# Vocalic R in French ([ɐ])?



## cetait

I haven't read about this, but just from my own personal observation, are R's at the ends of syllables, particularly when next to a vowel? I haven't seen any phonological research about this but then again I can say that for other French stuff too, plus I have also noticed that languages that used the uvular fricative like German and Luxembourgish also use a vocalic R in the same circumstance, though it seems unlike what it would be in French if true, it wouldn't be mandatory and just dialectal since I can still hear people who clearly make a fricative R but others who clearly do not. But in modern songs and speech from France I often times don't hear a uvular fricative or a consonant sound for that matter in such circumstance

So examples would be like with words such as venir, merci, cherche would be (or rather, could be) -> [və.niɐ] , [mɛɐ.si], [ʃɛɐ.ʃ]

Thoughts?


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## berndf

I know what you mean and I have asked myself the same thing. I have come to the conclusion that it is an artefact of singing. In spoken language it practically never occurs and as a German it sometimes happens to me that I vocalize my Rs in syllable coda. This has occasionally caused people not understanding the word. So, I don't think native speakers are prepared the encounter R-vocalization.

This is of course a totally unscientific observation.


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## merquiades

No,  I don't believe R is vocalized in France even in the east.  When Luxembourgers do it occasionally, it gives the impression of a very thick accent and can be ridiculed.  
What does happen is the R can be weakened and devoiced by some speakers in final position.  So you can hear _pour_ /pux/ and _par _/pax/ with a faint sweet pronounciation.  But that is not universal and can vary.  It's not even regional.  I heard one conversation where one woman said _finir_ /finix/ and the other answered /finirr/.  But /finiɐ/ would be foreign sounding.


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## Swatters

If anything, voiceless uvulars (fricative, but also trills and fricative-trills in Belgium) are an Eastern thing, while more lenited voiced approximants are common in central dialects. I suspect this [ʁ̞] is what the OP's interpreting as a vowel, but it's hard to tell without examples.

I's noticed /r/ vocalisation in my own speech in a few contexts, but they're rather limited (unstressed /arC/ sequences which end up as [ɐ:C])


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## berndf

Swatters said:


> I's noticed /r/ vocalisation in my own speech in a few contexts, but they're rather limited (unstressed /arC/ sequences which end up as [ɐ:C])


But it would never go so far as to merge minimal pair like _arme_ and _âme_, right? Because that's what's happening in German.


Swatters said:


> I suspect this [ʁ̞] is what the OP's interpreting as a vowel, but it's hard to tell without examples.


Quite possible. I have had debates with English speakers here in WRF about [ʁ̞] vs. [ɐ] (in German, not in French, though). They often don't hear a difference where I do. These sounds are indeed difficult to distinguish.


Swatters said:


> If anything, voiceless uvulars (fricative, but also trills and fricative-trills in Belgium) are an Eastern thing, while more lenited voiced approximants are common in central dialects.


In certain positions, like in front of a voiceless consonant as in _porte_, I would say _r-_devoicing is quite a widespread phenomenon in all French speaking countries (at least those in Europe). Wouldn't you agree?


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## Swatters

berndf said:


> But it would never go so far as to merge minimal pair like _arme_ and _âme_, right? Because that's what's happening in German.



It wouldn't you're right, there's a clear prosidic and quantitative distinction between, say, armature and âme mature (with the /ar/ of armature being shorter than the /a:/ of âme, to be clear, but longer than the /a/ of amateur).



berndf said:


> In certain positions, like in front of a voiceless consonant as in _porte_, I would say _r-_devoicing is quite a widespread phenomenon in all French speaking countries (at least those in Europe). Wouldn't you agree?



Right, I mostly meant that Eastern European dialects extend this devoicing to more contexts, most commonly word-finally, but also to some where there's no phonological motivation for devoicing to occur, like intervocally or before voiced obstruents.


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## berndf

Swatters said:


> Right, I mostly meant that Eastern European dialects extend this devoicing to more contexts, most commonly word-finally, but also to some where there's no phonological motivation for devoicing to occur, like intervocally or before voiced obstruents.


In pausa (at the end of an utterance), final _r_-devoicing exists in France too, though not as regularly as in front of voiceless consonants. E.g. here you hear it quite clearly with three (gwen_bzh, Clador06 and Domigloup) of the six speaker pronouncing the word _noir_ in isolation.


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## cetait

berndf said:


> But it would never go so far as to merge minimal pair like _arme_ and _âme_, right? Because that's what's happening in German.



I actually wondered this myself, and personally what I assumed was that it would be distinguished by vowel length maybe 



Swatters said:


> If anything, voiceless uvulars (fricative, but also trills and fricative-trills in Belgium) are an Eastern thing, while more lenited voiced approximants are common in central dialects. I suspect this [ʁ̞] is what the OP's interpreting as a vowel, but it's hard to tell without examples.
> 
> I's noticed /r/ vocalisation in my own speech in a few contexts, but they're rather limited (unstressed /arC/ sequences which end up as [ɐ:C])



I say three words here, with and then without the [ɐ] to try to showcase the differences. It's at least what I assume to be [ɐ] when pronouncing.
https://www.speakpipe.com/voice-recorder/msg/l35yf5zuh6a634au

As has already been noted, it doesn't seem widespread/mandatory like in Luxembourgish or German, but dialectal and can vary wildly in French, but I often times don't even hear a voiceless consonant either.


