French Syntax

French syntax is similar to that of English. Both languages are SVO. However, in certain respects French syntax is different. Let us look at examples.

French has inversion with main verbs.

Sais-tu la réponse? (Do you know the answer?)
Chante-elle bien? (Does she sing well?)
Quand arrive ta soeur? (When does your sister arrive?)

French places object pronouns before the verb.

Je veux te voir. (I want to see you.)
Nous le savons. ( We know it.)
Mon ami peut m'aider. (My friend can help me.)

French adjectives usually follow the noun.

J'ai une voiture rouge. (I have a red car.)
C'est un homme sympa. (He's a nice man.)
Nos voisins français sont en vacances. (Our French neighbours are on vacation.)

The position of French adverbs is often different.

Je regarde souvent la télé. (I often watch TV.)
J'ai bien dormi. ( I've slept well.)
Nous mangeons rarement au restaurant. (We seldom eat in a restaurant.)

Though French and English are both SVO languages, the syntax can differ. The position of adverbs often differs from that of English. In addition, French usually places adjectives after nouns and places object pronouns before the verb.

Differences in Languages

The linguist Roman Jakobson said that languages differ essentially in what they must convey and not in what they may convey. This is one of the main differences among languages. The information they must express can differ greatly.

For example, the pronoun we has two forms in Spanish, nosotros and nosotras. If the pronoun refers to a group of women, nosotras must be used. In English only one pronoun can be used.

The sentence You are friendly can be expressed in three ways in German. They are Du bist freundlich, Ihr seid freundlich and Sie sind freundlich. The first is the informal singular, the second is the informal plural and the third is the formal singular and plural. The word you is ambiguous.

The French words durant and pendant both mean during, but the meanings are a bit different. In the sentence J'ai été malade durant le voyage (I was sick during the voyage), the word durant means during the entire voyage. If the sentence is J'ai été malade pendant le voyage (I was sick during the voyage), the word pendant means during part of the voyage.

English has the personal pronouns he and she but Hungarian has only one: ő. The sentence Ő nem tudja (He/She doesn't know) conveys less information than in English because the English sentence must express the gender of the subject.

The rules of each language determine what each language must convey. The result is that certain languages convey more information than other. This is due to the differences among languages.

Semolina Cake

Semolina cake is tasty and easy to prepare. Here is the recipe for this French cake:

3/4 cup semolina flour
4 cups milk
1/2 cup sugar
3 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
butter

Bring the milk to a boil with the sugar and vanilla.
Slowly add the semolina.
Stir with a wooden spoon for 5-10 minutes over low heat.
Remove from the heat.
Add the eggs and mix well.
Pour into a buttered rectangular baking pan.
Bake at 180 degrees for approximately 30 minutes.

Loanwords From French With ch

English words with ch are usually pronounced with a voiceless affricate. This is the sound in words such as chair, cheese and church. However, in a number of loanwords from French, the ch is pronounced with a voiceless alveopalatal fricative.

Here is a list of words in which the ch is a voiceless alveopalatal fricative:

brochure
chalet
champagne
chandelier
chauffeur
chef
crochet
machine
mustache
parachute

The words in the list are French loanwords. The ch corresponds to the French pronunciation. The places Chicago and Michigan are native words. Though they are not from French, they are pronounced with a fricative because English adopted the French pronunciation. The ch of French was once pronounced as a voiceless affricate, but has been pronounced as a fricative for centuries. Loanwords from French with ch preserve the French pronunciation.

Birdsong

Birdsong

In hours of early morning
Sweet songs of birds ring.
But what do they sing?
What message do they bring?

I can only ponder
For I have no answer.
I listen a little longer
To their works of wonder.

Sometimes their notes grow louder,
Then longer and higher.
Other times their notes are shorter,
Lower and quieter.

I listen carefully this morning
To their sweet singing.
I love to start my morning
With sounds of vibrant spring.

My poem is written in the first person. The poem consists of four stanzas with four verses- quatrains. The verses of each stanza rhyme. Birdsong expresses the beauty of birdsong on a spring morning.

