# Where are French words stressed?



## Eugens

Bonjour! 
I have this lingering doubt (I hope it is not very stupid). All words of more than one syllable in all languages (or at least I suppose so?) have one syllable that is stressed more than the others. In English, a word's stressed syllable is shown beside the word in the phonetic pronunciation where a mark like an apostrophe appears before the stressed syllable. But in French I have this problem: I don't know which the stressed syllable is because the "apostrophe" doesn't appear in the phonetic pronunciation. I asked a friend who is learning French why this mark is not shown and he told me that it is because all words in French are stressed on the last syllable (?) Is he right? Then, I asked another friend of mine about this and she told me that that wasn't true and she gave as an example that "fenêtre" is not stressed on the last syllable. Do the diacritics indicate where the word is stressed like in Spanish?
Thank you.


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## timpeac

Hi Eugens -

The way that French is stressed is very different from the way Spanish and English are stressed. The basic underlying stress pattern is based on entire phrases, and it is the final syllable in each phrase which takes the stress (note that "phrase" here does not necessarily = "sentence").

So -

Hier, j'ai vu un homme qui portait des lunettes et qui criait dans la rue.

would be split into phrase something like this

Hier / , j'ai vu un homme / qui portait des lunettes / et qui criait dans la rue.

and so the stresses would fall on the red words (incidently the intonation would rise for each of the preceding phrases and descend on the final on to "rue").

So your friend is partially correct in that the stress falls at the end of the end of a word, but in fact only at the end of the word at the end of the phrase.

So "une maison" but "une maison blanche", with the "son" of "maison" relatively unstressed this time.

That is true for general stress patterns, but on top of this you do have stress for emphasis, so I imagine in my above example the "cri" of "criait" would also have a stress, which can indeed be more or less strong than the base one, depending on how much you wish to stress something.

Basically you can only analyse French stress of a word in terms of its position and function in the sentence.

Hope that helps.


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## Eugens

Good explanation! 
Thank you.


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## Amityville

That sounds right to me, (no expert). This may be off-piste but what I notice more than any stressing among a good half (estimate) of French speakers is that they have caught HRT - High Rising Terminal, making every statement sound like a question or did they always have it ?


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## Aupick

Hello, Eugens,

Timpeac has already given you an excellent answer which I completely agree with. I just want to add that it's probably more useful to tell yourself that French _doesn't_ stress any syllables, since even when it does, it usually does so to a much lesser extent than English or German (don't know about Spanish). The tricky thing is usually _limiting_ stress patterns rather than putting them in the right place and anglophones are usually immediately recognisable to French speakers because of the extra stress they put on words, even if their vocab and grammar (and accent) are impeccable.

One other point:


			
				Eugens said:
			
		

> she gave as an example that "fenêtre" is not stressed in the last syllable.


In fact the final 'e' is not pronounced at all, so 'fenêtre' is a two-syllable word. So if the word is at the end of a clause, stress will fall on the 'nê' syllable, which is in fact the last one.


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## timpeac

Amityville said:
			
		

> That sounds right to me, (no expert). This may be off-piste but what I notice more than any stressing among a good half (estimate) of French speakers is that they have caught HRT - High Rising Terminal, making every statement sound like a question or did they always have it ?


 
So in my example they would finish on a rise up to "rue"? Can't say I've heard that myself. It is normal for the starting phrase to be on a rising intonation though.


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## Amityville

I _think_ so, yes (checking my memory), sometimes followed by 'quoi'

Il criait dans la rue, quoi.

or sometimes just there in a succession of phrases, non-verbally asking for the listener's nod.


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## timpeac

Ah followed by the "quoi" I can understand - the final descending tone phrase can be as long as a single word, so the descent would happen on "quoi".

In terms of the succession of phrases you do hear that all the time. For example if my example had been longer you might well have had many phrases going up as you described the man until you got to your descent at the end. If this was just a simple "quoi" then it might well sound like a load of rising intontations I suppose.

What do natives say - do you hear this rising intonation with no final descent at all?


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## gliamo

Definite descent on _quoi_. Without _quoi_, there could be a rising intonation on _rue_ for emphasis.... I think...


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## Jad

*Syllable stress* 
In normal, unemphatic speech, the final syllable of a word, or the final syllable of a sense group, carries a moderate degree of stress. The syllable stressed is given extra prominence by greater length and intensity. The exception to this rule is a final syllable containing a mute _e, _which is never stressed.

