BOOK II.-PHONOLOGY. CHAPTER I.-ALPHABET, SYLLABLES, ACCENT, ETC. THE ALPHABET. § 43. Names of the Letters: (1) The letters, which are used to represent the various sounds employed in speaking any language, form its alphabet. The French alphabet is the same as the English. It is important not to confuse the names of the letters with their sounds; the sounds given to the letters often vary, the names do not. (2) The names of the vowels in French are :-- a (fâchez), e (été), i (ici), o (écho), u (tu). (3) There are two ways of naming the consonants in French. The following is the ordinary way: bé, cé, dé, effe, gé, ache, ji, ka, elle, emme, enne, pé, ku, erre, esse, té, vé, ics, zède. w is called double vé,' and y'i grec.' The following is the better way. spond as much as possible to the sounds : The names then corre be, de, fe, ghe, he, je, ke, le, me, ne, que, (ke) re, se, te, ve, xe (kse) ze. c may be called se or ke; w may be called ou or ve. § 44. Imperfections of the French Alphabet.-For an alphabet to be perfect, every separate sound should have a separate symbol. The French alphabet, like the English, is imperfect: (1) There are at least thirty-two sounds, and only twentysix letters to represent them. (2) The same letter may represent more than one sound: the o in mode has a different sound from the o in rose; the g in manger has a different sound from the g in gant. (3) The same sound may have more than one letter to represent it: the sound of k can be represented by k, c, and q. (4) Many letters are silent: gt in doigt; r in aimer; i in poigne, etc. (5) Two letters may represent but one sound: eu in jeune; ch in chercher; an in tant, etc. (6) One letter may represent two sounds: x in exercice. (7) The letters n, m sometimes help to represent vowel sounds, sometimes they are consonants; compare bon and bonne (§ 76). SYLLABLES. § 45. Division of Words into Syllables.-(1) A syllable must contain a vowel. It may or may not also have one or more consonants. (2) Every inner syllable must begin with a consonant: * é-du-ca-tion. (3) Consonants coming together between two vowels must be divided: sol-dat. Exceptions to (3). i. Combinations of consonants, like cr, dr, fr, fl, sl, etc., in which r or appears as second letter, must be left undivided: ci-dre, ap-pli-que. ii. ph, th, rh, ch,† represent simple sounds. They must remain undivided: flè-che. iii. gn usually = ni. The letters are undivided: o-gnon. § 46. Closed and Open Syllables.-A syllable followed immediately by a consonant sound is said to be closed,‡ or stopped: est-il; toute. A syllable not immediately followed by a consonant sound is said to be open, ‡ or full: tout; il est. 47. Long and Short Syllables. (See § 78, Quantity.) *This is not always true in verse. † ph=f; th=t; rh=r; ch=sometimes English sh, sometimes k (see §§ 124-126). Do not confuse this with the French terms fermé and ouvert which are often applied to sounds. GRAPHIC ACCENTS. § 48. There are three graphic or written Accents in French : 1. The Circumflex A 2. The Grave \ 3. The Acute/ 49. The CIRCUMFLEX accent is found over all the vowels. (1) It usually shows that some letter (especially s) is no longer employed in spelling the word, thus: âge is now written instead of aage, (2) Some of these vowels, with circumflex accent, have a different sound from the same vowels without the accent, thus:-a is usually different from â; o from ô; é from ê (§ 78). § 50. The GRAVE accent is placed over a vowel in a few words to distinguish them from others similarly spelt: But its chief use is over e, to strengthen the tonic syllable (see § 56, v.). § 51. The ACUTE accent is only found over e. It may have the same meaning as the circumflex or the grave, but its chief use is to show that the e is not to have the sound of e in je, but that of e in the (§ 56, vi.): compare— TONIC OR FORCE ACCENT. § 52. Tonic or Force Accent in a Word.-1. The syllable in a word which is pronounced with the greatest force is said to bear the force or tonic accent. 2. The word accent in this sense must not be confused with its more frequent use with reference to the signs These signs rarely in French point out the syllable upon which the tonic accent is to be laid. 3. In English the tonic or force accent may be laid upon(a) the last syllable: brigade. (b) the last syllable but one: vapour. But the tendency is to put the accent as near the beginning of the word as possible. 4. In French, on the contrary, the tonic accent is always laid upon the last syllable if the word does not end in e mute, and upon the last but one if it does end in e mute. Except in verse this is the last pronounced syllable: brigade, vapeur, pastoral, inévitable. 5. The syllable upon which the accent is laid is said to be the tonic or accented syllable. Those syllables upon which no accent is laid are said to be atonic or unaccented syllables. 6. The tonic accent in French is at all times much weaker than in English. Or, what practically is the same thing, the unaccented syllables in French are more distinctly pronounced than in English, so that the contrast is not so great between unaccented and accented syllables. Compare cascade (Eng.) and cascade (Fr.), esteem and estime, fatigue (Eng.) and fatigue (Fr.), etc., etc. When, as in économie, vagabond, Normandie, éducation, comfortable, etc., the French word is the same or nearly the same as the corresponding English one, there is a danger (§ 57) of wrongly accenting in French the syllable that is accented in English. This must be carefully guarded against, as it is doubtless one of the principal causes of what is known as the "English accent' in the pronunciation of French. The principle may be safely laid down, that the less difference a speaker makes between accented and unaccented syllables, the better is his pronunciation.* This, of course is not true of English, where unaccented syllables are often scarcely heard (see § 81. 1). § 53. Tonic or Force Accent in a Phrase.—At the end of every phrase in French, there is a tonic or force accent over and above that found at the end of each word. To this accent the term phrase-accent may be conveniently applied. It is stronger than the ordinary word-accent. In fact, in the mouth of many speakers it is the only accent that is heard. The word-accent, already weak, is made still weaker.† See Prosody, for further details. NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS TO CHAPTER I. § 54. The Alphabet.-" By an alphabet we mean a list of symbols which represent conventionally to the eye the sounds which are heard in the speech of a nation. An alphabet will therefore be perfect if the number of its symbols exactly corresponds to the number of simple sounds which are commonly distinguishable in the spoken language. But this perfection has probably never yet been reached; all known alphabets have failed either by defect, i.e., from not representing all the simple sounds, or by redundancy, in having more than one symbol for the same sound. They must also necessarily become imperfect by lapse of time. No nation keeps the sound of its language unaltered through many centuries. Sounds change, as well as grammatical forms, though they may endure longer, so that the symbols no longer retain their proper values; often, too, several different sounds come to be denoted by the same symbol: and in strictness the alphabet should be changed to correspond to all these changes. But little inconvenience is practically caused by the tacit acceptance of the old symbol to express the new sound; indeed, the change of language is so gradual, that the variation in the values of the symbols is * This is what Vigny means by 'Leur langage (les Tourangeaux) est le plus pur français, sans lenteur, sans vitesse, sans accent.' It must not be forgotten that emphasis may displace the ordinary accent. |