15.3479, Sum: French Lip Rounding

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LINGUIST List: Vol-15-3479. Mon Dec 13 2004. ISSN: 1068 - 4875.

Subject: 15.3479, Sum: French Lip Rounding

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1)
Date: 11-Dec-2004
From: Ian Wilson < ilwilson at interchange.ubc.ca >
Subject: French Lip Rounding



-------------------------Message 1 ----------------------------------
Date: Mon, 13 Dec 2004 14:19:21
From: Ian Wilson < ilwilson at interchange.ubc.ca >
Subject: French Lip Rounding


Regarding query http://www.linguistlist.org/issues/15/15-3329.html#2

Although there were only 2 responses to my query on differences in the
degree of lip rounding in Quebec French versus European French, there were
other requests to pass on whatever I learned.

Thanks to Joshua Viau and Geoff Morrison for responding with papers. Here's
a brief summary of what they told me:

''Barnes & Kavitskaya (2002) made measurements from one speaker (presumably
of European French) that suggested schwa's rounding gesture was partially
retained even in tokens where schwa was ''deleted'' on the surface. Here's
a link:

http://www.yale.edu/linguist/faculty/BLSHandout.pdf

However, Cote & Morrison (2004) recently failed to replicate this result
with a Quebecois speaker."

They also provided a link to Cote & Morrison's LabPhon 9 poster:

http://www.ualberta.ca/~gsm2/C%F4t%E9_&_Morrison_%282004%29_Experimental_evidence_and_the_nature_of_the_schwa-zero_alternation_in_French__LabPhon9_poster.pdf

Anecdotally, Geoff's colleague (a Quebecois speaker?) tells him that she
can spot a European French speaker coming down the street because they have
a rounded lip position even when they are not speaking. This is an
interesting observation that is certainly not limited to lip rounding or
European French. Many (non lip-reading) people have said they can watch
someone speak without hearing their voice  and tell what language they're
speaking.

All of this surely relates to one's underlying articulatory setting,
something I'm trying to measure in our speech lab.

Ian Wilson
University of British Columbia
http://www.linguistics.ubc.ca/People/ian.htm

Linguistic Field(s): Phonetics





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