Aux Halles

[António Marques]

1. Is such a phenomenon as standard french's liaison usually treated
at the phonological level?

2. How is the purported (I've never observed it in the wild, but I'm
quite ignorant of french) blocking of liaison by etymological h
analyzed? I suppose one can posit a ghost phoneme with no other
manifestation, or - given the paucity of cases - treat it as a lexical
phenomenon. Are there other options?

[Arnaud Fournet]

Le jeudi 11 avril 2013 16:58:36 UTC+2, António Marques a écrit :
> 1. Is such a phenomenon as standard french's liaison usually treated
>
> at the phonological level?
>
>
>
> 2. How is the purported (I've never observed it in the wild, but I'm
>
> quite ignorant of french)

***

Then,

what is the point of your continuous parades about Macro-Occitanic BS??

A.
***

[Peter T. Daniels]

French is very popular for phonological analysis because of its
oddities like that one.

You can get Hall's French: A Structural Sketch from JSTOR, because
it's a Language supplement from 1948; and then Sanford Schane did a
pure-SPE generative phonology of French in 1968 (MIT Press).

Schane's analysis ends up, not surprisingly, looking like French
orthography.

[Christian Weisgerber]

Antï¿œnio Marques <ent...@gmail.com> wrote:

> 2. How is the purported (I've never observed it in the wild, but I'm
> quite ignorant of french) blocking of liaison by etymological h
> analyzed?

FWIW, there are also words that block the liaison without any
etymological h, like "onze" and a number of ou- and y- words.

> I suppose one can posit a ghost phoneme with no other
> manifestation, or - given the paucity of cases - treat it as a lexical
> phenomenon.

And speaking of ghost phonemes, there is also the issue of the
silent e ("e caduc") that pops in and out of existence...

--
Christian "naddy" Weisgerber na...@mips.inka.de

[Arnaud Fournet]

Le jeudi 11 avril 2013 18:45:44 UTC+2, Christian Weisgerber a écrit :
> Antï¿œnio Marques <ent...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> > 2. How is the purported (I've never observed it in the wild, but I'm
>
> > quite ignorant of french) blocking of liaison by etymological h
>
> > analyzed?
>
>
>
> FWIW, there are also words that block the liaison without any
>
> etymological h, like "onze" and a number of ou- and y- words.
>

***

Actually there's a general tendency in current French (as spoken in France) to increase the number of words with no liaison.
For example all names of alphabetic letters now prohibit liaisons.
For example [eN en] un N, I guess nobody would say [yn - en], which possibly was the norm a century ago.

This may be related to the fear of ridiculous fake liaisons and to a tendency, which I predict, to shift word-final accent to word-initial.

A.

[António Marques]

Interesting. Thank you.

[Adam Funk]

On 2013-04-11, Peter T. Daniels wrote:

> On Apr 11, 10:58 am, António Marques <ento...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> 1. Is such a phenomenon as standard french's liaison usually treated
>> at the phonological level?
>>
>> 2. How is the purported (I've never observed it in the wild, but I'm
>> quite ignorant of french) blocking of liaison by etymological h
>> analyzed? I suppose one can posit a ghost phoneme with no other
>> manifestation, or - given the paucity of cases - treat it as a lexical
>> phenomenon. Are there other options?
>
> French is very popular for phonological analysis because of its
> oddities like that one.

It's a strange language; I don't think you could make something up so
weird.


--
"Mandrake, have you never wondered why I drink only distilled water,
or rain water, and only pure grain alcohol?" [Dr Strangelove]

[Christian Weisgerber]

Adam Funk <a24...@ducksburg.com> wrote:

> > French is very popular for phonological analysis because of its
> > oddities like that one.
>
> It's a strange language; I don't think you could make something up so
> weird.

I very much doubt that it is remarkable in a global context.

Whenever I find myself thinking that French is peculiar in Europe,
I wonder if that is actually true. In what ways does French
substantially differ from the other Romance languages?

[Peter T. Daniels]

On May 1, 10:44 am, na...@mips.inka.de (Christian Weisgerber) wrote:
> Adam Funk <a24...@ducksburg.com> wrote:
> > > French is very popular for phonological analysis because of its
> > > oddities like that one.
>
> > It's a strange language; I don't think you could make something up so
> > weird.
>
> I very much doubt that it is remarkable in a global context.
>
> Whenever I find myself thinking that French is peculiar in Europe,
> I wonder if that is actually true.  In what ways does French
> substantially differ from the other Romance languages?

In having significant substrates of both Celtic and Germanic.