Voiced Consonants of Southern Norwegian Dialects

In the dialects of the southern part of Norway, intervocalic and word-final consonants following a vowel become voiced. The plosives /p/, /t/ and /k/ become /b/, /d/ and /g/. Intervocalic voicing also occurs in Danish, but in word-final position, Danish does not voice as in the dialects of southern Norway.

In most of Norway, the following words have voiceless plosives:

ape (monkey)
kake (cake)
pute (pillow)

bok (book)
mat (food)
skip (ship)

In the south of Norway, i.e., Stavanger and Kristiansand, speakers have voiced plosives intervocalically and word-finally. This can be viewed as both a voicing assimilation and neutralization. The intervocalic plosive becomes voiced like the vowels that precede and follow and like the vowels that precede word-finally. This is also neutralization because the distinction between voiced and voiceless plosives is lost.

Word-final plosives only voice when they are preceded by a vowel. If they are preceded by a consonant, no voicing occurs. Examples include melk (milk), urt (herb) and damp (steam).

Most Norwegians preserve the distinction between voiced and voiceless consonants in all positions. However, in the dialects of southern Norway, only voiced consonants occur intervocalically and word-finally following a vowel. This can be classified as both assimilation and neutralization.

Intervocalic T-Glottalization

A number of English speakers have intervocalic T-glottalization. This can be heard in many British speakers including London, western England and Scotland. Cockney is a dialect which is well-known for intervocalic T-glottalization. Of the Caribbean dialects, Barbadian English also has intervocalic T-glottalization. Though avoided in careful speech, intervocalic T-glottalization appears to be spreading.

T-glottalization is a form of lenition and a subclass of debuccalization. The glottal stop shares the same manner of articulation as the voiceless alveolar plosive and agrees with it in voice. Though not all English speakers apply T-glottalization intervocalically, it is very common before nasals as in button and cotton and also very common word-finally as in cat and hot.

The process of T-glottalization is most common before a stressed vowel. For example, it occurs in water but less frequently in society. T-glottalization does not occur before stressed vowels such as return.

Though intervocalic T-glottalization is associated with British English, it also occurs in Barbadian English. Intervocalic T-glottalization appears to be spreading. It is most common in younger speakers. T-glottalization is a sound change which can be classified as lenition.

Fusion in English Verbs

Many English speakers exhibit fusion in the pronunciation of English verbs with y and ing. Fusion reduces the number of syllables of the word. This process can also be analyzed as deletion of the y before the suffix -ing. Here is a list of verbs which can undergo fusion:

carry
copy
marry
study
tidy

In the following sentences fusion is possible:

He's carrying a lot of books.
Stop copying me!
Who is she marrying?
I've been studying for hours.
She's tidying her room.

The final vowel of the base verb is tense and the first vowel of the suffix -ing is lax. Fusion results in one lax vowel. However, this may also be analyzed as deletion of the tense vowel of the base. If the base verb is monosyllabic, fusion does not occur. For example, in the sentence They're skiing, the word skiing is disyllabic. In skiing, the final vowel of the base is stressed. In words such as carry, marry and study, the final vowel of the base verb is unstressed.

The process of fusion reduces the number of syllables in certain English verbs. The final vowel of the base and the first vowel of the suffix -ing fuse. An alternative analysis of this process is deletion, which states that the first of the two vowels is deleted. Fusion changes the CVVC sequence of the final vowel of the base and the suffix to CVC.

H-Dropping in English Pronouns

Though h-dropping is not associated with varieties of English such as RP, Scottish, Irish, Canadian and American, it is nevertheless common with pronouns. Speakers of all dialects tend to drop the h of pronouns, especially in casual conversation. Here are examples in which h-dropping is common with all speakers:

Is he coming?
Do you know her?
Have you seen him?
Can you please tell her?
Is that his bag?
If I see him, I'll tell you.
I was with him yesterday.
I'll give it to her sister.
I wish he could come.
I'll see her tonight.

Notice that the pronouns in the examples are not sentence-initial. In sentence-initial position, h-dropping does not occur in the English of those who usually don't exhibit h-dropping . The same is true when the pronoun occurs in isolation as in Who did you give it to? Her.

