French language--Phonetics

Many textbooks either ignore or pay scant attention to
instruction on liaison. Commercial tapes designed to teach students
by example seldom provide good or consistent models for its use.
Nevertheless, since the process of liaison is a compli cated phenomenon
even for the French, it deserves careful pedagogical attention.
This thesis presents a study of the adequacy of instruction
on liaison in four sample texts and tapes. It also includes a
definition and brief history of liaison, a statement of its function,
and some general rules for students. Particular emphasis is placed
on the function of optional liaison as a stylistic determinant.

This thesis investigates articulatory tenseness in French and English
oral vowels. Chapter I reviews notions of tenseness, Chapter II
presents experimental procedure, Chapter III contains results and
conclusions. Tense vowels within a language demonstrate greater formant frequency
deviation from a neutral vowel position than lax vowels. The deviations
of the French nuclei [...] and the English nuclei [...] are compared using spectrograms made from
recordings of Standard French and American English speakers. Measurement
is based on the difference in Hertz of the first three formant
frequencies of each vowel and the corresponding frequencies of the
neutral vowel position of that language. The French nuclei [...] exhibit greater deviation than the English
nuclei [...] from their respective neutral vowel positions and are
said to be comparatively more tense. The same measurement and
criteria show that the English nuclei [...] are comparatively
more tense than their French counterparts.