[Adam Funk]

On 2013-05-01, Christian Weisgerber wrote:

> Adam Funk <a24...@ducksburg.com> wrote:
>
>> > French is very popular for phonological analysis because of its
>> > oddities like that one.
>>
>> It's a strange language; I don't think you could make something up so
>> weird.
>
> I very much doubt that it is remarkable in a global context.
>
> Whenever I find myself thinking that French is peculiar in Europe,
> I wonder if that is actually true. In what ways does French
> substantially differ from the other Romance languages?

Off-hand, I'd say liaison, especially with the weird "aspirate h" (but
not really aspirate) issue; the weird stress system; the rules about
when to inflect past participles in compound verbs for gender &
number.


--
"Mrs CJ and I avoid clichés like the plague."

[Trond Engen]

Adam Funk:

Isn't the latter of these (as well as part of the rules for liaison and
several of the stranger quirks) actually artificial, induced by long
dead prescriptive grammarians?

On the weirdness of "aspirate h", Henriette Walters mentions being
surprised by recordings of Parisians with preserved aspiration.

(OT: I was at les Halles this long weekend! Well, in a wide sense,
anyway, passing under on the RER and walking around the edges on foot.
This was my first time in Paris not spending a couple of hours down in
the FNAC store. I could say it's because they're digging up the whole
hole, but I didn't go to Gibert Jaune on Boulevard St. Michel either.)

(OT2: My spoken French seems to be deteriorating for each time I visit.
That's to be expected, I suppose, but this time it still came as a
surprise, since I've been reading French regularly for the last few
years, and I find it easier than ever.)

--
Trond Engen

[Adam Funk]

On 2013-05-02, Trond Engen wrote:

> Adam Funk:
>
>> On 2013-05-01, Christian Weisgerber wrote:

>>> Whenever I find myself thinking that French is peculiar in Europe,
>>> I wonder if that is actually true. In what ways does French
>>> substantially differ from the other Romance languages?
>>
>> Off-hand, I'd say liaison, especially with the weird "aspirate h"
>> (but not really aspirate) issue; the weird stress system; the rules
>> about when to inflect past participles in compound verbs for gender
>> & number.
>
> Isn't the latter of these (as well as part of the rules for liaison and
> several of the stranger quirks) actually artificial, induced by long
> dead prescriptive grammarians?

Yes, but I think it has more or less sunk in. ISTR that the
deuxième/second distinction, however, is only observed by those who
paid attention in school.

> On the weirdness of "aspirate h", Henriette Walters mentions being
> surprised by recordings of Parisians with preserved aspiration.

Interesting --- was that completely consistent with the "h"s that
block liaison & elision?

> (OT: I was at les Halles this long weekend! Well, in a wide sense,
> anyway, passing under on the RER and walking around the edges on foot.
> This was my first time in Paris not spending a couple of hours down in
> the FNAC store. I could say it's because they're digging up the whole
> hole, but I didn't go to Gibert Jaune on Boulevard St. Michel either.)
>
> (OT2: My spoken French seems to be deteriorating for each time I visit.
> That's to be expected, I suppose, but this time it still came as a
> surprise, since I've been reading French regularly for the last few
> years, and I find it easier than ever.)

You're picking up all those wacky prescriptive rules. ;-)

BTW, I like Librairie Tschann near Montparnasse cemetery (which I also
like). (They notoriously displayed _Tropic of Cancer_ in the window
in violation of the labelling.)


--
Civilization is a race between catastrophe and education.
[H G Wells]

[Trond Engen]

Adam Funk:

> On 2013-05-02, Trond Engen wrote:
>
>> Adam Funk:
>>
>>> On 2013-05-01, Christian Weisgerber wrote:
>
>>>> Whenever I find myself thinking that French is peculiar in Europe,
>>>> I wonder if that is actually true. In what ways does French
>>>> substantially differ from the other Romance languages?
>>>
>>> Off-hand, I'd say liaison, especially with the weird "aspirate h"
>>> (but not really aspirate) issue; the weird stress system; the rules
>>> about when to inflect past participles in compound verbs for gender
>>> & number.
>>
>> Isn't the latter of these (as well as part of the rules for liaison
>> and several of the stranger quirks) actually artificial, induced by
>> long dead prescriptive grammarians?
>
> Yes, but I think it has more or less sunk in. ISTR that the
> deuxième/second distinction, however, is only observed by those who
> paid attention in school.

I didn't know that one. But then, I didn't pay attention, obviously.