*Sentence stress*
Unlike the stress pattern of English associated with meaning, sentence stress in French is associated with rhythm. The stress falls on the final syllable of the sense groups of which the sentence is formed. In the following example : _quand il m'a vu, il a traversé la rue en courant pour me dire un mot_, composed of 3 sense groups, the syllables *vu*, *-rant* and *mot* carry the stress.

Source - Collins Robert French Dictionary Complete and Unabridged

I hope that helps and stays within the forum rules


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## Nino83

In French the stress of a single word can change when this word is placed into a sentence.
The French say _lev*ez*!_ [lə've] and _*le*vez la *ma*in!_ ['ləve la 'mɛ̃].
here you can find some audio sample.


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## broglet

This is an extremely interesting question, Eugens, with much useful information in all the above answers.  The lack of consistent stress is, in my opinion, one of the things that makes spoken French one of the most difficult languages to understand. The fact that a single word can sound very different, according to which syllable, if any, is stressed is superimposed on the fact that vowel sounds can sound completely different when a liaison occurs.  The end result is that spoken French is a river of sound where mysterious and unpredictable syllables follow on from one another ... and separating it out into words and meanings can be a mammoth task.  If you can't recognise a whole phrase you can often be completely at sea.


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## JClaudeK

Aupick said:


> In fact the final 'e' is not pronounced at all, so 'fenêtre' is a two-syllable word.


That's it! (_"not pronounced at all_" is a bit exaggerated)


> French words are sometimes said to be stressed on the final syllable, but this can be attributed to the prosodic stress that is placed on the final syllable (*or, if that is a schwa, the next-to-final syllable*)
> Stress (linguistics) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


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## lamy08

Nino83 said:


> ....The French say _lev*ez*!_ [lə've] ......



Really?
Personnellement, je ne vois pas pourquoi accentuer la dernière syllabe. Je me vois très bien dire: _*le*vez!_ ['ləve]


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## Nino83

Are you saying that when you pronounce the single words "levez" and "ouvrez", "écoutez" you put the stress on the first syllable?


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## Oddmania

I don't know about other speakers, but if _I _had to pick a syllable to accentuate, I would pick the first one, yes. _Écoutez, ouvrez. _That being said, I don't think we French speakers accentuate any syllables when speaking. We do accentuate words, but usually not syllables within words.


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## Nino83

Oddmania said:


> I don't know about other speakers, but if _I _had to pick a syllable to accentuate, I would pick the first one, yes. _Écoutez, ouvrez._


 
excusez [eksky'*ze*]
excusez-moi [eks'*ky*ze mwa]


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## lamy08

There is no stress in French actually. Just a falling intonation at the end of a sentence (except in Paris (posh).

J'imagine le contexte dans une salle de gym; c'est un cours collectif; le prof dit: _*Le*vez les bras! *Le*vez! *Plus* haut_! ... Comme il s'agit d'un encouragement, il pourra accentuer la 1ère syllabe, mais c'est un contexte particulier. Il n'est pas obligé. Il peut prononcer les 2 syllabes de façon égale.

Le médecin dira au patient: _levez le bras_, sans accentuer, car il ne doit pas parler haut et fort.

Pour reprendre votre question de départ avec 1 seul verbe, je dirais qu'en principe, on accentue (just a little bit) la 1ère syllabe, car il s'agit d'un ordre: _*Ou*vrez! *E*coutez! *Si*lence!_
Si après un 1er ordre, les personnes n'ouvrent pas la porte ou n'écoutent pas, la personne pourra répéter son ordre plus fort en mettant l'accent sur la dernière syllabe: _Ou*vrez*! Ecou*tez*! Si*lence*!
_
C'est plus clair?


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## Oddmania

Nino83 said:


> excusez [eksky'*se*]
> excusez-moi [eks'*ky*se mwa]



I don't know who came up with these phonetic transcriptions, but I listened to both audio clips and I heard a clear stress on the first syllable. Note that, in my opinion, the syllable was accentuated because Forvo is like an "audio dictionary", where words are taken individually. If they came in a normal sentence, but there wouldn't be a stress. The way I see it:

_«Je vous demande d'*écouter*»_ : no stress.

«_*Écoutez*... Je vous demande juste de m'aider_» (here, _écoutez _means _Look..._) : no stress, but the last syllable of _écoutez _can be lengthened because of the ellipsis dots: _écouteeez_. And then it trails off. If you stressed it (as opposed to simply lengthening it), it would be _écouTEZ_, and you would end up sounding either angry or German.​I agree with Lamy08's explaination.


