The liaison in written French

1. The liaison in written French Cecilia Gunnarsson, Christiane Soum Favaro, Pierre Largy, Jean-François Camps Université de Toulouse le Mirail

2. The peculiarities of French phonology Example of the consonant /t/: • Fixed and stable word initial consonant: /tisy/, always pronounced • Fixed word finals: /mamut/, always pronounced • In liaison context: /ptitami/ vs. /pti/

3. Where to attach the liaison consonant? • To the word to the left (most frequent point of view) • To the word to the right (Gougenheim, 1938; Morin, 1981, 1986; Morin & Kaye, 1982) • Epenthetic (Klausenberger, 1974; Tranel, 1981; Côté, 2005) Which are the implications in written French?

4. Experimental study of the liaison in writing • Transversal study, 7 to12 year-old children • Dictation of nominal syntagms with either liaison consonant (LC) or fixed word initial consonant (FIC) • 3 most frequent liaison consonants, /z/, /n/ and /t/, 99,7% of liaisons cases (Boë & Tubach, 1992)

5. Population • 86 children • 20 children in 2nd year (7-8 years) • 24 children in 3rd year (8-9 years) • 21 children in 4th year (9-10 years) • 21 children in 5th year (10-11 years)

6. Materials • 48 recorded nominal syntagms, French neutral accent + 2 to training • For each consonant 8 with LC and 8 with FIC: un gros aigle – un gros zèbre / – /; un avion – un navire / – /; un petit éléphant – un petit téléphone / –  / • A note pad of 50 pages, one page/syntagm

7. Procedure • Room apart • Groupes of 6-8 children • In average 2 listenings per syntagm • No going back to correct

8. General treatment of data • 2 contexts: liaison and word initial • 3 consonants: /z/, /n/ and /t/ • 3 error types: – regroupment: un grosélan – un grosouave – apostrophe: un gros s’élan– un gros s’ouave – insertion or elision: un gros zélan – un gros ouave

9. General phonogical hypothesis • The liaison consonant is more difficult to detect than the initial fixed consonant (Wauquier-Gravelines, 1996, Nguyen et al., to appear) Hypothesis 1: There will be more errors in the liaison context than in the initial fixed context

10. General phonological hypothesis • According to acoustical-phonetic indicators LC ≠FIC for /t/; LC = FIC for /n/ (W-G, 1996); LC = FIC for /z/ (Nguyen et al., to appear) • /t/ and /z/ LC are easier to detect than /n/ LC (W-G) (Nguyen et al.) Hypothesis 2 There will be more errors for /n/ than for /z/ and /t/; and more errors for /z/ than for /t/

11. Phonological error hypothesis • The liaison consonant is unstable/floating vs the initial fixed consonant (Encrevé, 1988) • Syllabification in French: CV Hypothesis 3: There will be more errors of insertion of a consonant to the right than elision of a fixed initial consonant

12. Results Hypothesis 1 F(1,82)=5,57 ; Cme=652,8 ; p<0.03 * More errors in liaison context

13. Results Hypothesis 2 F(2,81)=56,26 ; Cme=185,05 ; p<0.001 * More errors for /z/ and /n/ than for /t/

14. Results Hypothesis 3 * More Insert/Elide errors in Liaison conexte

15. Results Hypothesis 3 bis F(2,81)=7,74 ; Cme=282,44 ; p<0.01 * More difference between liaison and fixed initial context for /t/ than /n/, no difference for /z/

16. Frequency error hypothesis • The more obligatory the liaison context, the more the syntagm with the LC will be treated as ONE unit (W-G, 1996) • Det +noun more obligatory than adj + noun Hypothesis 4 More errors of regroupment (unacha for un achat) for /n/ than for /t/ and /z/

17. Frequency error hypothesis • A frequent context type will cause errors in it’s direction. (Bybee, 1995, 2001; Ellis, 2002) • /z/ the most frequent LC, followed by /n/, followed by /t/ (Durand & Lyche, 2008) • When non-words, almost all FIC /z/ and /n/ treated as LC (Stridfeldt, 2005) Hypothesis 5 /z/ FIC > LC more than /t/ and /n/ /n/ FIC > LC more than /t/

18. Result errors – Hypothesis 4-5 • * Not more regroupement for /n/ * More FIC > LC for /n/ than /z/ and /t/ • * Not more FIC > LC for /z/ than /n/ * LC > FIC > for /t/

19. To summarize The floating nature of the LC… • Liaison context more difficult to treat than word initial context • Other errors than Insert/Elide are marginal. More Insert than Elide. And… • /n/ most difficult to detect then /z/ then /t/. Acoustical-phonetic factors? Frequency? Or other factors?

20. Developmental treatment of data • 4 school levels: 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th year • 2 contexts: liaison and word initial • 3 consonants: /z/, /n/ and /t/ • No error types, regroupment and apostroph being marginal as errortype

21. Developmental Hypotheses • The frequence of errors will decrease • The frequence of errors will decrease more in FIC (less problematic context) than in LC • The frequence of errors will decrease more for the C:s /t/ and /z/ (easier to detect) , than for /n/; and more for /t/ (FIC≠LC) than for /z/ and /n/ (FIC = LC) • The frequence of error will decrease in the liaison context where it is more frequent : in /z/ and /n/ but less in /t/.

22. Error frequence and age * Decrease first 3 years than slight increase, U-shaped curve

23. Error frequence and context * Not more decrease en FIC than in LC

24. Error frequence and consonant * More decrease for /t/ * Similar decrease for /z/ and /n/

25. Error frequence age, consonant and contexte /z/ /n/ * /z/ and /n/ more decrease in CL than FIC * /t/ not more decrease in FIC than LC /t/

26. To summarize • The frequence of errors decreases form 7 to 12 years, but u-shaped curve • More decrease in the complicated liaison context for all 3 consonants, floor effect for FIC? • More decrease for the /t/ where FIC ≠ LC and which is the easiest to detect.

27. Perspectives • Analyze the temporal data collected on a digitizing tablet • The impact of the liaison on morphology, singular vs. plural. • Widen the acquisitional perspective by populations of learners of L2 French