French phonology

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This article discusses the phonological system of standard French based on the Parisian dialect (unless otherwise noted). French is notable for its uvular r, nasal vowels, and a certain type of Sandhi called liaison wherein word-final consonants are not pronounced unless followed by a word beginning with a vowel.

Vowels

Standard French contrasts up to thirteen oral vowels and four nasal ones. Some speakers contrast a front /a/ vs a back /ɑ/ but there are wide differences amongst such speakers as to which words have which vowel. Some speakers distinguish between long and short /ɛː/ and /ɛ/; maître [mɛːtʁ] ('teacher') vs mettre [mɛtʁ] ('to put'). Such minimal pairs are rare. The phonetic qualities of the back nasal vowels are not very similar to those of the corresponding oral vowels, and the contrasting factor that distinguishes /ɑ̃/ and /ɔ̃/ is the extra lip rounding of the latter. Many speakers have merged /œ̃/ with /ɛ̃/.

	Front		Central	Back
	unrounded	rounded	Central	Back
Close
Close-mid			[[Schwa\|ə]]
Open-mid			[[Schwa\|ə]]
Open

While the mid vowels contrast in certain environments, there is some distributional overlap. Generally speaking, close-mid vowels are found in open syllables while open-mid vowels are found in closed ones. [ɛ] and [e] contrast in final-position open syllables (e.g. poignée [pwaɲe] 'handful' vs poignet [pwaɲɛ] 'wrist'). Likewise, open-mid [ɔ] and [œ] contrast with close-mid [o] and [ø] mostly in closed monosyllables. Beyond this general rule, there are some complications. For instance, [o] and [ø] are found in closed syllables ending in [z] while only[ɔ] is found in closed monosyllables before [ʁ], [ɲ], and [g]

Schwa (also called "e caduc" ("decrepit e") and "e muet" ("mute e") is a mid central vowel with some rounding. It is always dropped ("muet") before another vowel (un(e) âme [ynɑːm]), and usually when following a single consonant (rapp(e)ler [ʁaple]). On the other hand, it is usually pronounced when its omission would create a cluster of three consonants or more (gredin [gʁədɛ̃], une porte [ynpɔʁt], une porte fermée [ynpɔʁtəfɛʁme]).

Stress falls on the final syllable of a phrase unless that syllable has schwa as its vowel, in which case the penultimate vowel is stressed.

Example words
Vowel	Example		Gloss
IPA		Orthography	Gloss
/i/	[si]	si	'if'
/y/	[sy]	su	'known'
/u/	[su]	sous	'under'
/e/	[se]	ses	'his'
/ø/	[sø]	ceux	'those'
/o/	[so]	sot	'silly'
/ɛ/	[sɛ]	sait	'knows'
/œ/	[sœːʁ]	sœur	'sister'
/ɔ/	[sɔːʁ]	sort	/fate/
/a/	[sa]	sa	'his'
/ɑ/	[pɑːt]	pâte	'dough'
/ə/	[sə]	ce	'that'
Nasal vowels
/ɑ̃/	[sɑ̃]	sans	'without'
/ɔ̃/	[sɔ̃]	son	'his'
/ɛ̃/	[sɛ̃]	saint	'saint'
/œ̃/	[bʁœ̃]	brun	"brown"

With the exception of the distinction made by some speakers between /ɛː/ and /ɛ/, variation in vowel length is entirely allophonic. /o/, /ø/, /ɑ/, and the nasal vowels are lengthened in closed, stressed syllables:

long		short
jeûne	[ʒøːn]	jeu	[ʒø]
saute	[soːt]	sot	[so]
pâte	[pɑːt]	pas	[pɑ]
sainte	[sɛ̃ːt]	saint	[sɛ̃]
emprunte	[ɑ̃pʁœ̃ːt]	emprunt	[ɑ̃pʁœ̃]
honte	[ɔ̃ːt]	bon	[bɔ̃]
vente	[vɑ̃ːt]	vent	[vɑ̃]

Also, any vowel followed by (/v/, /z/, /ʒ/), /ʁ/, or the consonant cluster /vʁ/ is lengthened; e.g. sœur, [sœːʁ] ('sister'); brave, [bʁaːv] ('nice'), juge [ʒyːʒ] ('judge'), topaze [tɔpaːz] ('topaz'), lèvre [lɛːvʁ] ('lip'), but not other consonants or clusters, e.g. porte [pɔʁt] ('door'), larve [laʁv] ('larva').

When syllables otherwise satisfying these conditions are not stressed, they may not be long. The vowel [o] of saute is long in Regarde comme elle saute!, but may not be in Qu'est-ce qu'elle saute bien!. In this case, the vowel is unstressed because it is not phrase-final. An exception occurs however with the phoneme /ɛː/ because of its distinctive nature, provided it is word-final, as in C'est une fête importante, where fête is pronounced with long /ɛː/.

Consonants

Where symbols for consonants occur in pairs, the left represents the voiceless consonant and the right represents the voiced consonant.

IPA chart French consonants
	Bilabial	Labio- dental	Dental	Palato- alveolar	Palatal		Velar		Uvular
	Bilabial	Labio- dental	Dental	Palato- alveolar	plain	round	plain	round	Uvular
Nasal	m		n		ɲ		ŋ
Plosive	p b		t d				k g
Fricative									ʁ
Approximant					j	ɥ		w
Liquid			l		(ʎ)

Phonetic notes:

The velar nasal is not a native phoneme of French, but occurs in loan words such as parking or camping. Many speakers (mostly old people and those who are not accustomed to this foreign sound) replace it with a prenasalized [ŋg] sequence. . The velar nasal is also heard in the accent of the city of Marseille after nasal vowels, e.g. malin, [malɛ̃ŋ].
The French rhotic has a wide range of realizations. [ʀ], [ʁ] (both the fricative and the approximant), [r], [ɾ], and [χ] will all be recognized as "r", but most of them will be considered dialectal. For example, [ʁ] is considered typical of a Parisian accent, while [r] is sometimes found in southern France, less and less in the Montréal area and in Cajun French.
The approximants [j], [ɥ] and [w] correspond to [i], [y] and [u] respectively. While there are a few minimal pairs (such as loua [lu.a] 'he rented' and loi [lwa] 'law'), there are many cases where there is free variation.
/ʎ/ has merged with /j/ in a number of dialects (including the standard). This accounts for the appearance of [j] in the syllable coda and minimal pairs like ail [aj] ('garlic') vs haï [ai] ('hated').

Example words
IPA	Example		Gloss	IPA	Example		Gloss
/m/	[mu]	mou	'soft'	/n/	[nu]	nous	'we'
/ɲ/	[aɲo]	agneau	'lamb'	/ŋ/	[paʁkiŋ]	parking	'parking lot'
/p/	[po]	peau	'skin'	/b/	[bo]	beau	'beautiful'
/t/	[tu]	tout	'all'	/d/	[du]	doux	'sweet'
/k/	[kø]	queue	'tail'	/g/	[gɛ̃]	gain	'gain'
/f/	[fu]	fou	'crazy'	/v/	[vu]	vous	'you'
/s/	[su]	sous	'under'	/z/	[zɛ̃]	zain	'whole-colored'
/ʃ/	[ʃu]	chou	'cabbage'	/ʒ/	[ʒu]	joue	'cheek'
/l/	[lu]	loup	'wolf'	/ʁ/	[ʁu]	roue	'wheel'

External links

Notes

References