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## Nino83

Oddmania said:


> I don't know who came up with these phonetic transcriptions
> I agree with Lamy08's explaination.


I'm sorry but my ear and *all* phoneticians say that excusez = [eksky'ze] and écoutez = [eku'te].
I don't insist.


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## Oddmania

Please do insist! I love having debates. I'm just sharing my personal experience as a French native speaker, but I also like hearing what other people think. I'm just saying that I'd rather trust my ears than what phoneticians write, because hearing a language spoken teaches you more than reading about it.

Words sound different when they come individually (as on Forvo) and when they're part of a larger conversation.

When I hear a conversation in English, and suddenly a French word or phrase comes up, I notice it immediately, even when I'm not even paying attention. It upsets the accentuation and the whole flow of the sentence. If you listen to the English pronunciation of the phrase _déjà vu_ for instance, you'll notice there's no stressed syllable. The word _déjà _doesn't have a stress, and the word _vu _is indicated to be stressed, but probably because there always needs to be a stressed vowel in an English word. In French, and in an everyday conversation, the word _déjà vu_ wouldn't be stressed anywhere. It's just _dé-jà-vu_.


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## Nanon

I concur with Nino. *É*coutez sounds absolutely unnatural to my ears.
I would stress - or rather, lengthen - the first syllable in a limited number of cases.
In a crowd: "Pardon, paaaardon, eeeexcusez-moi... laaaaissez passer... chaaaaud devant..."
Said by a physician: "Ouuuvrez bien la bouche..."

Also, I am no phonetician (though I dealt with a little linguistics in a former life) but I would stress the last element of the stress group in "excusez-*moi". *Certainly not "excu*sez*-moi".


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## Nino83

Oddmania said:


> I'm just saying that I'd rather trust my ears than what phoneticians write, because hearing a language spoken teaches you more than reading about it.


There is a recent thread on EHL forum where a Belgian teacher said that French students don't hear the difference at first between "If I were *you*" vs. "Als ik *jou* was" in Dutch.
Anyway, every single transcription says it, it is obvious. A little example: http://venus.unive.it/canipa/pdf/HPr_04_French.pdf
[paʁ'le] _parler_ vs [paʁ'lɛ] _parlais_, [sa've] _savez_ vs. [sa'vɛ] _savait_ (page 3).
This is taken for granted!


Nanon said:


> Also, I am no phonetician (though I dealt with a little linguistics in a former life) but I would stress the last element of the stress group in "excusez-*moi". *Certainly not "excu*sez*-moi".


In a strict transcription, there is a primary and a secondary stress.
eksky*ˈze* > eks*ˌky*ze *ˈmwa*, paʁ*ˈle* > *ˌpaʁ*le *ˈmwa*
I know that other Romance languages are not allowed here, but in French you say:_ ouvr*ez*_ > u*ˈvʁe* but _*ou*vrez le *li*vre_ > *ˌu*vʁe lə *ˈli*vʁə, in the other Romance languages the verb has the *same* stress, it doesn't change.
This is why the other Romance languages (like English, German) have a "word stress" while French has a "sentence stress".


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## Oddmania

Nino83 said:


> A little example: http://venus.unive.it/canipa/pdf/HPr_04_French.pdf
> [paʁ'le] _parler_ vs [paʁ'lɛ] _parlais_, [sa've] _savez_ vs. [sa'vɛ] _savait_ (page 3).
> This is taken for granted!



I'm not sure I understand your point. Are you saying _parler _and _parlais _(or _savez _and _savait_) are supposed to be stressed differently? The vowels are clearly different (*e *vs. *ɛ*), but this thread deals with accentuation. I, _personally_, don't say _par*LER!*_, or _sa*VEZ**!*_. I just go _par-ler_, _sa-vez_.


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## Nino83

Oddmania said:


> I'm not sure I understand your point. Are you saying _parler _and _parlais _(or _savez _and _savait_) are supposed to be stressed differently? The vowels are clearly different (*e *vs. *ɛ*), but this thread deals with accentuation.


I'm saying that when a verb ends in _-ez, -er, ais, ait_, it's the *last* syllable that is stressed, not the *first*. _Excus*ez*!_, not _*e*xcusez!_. The symbol /'/ indicates where the stress is.


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## Oddmania

I think there's a big difference between what English speakers call accentuation, and what we call it. What you can be sure of, is that French words aren't nearly as stressed as English words are.

