Sound Structure of French.

Catalog description

This course will address the sound system of French. It will begin with a thorough introduction and overview of articulatory phonetics, highlighting the striking differences in sound systems between standard Parisian French and American English. The course will then pivot towards phonetic isoglosses which differentiate French dialects across the Francophone world, with particular emphasis on Québécois French and West African French. Finally, the course will end with a discussion of how sound systems are represented in the brain, using French data to contrast an ordered rule approach with an optimality theoretic approach. Prerequisite: FREN 202 .