This note examines motivations and consequences of a widely held generative phonological analysis of the Modern French vowel system. This analysis claims that only three degrees of vowel height are distinctive in Modern French. It is argued that the analysis would be improved by adding an additional degree of vowel height, creating a system which…

This paper presents a diachronic phonological analysis of French in order to show that Kiparsky's (1972) argument against formal (or language-specific) notation is based on a small sample of phenomena and is therefore not valid. Examples of vocalic tension in French are given, and the process from tension to relaxation is described. This tension…

This study is comprised of five major sections, each of which focuses on a central linguistic issue germane to the understanding of the general phonetic characteristics of languages. The sections include: (1) a comparative study of terminal consonant releases; (2) the influence of consonants upon contiguous vowels --phase 1: vowel duration; (3)…