When you told me that words like _ouvrez _or _excusez _were stressed on the last syllable, I automatically thought you were talking about an English-like stress (as in the word _outside_, as in_ I went outside_). If you stress the words _ouvrez / excuser / savez / parlais_ the very same way the word _outside _is stressed in English, then I can guarantee you it will sound as unnatural as can be. This is the idea I wanted to get across.

On the other hand, there might be a very slight sort of stress on French words (which phoneticians seem to indicate as an apostrophe as well, just as in English), but it is so slight that I consider it non-existent. This is just the mouth returning to its resting position.


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## Nino83

Oddmania said:


> words like _ouvrez _or _excusez_


I'm sorry, I still keep hearing an accent on the last syllable, and I think also English speakers probably do it!  
Maybe this is why the French say Robert*ò* Benign*ì* while English speakers say Rowb*è*rtow Ben*ì*ni, putting the stress on the right syllable. Like Romance speakers don't hear, at first, the difference between long and short English vowels (but after some training they are able to do it), probably French speakers don't hear at first word stress. It's only my opinion.


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## Nino83

I would add that this "sentence stress" is not present in Southern French accents (like _le toulousain, le niçard_).
Search on youtube "D'où vient l'accent toulousain" (it's short, 1 minute and 8 seconds).
At 47" _le professeur_ Pierre Escudé (Université de Bordeaux) says that one of the main characteristics of the accent from Toulouse is that there is a word stress and not a sentence stress, _le toulousain dit_ "la pət*i*tə f*i*jə va a lec*o*lə", not "la *p(ə)*tit f*i*j va a lec*o*l", i.e he points out that in Northern French the stress changes from "pət*i*tə" to "*p(ə)*tit f*i*j" but this doesn't happen in Toulouse (or in Nice, Marseille or Bordeaux).


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## Oddmania

Nino83 said:


> I would add that this "sentence stress" is not present in Southern French accents (like _le toulousain, le niçard_).
> Search on youtube "D'où vient l'accent toulousain" (it's short, 1 minute and 8 seconds).
> At 47" _le professeur_ Pierre Escudé (Université de Bordeaux) says that one of the main characteristics of the accent from Toulouse is that there is a word stress and not a sentence stress, _le toulousain dit_ "la pət*i*tə f*i*jə va a lec*o*lə", not "la *p(ə)*tit f*i*j va a lec*o*l", i.e he points out that in Northern French the stress changes from "pət*i*tə" to "*p(ə)*tit f*i*j" but this doesn't happen in Toulouse (or in Nice, Marseille or Bordeaux).



You've just proved my point. In French, only *words *are stressed within a sentence, unless you have a strong Southern accent. In which case, you tend to stress syllables within words, too.

Also, I've just watched the video you mentioned, but I didn't quite hear it the same way you did. When he says it with his Southern twang, he says _La petite f*i*lle va à l'éc*o*le_ (with a stress on _f*i*lle _and _éc*o*le_). When he drops the accent, he says _La petite fille va à l'éc*o*le_, only stressing the word _éc*o*le_. In neither case is the word _petite _stressed.


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## Nino83

Oddmania said:


> In neither case is the word _petite _stressed.


Again, I hear a different stress (like many phoneticians).


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## Nanon

Word or group stress does exist although in a barely audible form. Try to drag on the first syllable,  while pronouncing it louder and on a higher pitch... and you will get the impression that something falls out of place. An example is "la *ca*bane au fond du *ja*rdin"  (this is Francis Cabrel but the strange stress pattern is not a particularly Toulousain feature).
I would say that, a contrario, final word stress exists.


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## Oddmania

Nino, I don't know who those phoneticians are, but Pierre Escudé himself says it in the video!

«..._La petite fille va à l'éc*o*le_, avec un seul accent.» Un seul accent. The stress is put on the word _école_, and this is the only word stressed. If you stress the word _petite, fille _and _école_, you basically stress all of the important words of the sentence!  No native French speaker would ever say _La pet*III*te f*III*lle va à l'éc*OOO*le_. The word _petite _is pronounce so quickly it's often shortened to _p'tite_.

What if the sentence was _La petite fille blonde va à l'école primaire_ ? Would you say _La pet*III*te f*III*lle bl*OONN*de va à l'éc*OOO*le prim*AAII*re_, because you've looked up each word one by one and found out they had to be stressed this way? The words may very well have such a stress when they're taken individually, on their own, as you may hear on Forvo. I actually believe they definitely do. If I had to pronounce them one by one, individually, I would stress them this way. A stress on the_ -i_, the _-on_, the_ -o_ and the _-ai_. But they're not stressed this way when they're part of a sentence!