>> On the weirdness of "aspirate h", Henriette Walters mentions being
>> surprised by recordings of Parisians with preserved aspiration.
>
> Interesting --- was that completely consistent with the "h"s that
> block liaison & elision?

That's how I understood it, but I don't remember the excact wording.
I'll have to look it up.

>> (OT: I was at les Halles this long weekend! Well, in a wide sense,
>> anyway, passing under on the RER and walking around the edges on
>> foot. This was my first time in Paris not spending a couple of hours
>> down in the FNAC store. I could say it's because they're digging up
>> the whole hole, but I didn't go to Gibert Jaune on Boulevard St.
>> Michel either.)
>>
>> (OT2: My spoken French seems to be deteriorating for each time I
>> visit. That's to be expected, I suppose, but this time it still came
>> as a surprise, since I've been reading French regularly for the last
>> few years, and I find it easier than ever.)
>
> You're picking up all those wacky prescriptive rules. ;-)

I'm not picking up rules -- wacky, prescriptive, or otherwise. That's
not a good thing.

> BTW, I like Librairie Tschann near Montparnasse cemetery (which I
> also like).

Thanks, I'll take note of that.

I should be too embarrassed to tell this, but I've never been to
Montparnasse. Except for the tourist traps around St. Michel and Rue
Mouffetard, the whole left bank was largely unknown territory to me
until this weekend. Now we stayed near les Gobelins and managed to cover
some ground, but we didn't go beyond the RER station at Port Royal.

> (They notoriously displayed _Tropic of Cancer_ in the window in
> violation of the labelling.)

Because of the "c" word? Is that taboo in France?

--
Trond Engen

[Adam Funk]

On 2013-05-02, Trond Engen wrote:

> Adam Funk:

>> BTW, I like Librairie Tschann near Montparnasse cemetery (which I
>> also like).
>
> Thanks, I'll take note of that.
>
> I should be too embarrassed to tell this, but I've never been to
> Montparnasse. Except for the tourist traps around St. Michel and Rue
> Mouffetard, the whole left bank was largely unknown territory to me
> until this weekend. Now we stayed near les Gobelins and managed to cover
> some ground, but we didn't go beyond the RER station at Port Royal.

It's less touristy than Père-Lachaise. (The messiest grave is
Gainsbourg's.)

>> (They notoriously displayed _Tropic of Cancer_ in the window in
>> violation of the labelling.)
>
> Because of the "c" word? Is that taboo in France?

Quote:

A visitor to the Tschann bookstore in December 1934 would have been
greeted by a unique display in the shop’s window: a green and black
illustration depicting a woman being devoured by a giant crab which
adorned the cover of Miller’s newly published Tropic of Cancer. The
book was printed with a paper wrapper bearing the warning, “Ce
livre ne doit pas être exposé en vitrine” (this book must not be
displayed in windows), but when Miller approached Louis Tschann to
interest him in placing the book in his store, Tschann brazenly
tore off the offending wrappers and placed the books prominently in
his front window. Elated, Miller reported to Anaïs Nin that it was
“the only place in Paris so far they are visible!”

http://www.millerwalks.com/content/tschann-libraire


--
The history of the world is the history of a privileged few.
--- Henry Miller

[james...@gmail.com]

On Wednesday, 1 May 2013 18:30:31 UTC+1, Adam Funk wrote:
> On 2013-05-01, Christian Weisgerber wrote:
> > Adam Funk <a24...@ducksburg.com> wrote:
> >> > French is very popular for phonological analysis because of its
> >> > oddities like that one.

> >> It's a strange language; I don't think you could make something up so
> >> weird.

> > I very much doubt that it is remarkable in a global context.

> > Whenever I find myself thinking that French is peculiar in Europe,
> > I wonder if that is actually true. In what ways does French
> > substantially differ from the other Romance languages?

> Off-hand, I'd say liaison, especially with the weird "aspirate h" (but
> not really aspirate) issue;

Is liaison really that rare? It's just a particularly simple
form of sandhi, and I'd say that Germanic languages are the
exception here, and that sandhi is more the usual case. The
final vowels in Italian are definitely affected if the following
word starts with a vowel, for example.

As for the "aspirate h", it's simply history. The liaisons were
fixed at an epoque when it was pronounced.

> the weird stress system; the rules about
> when to inflect past participles in compound verbs for gender &
> number.

Which are common to other Romance languages as well.

--
James

[james...@gmail.com]

Significant Celtic? (And I'd have thought that the Germanic was
a superstrate, rather than a substrate.)

