An articulatory study of rhotic vowels in Canadian French

Authors

  • Jeff Mielke Dept. of Linguistics, University of Ottawa, Arts 401, 70 Laurier Ave E, Ottawa, ON K1N6N5, Canada

Keywords:

Acoustic analysis, Canadian french, Word lists

Abstract

Variability in English raises the question of whether French rhotic vowels are also produced with more than one categorically different tongue posture. To investigate this, ultrasound was used to image the tongues of three Canadian French speakers during production of these vowels. The word list was randomized and presented on a monitor and the subjects advanced through the prompts at their own pace with a remote control. Acoustic analysis of vowels categorized as rhotic- and non-rhotic-sounding reveals that sounding rhotic is associated with low F3, which is an important acoustic cue for English. While the similarities with the English sound are striking, and while Canadian French is obviously in contact with English, it is not clear that the rhotic variant is borrowed from English. Rhotic vowels are also found in a wider range of segmental contexts than had previously been reported.

Additional Files

Published

2011-09-01

How to Cite

1.
Mielke J. An articulatory study of rhotic vowels in Canadian French. Canadian Acoustics [Internet]. 2011 Sep. 1 [cited 2024 Apr. 25];39(3):164-5. Available from: https://jcaa.caa-aca.ca/index.php/jcaa/article/view/2462

Issue

Vol. 39 No. 3 (2011)

Section

Proceedings of the Acoustics Week in Canada

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