Social Sciences/Linguistics ,Philology. Linguistics ,Epenthesis ,ComputingMilieux_MISCELLANEOUS ,Romanic languages - Abstract
What is commonly considered as an epenthetic vowel can actually refer to at least two different realities: phonological epenthesis or phonetic excrescence. French schwa, noted [ә], is a vowel alternating with zero and limited to unstressed syllables that can appear word-internally or word-finally. This paper presents an extensive description of the distribution of word-final schwa in Standard French in order to shed light on its nature: is it an intrusive vowel or a full epenthetic vowel? To that extent, three large corpora of French containing more than 110 hours of speech were used to establish the presence of word-final schwa as a function of sociolinguistics, orthography, phonotactics and phonetics. Our conclusions are that word-final schwa is impacted by speech style, gender, orthography, phonotactics (i.e., the number of adjacent consonants and their sonority profile), and the phonological properties of the codas. However, speech rate does not impact word-final schwa realization. The specific results lead us to suggest that word-final schwa in Standard French shares similarities with intrusive vowels but ultimately behaves like a legit epenthetic vowel.
- Published
- 2021