--
James

[james...@gmail.com]

On Thursday, 2 May 2013 09:29:49 UTC+1, Trond Engen wrote:
> Adam Funk:
> > On 2013-05-01, Christian Weisgerber wrote:
> >> Adam Funk <a24...@ducksburg.com> wrote:
> >>>> French is very popular for phonological analysis because of its
> >>>> oddities like that one.

> >>> It's a strange language; I don't think you could make something up
> >>> so weird.

> >> I very much doubt that it is remarkable in a global context.

> >> Whenever I find myself thinking that French is peculiar in Europe,
> >> I wonder if that is actually true. In what ways does French
> >> substantially differ from the other Romance languages?

> > Off-hand, I'd say liaison, especially with the weird "aspirate h"
> > (but not really aspirate) issue; the weird stress system; the rules
> > about when to inflect past participles in compound verbs for gender
> > & number.

> Isn't the latter of these (as well as part of the rules for liaison and
> several of the stranger quirks) actually artificial, induced by long
> dead prescriptive grammarians?

Partially. Younger people seem to make less liaison that
formally. But there are still cases where is always heard:
after an article, for example. You'll never hear /leom/
(instead of /lezom/), and at least in Paris, you'll never hear
/lezal/ (instead of /leal/).

As for that inflection of the past participle: people do
regularly get it wrong when writing. But I think you'll still
hear "Les decisions que j'ai prises" more often that "Les
decisions que j'ai pris": in the few cases where it makes
a phonetic difference, it seems to resist.

--
James

[james...@gmail.com]

On Thursday, 11 April 2013 17:45:44 UTC+1, Christian Weisgerber wrote:
> Antï¿œnio Marques <ent...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > 2. How is the purported (I've never observed it in the wild, but I'm
> > quite ignorant of french) blocking of liaison by etymological h
> > analyzed?

> FWIW, there are also words that block the liaison without any
> etymological h, like "onze" and a number of ou- and y- words.

There is never any liaison with numbers or letters, or in
general, words used as the word, and not for its meaning. And
liaison only affects vowels; ou- and y- aren't always vowels.

> > I suppose one can posit a ghost phoneme with no other
> > manifestation, or - given the paucity of cases - treat it as a lexical
> > phenomenon.

> And speaking of ghost phonemes, there is also the issue of the
> silent e ("e caduc") that pops in and out of existence...

And is sometimes pronounced, depending on context and dialect.
(You'll hear it a lot more in Provence than in Normandie.)

--
James

[Christian Weisgerber]

Adam Funk <a24...@ducksburg.com> wrote:

> > Whenever I find myself thinking that French is peculiar in Europe,
> > I wonder if that is actually true. In what ways does French
> > substantially differ from the other Romance languages?
>
> Off-hand, I'd say liaison, especially with the weird "aspirate h" (but
> not really aspirate) issue; the weird stress system; the rules about
> when to inflect past participles in compound verbs for gender &
> number.

These look largely minor to me. I _suspect_ the loss of phonemic
stress is probably the most significant and may have far reaching,
nonobvious, unrecognized consequences.

In compound forms with être, the p.p. agrees with the subject. This
is the same elsewhere in Romance. In compound forms with avoir,
the p.p. agrees with a preceding direct object. According to my
Bescherelle (2010 ed., § 131), this was artificially introduced
into French in 1538 by Clément Marot by aping Italian usage. In
modern Italian it is now optional, I think.

[Adam Funk]

On 2013-05-03, Christian Weisgerber wrote:

> Adam Funk <a24...@ducksburg.com> wrote:
>
>> > Whenever I find myself thinking that French is peculiar in Europe,
>> > I wonder if that is actually true. In what ways does French
>> > substantially differ from the other Romance languages?
>>
>> Off-hand, I'd say liaison, especially with the weird "aspirate h" (but
>> not really aspirate) issue; the weird stress system; the rules about
>> when to inflect past participles in compound verbs for gender &
>> number.
>
> These look largely minor to me. I _suspect_ the loss of phonemic
> stress is probably the most significant and may have far reaching,
> nonobvious, unrecognized consequences.

Yes, that's the one that (to me, anyway) makes French stand out from
Italian & Spanish.

> In compound forms with être, the p.p. agrees with the subject. This
> is the same elsewhere in Romance. In compound forms with avoir,
> the p.p. agrees with a preceding direct object. According to my
> Bescherelle (2010 ed., § 131), this was artificially introduced
> into French in 1538 by Clément Marot by aping Italian usage. In
> modern Italian it is now optional, I think.

I was under the impression (but ICBW) that it had died out in Italian
not long after being aped in French. Either way, though, it wasn't
"natural" in French.


