This volume offers a diachronic sociolinguistic perspective on one of the most complex and fascinating variable speech phenomena in contemporary French. Liaison affects a number of word-final consonants which are realized before a vowel but not pre-pausally or before a consonant. Liaisons have traditionally been classified as obligatoire (obligatory), interdite (forbidden) and facultative (optional), the latter category subject to a highly complex prescriptive norm. This volume traces the evolution of this norm in prescriptive works published since the 16th Century, and sets it against actual practice as evidenced from linguists’ descriptions and recorded corpora. The author argues that optional (or variable) liaison in French offers a rich and well-documented example of language change driven by ideology in Kroch’s (1978) terms, in which an elite seeks to maintain a complex conservative norm in the face of generally simplifying changes led by lower socio-economic groups, who tend in this case to restrict liaison to a small set of traditionally obligatory environments.
Author(s): David Hornsby
Edition: 1
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Year: 2020
Language: English
Pages: 246
Preface
Contents
List of Figures
List of Tables
Part I: Models
1: Ideology and Language Change
1.1 Kroch’s Model of Language Variation
1.2 The ‘Least Effort’ Principle
1.3 The Ideology of the Standard
1.4 Plan of This Book
References
2: What Is Liaison?
2.1 Definitions
2.2 Delattre’s Liaison Typology
2.2.1 The Delattre Model: A Retrospective Critique
2.3 Status of the Liaison Consonant
2.4 Linking Consonants in English
References
Part II: Diachronic Perspectives on a Prescriptive Norm
3: A Brief History of French Final Consonants
3.1 Introduction
3.2 Final Syllable Erosion in the Post-Roman Period
3.3 An Etymological Norm for Writing and Speech
3.4 Summary
References
4: An Evolving Norm: Liaison in Prescriptive Grammar
4.1 Introduction
4.2 The Origins of Bon Usage: 1529–1647
4.3 A Norm for Liaison: The Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries
4.4 Peak Liaison? The Eighteenth Century and After
4.5 Two Twentieth-century Prescriptivists: Martinon and Fouché
4.6 Prescriptive Uncertainty: Nasal Vowels in Liaison
4.7 Conclusions to Part II
References
Part III: Variation and Change
5: Liaison and Geography
5.1 Invariable Liaison: The noyau dur
5.2 Regional Variation in Francophone Europe
5.3 Liaison in the Francophone World
References
6: Liaison and Social Factors
6.1 Sociolinguistics and Orderly Heterogeneity
6.2 Urban Sociolinguistic Surveys
6.3 French Language Corpora
6.3.1 The Phonologie du Français Contemporain (PFC) Project
6.4 Liaison and Class
6.5 Liaison and Gender
6.6 Variation and Change in Apparent Time
6.7 Conclusions
References
7: The Four Cities Project
7.1 Introduction
7.2 Intraspeaker Variation: Scripted and Unscripted Styles
7.2.1 Delattre’s Liaison Obligatoire
7.2.2 Delattre’s Liaison Facultative
7.2.3 False Liaison and Repair in RS and IS
7.3 Interspeaker Variation
7.3.1 Liaison and Diatopic Variation
7.3.2 Gender and Liaison in RS and IS
7.3.3 Social Class: A Proxy Measure
7.4 Conclusions
References
8: Professionnels de la Parole Publique
8.1 Introduction
8.2 Radio Broadcasting: Ågren’s (1973) Study
8.3 Political Discourse
8.4 Liaison Without Enchaînement
8.5 Newsreaders
8.6 Audiobooks
8.7 Conclusions
References
Part IV: Conclusions and Implications
9: An Inverted Sociolinguistic Phenomenon?
9.1 Interpreting the Findings
9.2 Liaison and ‘hyper-style’
9.3 Liaison and Style in the Twenty-First Century
9.4 The Future of Liaison
References
References
Index