H-dropping is common with English pronouns. However, with speakers who don't practise h-dropping in all words, this does not occur when the pronouns are sentence initial or in isolation. H-dropping of pronouns is especially common in casual conversation.

Daffodils

William Wordsworth was an English romantic poet. One of his most famous poems is Daffodils. Here it is:

Daffodils

I wandered lonely as a cloud

That floats on high o'er vales and hills

When all at once I saw a crowd,

A host, of golden daffodils;

Beside the lake, beneath the trees,

Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine

And twinkle on the milky way,

They stretched in never-ending line

Along the margin of a bay;

Ten thousand saw I at a glance,

Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they

Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:

A poet could not but be gay

In such a jocund company:

I gazed--and gazed--but little thought

What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on the couch I lie

In vacant or in pensive mood

They flash upon that inward eye

Which is the bliss of solitude;

And then my heart with pleasure fills,

And dances with the daffodils.

The poem is written in iambic tetrameter. Each of the four stanzas ends with a rhyming couplet. William Wordsworth's poem Daffodils is a testament to the beauty of nature.

L-vocalization in English

L-vocalization refers to the process in which the lateral approximant becomes a vowel. In English this occurs with syllable-final velarized lateral approximants. Though L-vocalization is not considered standard in English pronunciation, it occurs in a number of dialects.

L-vocalization is a feature of Cockney, Estuary English, New Zealand English, Australian English, New York English, Pittsburgh English and Philadelphia English. It is more common in New Zealand English than in Australian. It is also common in the English of African-Americans. Dialects which lack the velarized lateral lateral such as Irish English and Jamaican English also lack L-vocalization.

Speakers with L-vocalization replace the lateral with the high back or mid back vowel.  The phonological process of L-vocalization is not restricted to English. It is common in Brazilian Portuguese as well as in dialects of German and Dutch.

Sound Correspondence in Dutch and German

Dutch and German are closely related Germanic languages. They exhibit a number of sound correspondences. In many cases an f in German corresponds to a p in Dutch. Here are examples with the German on the left and the Dutch on the right:

Bischof bisschop (bishop)
Dorf dorp (village)
Läufer loper (runner)
Ruf roep (call)
Schaf schaap (sheep)
scharf scherp (sharp)
Schiff schip (ship)
Schlaf slaap (sleep)
Seife zeep (soap)
tief diep (deep)

This sound correspondence is often found in English and other Germanic languages. The words bishop, deep, sharp, sheep, ship, sleep and soap illustrate the same sound correspondence found in Dutch and German. The German Schiff is skepp in Swedish and skip in Norwegian. The change from /p/ to /f/ in German is an example of spirantization, a subclass of lenition.

English Lateral

In RP and Standard English of southern England, the /l/ has two allophones. In word-initial position it is an alveolar lateral and in word-final position it is an alveolar velarized lateral. The words lake and bell have distinct laterals. In American English, however, most speakers velarize in all positions.

Speakers of Scottish English, Canadian English, Australian English and New Zealand English also tend to velarize the lateral in all positions. Most speakers of Irish English as well as many speakers of Welsh English have only the alveolar lateral without velarization.

In RP, the word call has a velarized lateral, but in the word calling the lateral is produced without velarization because it comes before a vowel. The rule can thus be expanded to state that the lateral is not velarized before a vowel. The following words have a velarized lateral in American English but not in RP:

elementary
seller
select
wallet
hilly
bullet
closet
please
solid
caller

In RP and many accents of southern England, the /l/ has two allophones, the alveolar lateral and the alveolar velarized lateral. For speakers of other varieties of English, however, such as American, Canadian and Scottish, the lateral is velarized in all positions. Thus RP and varieties of English spoken in southern England maintain a distinction that many other speakers of English do not.

Muesli

Muesli is a delicious cereal. It's healthy and easy to prepare. Here is the Swiss recipe:

3 tablespoons uncooked oats
3 tablespoons cold water
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 tablespoon condensed milk
1 apple
2 tablespoons chopped almonds

Soak the oats overnight.
When ready to serve, add the lemon juice and condensed milk.
Grate the apple into the muesli and add the almonds.
Enjoy!