--
"It is the role of librarians to keep government running in difficult
times," replied Dramoren. "Librarians are the last line of defence
against chaos." (McMullen 2001)

[Adam Funk]

On 2013-05-03, james...@gmail.com wrote:

> On Thursday, 2 May 2013 09:29:49 UTC+1, Trond Engen wrote:
>> Adam Funk:

>> > Off-hand, I'd say liaison, especially with the weird "aspirate h"
>> > (but not really aspirate) issue; the weird stress system; the rules
>> > about when to inflect past participles in compound verbs for gender
>> > & number.
>
>> Isn't the latter of these (as well as part of the rules for liaison and
>> several of the stranger quirks) actually artificial, induced by long
>> dead prescriptive grammarians?
>
> Partially. Younger people seem to make less liaison that
> formally. But there are still cases where is always heard:
> after an article, for example. You'll never hear /leom/
> (instead of /lezom/), and at least in Paris, you'll never hear
> /lezal/ (instead of /leal/).

Are you saying that farther from Paris you might hear liaison in "les
Halles", where "Halles" isn't as well-known?

> As for that inflection of the past participle: people do
> regularly get it wrong when writing. But I think you'll still
> hear "Les decisions que j'ai prises" more often that "Les
> decisions que j'ai pris": in the few cases where it makes
> a phonetic difference, it seems to resist.

That's what I meant in my other post: "I think it has more or less
sunk in."


--
I look back with the greatest pleasure to the kindness and hospitality
I met with in Yorkshire, where I spent some of the happiest years of
my life. --- Sabine Baring-Gould

[Arnaud Fournet]

Le vendredi 3 mai 2013 22:57:28 UTC+2, Adam Funk a écrit :

> On 2013-05-03, james...@gmail.com wrote:
>

>
> > Partially. Younger people seem to make less liaison that
>
> > formally.

***

yes,
quite sure.

I think part of the fake issues is that people take it that liaison is the unmarked phenomenon, which was true from a diachronic PoV, but from a synchronic PoV, liaison is an active phenomenon that normally occurs only among words or morphemes with a strong syntagmatic solidarity.
Typically <et> "and" accepts liaison neither before nor after it, because it works as a connector.
un fruit petit et orange: peti -e- oraNzh
petitetoraNzh is gibberish.
Italian accepts ed but this is not possible in French.

A.
***

But there are still cases where is always heard:
>
> > after an article, for example. You'll never hear /leom/
>
> > (instead of /lezom/), and at least in Paris, you'll never hear
>
> > /lezal/ (instead of /leal/).
>
>
>
> Are you saying that farther from Paris you might hear liaison in "les
>
> Halles", where "Halles" isn't as well-known?

***

No,
le-z-al is not understandable as standing for le-al

A.
***

>
>
>
>
>
> > As for that inflection of the past participle: people do
>
> > regularly get it wrong when writing. But I think you'll still
>
> > hear "Les decisions que j'ai prises" more often that "Les
>
> > decisions que j'ai pris": in the few cases where it makes
>
> > a phonetic difference, it seems to resist.

***

That "rule" has always been very much artificial and highly marked as upper-class.

A.
***
>
>

[james...@gmail.com]

On Friday, 3 May 2013 21:57:28 UTC+1, Adam Funk wrote:
> On 2013-05-03, james...@gmail.com wrote:
> > On Thursday, 2 May 2013 09:29:49 UTC+1, Trond Engen wrote:
> >> Adam Funk:

> >> > Off-hand, I'd say liaison, especially with the weird "aspirate h"
> >> > (but not really aspirate) issue; the weird stress system; the rules
> >> > about when to inflect past participles in compound verbs for gender
> >> > & number.

> >> Isn't the latter of these (as well as part of the rules for liaison and
> >> several of the stranger quirks) actually artificial, induced by long
> >> dead prescriptive grammarians?

> > Partially. Younger people seem to make less liaison that
> > formally. But there are still cases where is always heard:
> > after an article, for example. You'll never hear /leom/
> > (instead of /lezom/), and at least in Paris, you'll never hear
> > /lezal/ (instead of /leal/).

> Are you saying that farther from Paris you might hear liaison in "les
> Halles", where "Halles" isn't as well-known?

No. I'm saying that I'm less up-to-date with regards to how
people speak outside of Paris. There's certainly no reason why
people in other cities wouldn't speak of "les halles" as well,
probably meaning the wholesale market in their town.

--
James

[Adam Funk]

Fair enough; I interpreted "at least in Paris" the other way.


--
svn ci -m 'come back make, all is forgiven!' build.xml