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## clamor

I once had to analyze French speech and I often noticed R-approximation and sometimes deletion (e.g. ''parce que''), as Swatters said.


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## cetait

berndf said:


> But it would never go so far as to merge minimal pair like _arme_ and _âme_, right? Because that's what's happening in German.
> 
> Quite possible. I have had debates with English speakers here in WRF about [ʁ̞] vs. [ɐ] (in German, not in French, though). They often don't hear a difference where I do. These sounds are indeed difficult to distinguish.



I have a question to you about this. Would the difference between [ʁ̞] vs. [ɐ] be analogous to [j] and , or basically about how vocalic they are? Because from what I'm aware of, if you lower a fricative it essentially becomes a vowel, but I did just think it may just become semi-vocalic rather than completely vocalic and thus [ɐ].


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## L'irlandais

cherche = ʃɛʁʃ

noir = nwaʁ

merci = mɛʁsi
venir = vəniʁ
fermer = fɛʁme (here the final r is devoiced)
For me the /ʁ/ is very French.  Perhaps I am missing your point.

From my experience of teaching English to French people, my advice is Native speakers can be pardoned for mispronunciations, as a second language speaker you are unlikely to be.  Folks will simply think you are mispronouncing, rather than assume some high level of authenticity on your part.


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## berndf

cetait said:


> I have a question to you about this. Would the difference between [ʁ̞] vs. [ɐ] be analogous to [j] and , or basically about how vocalic they are? Because from what I'm aware of, if you lower a fricative it essentially becomes a vowel, but I did just think it may just become semi-vocalic rather than completely vocalic and thus [ɐ].


You mean if _day _would be [deɪ] or [dej]. Yes, I would say that is similar. There is a continuous transition from one to the other.


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## Kevin Beach

I was taught in French lessons at school that, in poetry and song, the final "e" at the end of a word (normally silent) is often pronounced and that the letter "r" was always trilled vocally rather than sounding in the throat.


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## clamor

cetait said:


> I have a question to you about this. Would the difference between [ʁ̞] vs. [ɐ] be analogous to [j] and , or basically about how vocalic they are? Because from what I'm aware of, if you lower a fricative it essentially becomes a vowel, but I did just think it may just become semi-vocalic


I think I don't get it. I'd say that since [ʁ̞] is uvular, it would be more likely to correspond to [ɑ̯]. It is an approximant. It means the tongue is closer to the other articulator than in vowels (furthermore there is no vowel so back in the mouth), but further than in fricatives.


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## berndf

clamor said:


> I think I don't get it. I'd say that since [ʁ̞] is uvular, it would be more likely to correspond to [ɑ̯].


No, it's not fully open. The vowel you get is somewhere in the [ɐ]-[ʌ] range.


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## clamor

berndf said:


> No, it's not fully open. The vowel you get is somewhere in the [ɐ]-[ʌ] range.


Oh I understand what you mean. The symbol I wrote is not a raising diacritic, but a ''non syllabic'' one; it does not appear well.


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## berndf

clamor said:


> Oh I understand what you mean. The symbol I wrote is not a raising diacritic, but a ''non syllabic'' one; it does not appear well.


Yes, I had read it as a non-syllabic diacritic.


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## clamor

berndf said:


> Yes, I had read it as a non-syllabic diacritic.


Oh yes I just understood, you're right  Sorry


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## cetait

clamor said:


> I think I don't get it. I'd say that since [ʁ̞] is uvular, it would be more likely to correspond to [ɑ̯]. It is an approximant. It means the tongue is closer to the other articulator than in vowels (furthermore there is no vowel so back in the mouth), but further than in fricatives.



Am I missing something here? I thought that diatric meant lowered rather than non-syllabic. At least according to guides online I see, ◌̝ is raised, and ◌̯ is non-syllabic.


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## berndf

cetait said:


> ◌̯ is non-syllabic


Yes, that is the sign @clamor used.

Edit: Cross-posted.


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## cetait

berndf said:


> Yes, that is the sign @clamor used.
> 
> Edit: Cross-posted.



oh I was looking at the wrong letter. I thought he was talking about [ʁ̞] and not [ɑ̯]; didn't pay attention to that diatric in his post.

So it does seem that it's agreed that [ʁ̞] becomes a vowel but maybe that it's not fully voiced and is actually a semi-vowel? Or am I missing the plot here?


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## clamor

cetait said:


> So it does seem that it's agreed that [ʁ̞] becomes a vowel but maybe that it's not fully voiced and is actually a semi-vowel? Or am I missing the plot here?


It is similar to a semi-vowel, if you want.


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## cetait

clamor said:


> It is similar to a semi-vowel, if you want.



It seems like you don't quite agree? How would you describe it more precisely?


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## clamor

As an approximant^^
It is to say, something between a fricative and a vowel (in terms of ''narrowing'' between the articulators).
Maybe someone else could explain it better.


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