I would personally pronounce it _La petite fille bl*on*de va à l'éc*o*le_, because _blonde _is the last word within its 'unit' (the unit being _la petite fille blonde_), and because _école _is the last word of the sentence.


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## Nino83

Oddmania said:


> you basically stress all of the important words of the sentence!


I'm not saying that every word in a sentence is stressed with the same emphasis. This doesn't happen in other languages too. Some words have a secondary accent and other ones (like articles, prepositions and so on) are unstressed.
What in Northern French changes is the secondary stress into the sentence.
In English (and in Romance languages), you say _wh*i*te_,_ c*a*stle_ and _a wh*i*te c*a*stle_ (normally the word "castle" has the primary stress and "white" a secondary stress, "a" is totally unstressed).
In Northern French you say _chât*eau*_ but _le ch*â*teau bl*a*nc_ (primary stress on "blanc", "le" is unstressed and "chateau" has a secondary stress but the stressed syllable is different). Southern French speakers (like English, Italian, Spanish ones) put the secondary stress on the same syllable,_ le chât*eau* bl*a*nc_.
This is the difference I heard between _excus*ez*_ and _ex*cu*sez-m*oi*_ or between _la pet*i*te f*i*lle_ and _la *p*tit f*i*lle_.
This is simply what I heard. But everyone has his ears and hears things differently. I note this difference between Northern French speakers and other Romance and English speakers.
This is probably the reason why Centre National de Ressources Textuelles et Lexicales and Dictionnaire - 21 dictionnaires gratuits en ligne - Larousse don't write which syllable is stressed.


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## Lacuzon

Bonjour,

I don't fully agree with you about château. To me, it will depend on the Northern accent. In Paris, you will probably hear chât*eau* and le chateau bl*an*c whereas in the East of France, because of the diacritic ^, you will hear ch*âteau* and le ch*â*teau bl*an*c (As far as I know, it goes the same in Quebec and Swiss). Depending on how strong the East accent will be, you may even hear two a as if it were Chaateau et le le chaateau blanc.


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## Nino83

This is why I said "I don't isist". 
Let's see if I make me understood with some example containing _e muet_ and _e caduc_.
Let's take those words formed by *three* syllables where the stress is on the *last* syllable and there are *two* pretonic "e" in *open syllable*.
In these words there is a *stressed syllable* (the last) and two "unstressed syllables, but the first has a secondary stress (*countertonic syllable*) while the second is totally unstressed (intertonic syllable).
_*é*pel*e*r, *é*lev*e*r, d*é*pec*e*r, d*é*tel*e*r, d*é*cel*e*r_.
ep(ə)'le, el(ə)'ve, dep(ə)'se, del(ə)'te, des(ə)'le.
As you can see, the last syllable is stressed, the first has secondary stress, so it is pronounced [e], and the second is totally unstressed, i.e it is pronounced with _e muet_ [ə] or dropped, _e caduc_. The pattern is *secondary stress*, unstressed, *primary stress*.
We find the same pattern in words like:
_relever, revenue_
rəl(ə)'ve, _rəv(ə)'ny_.
In fact, in relaxed pronunciation, which unstressed "e" is more likely to be dropped? That on the second, totally unstressed, syllable.
There are words like_ téléphone_, where both unstressed "e" in open syllables are retained but we don't find words with this pattern, _e caduc, secondary stressed "e" in open syllable, stressed "e"_.
The pattern is *secondary stress*, unstressed, *primary stress*.
When Northern French speakers pronounce two words into a sentence, they will pronounce it as if it were a *single word*, i.e with this pattern, *secondary stress*, unstressed, *primary stress*. 
So, _chât*eau* bl*a*nc_ and _excus*ez*-m*oi*_ have this pattern, unstressed, *secondary stress*, *primary stress*. French speakers move the secondary stress two syllables before the stressed syllable of the prosodic group, pronouncing this part of sentence like a *single word*, i.e *secondary stress*, unstressed, *primary stress*, pronouncing _ch*â*teau bl*a*nc_ and _exc*u*sez-m*oi*_. This is the reason why _tout le monde_ says that French speakers pronounce sentences as if they were single words.  
 Those people having a strong Southern French accent have a different prosody, i.e they *don't move* the secondary stress of the prosodic unit (but less and less people have a strong Southern French accent).   
They say _chât*eau* bl*a*nc_ and _excus*ez*-m*oi*_.  
petite _pet*i*te_
la petite fille _la p*e*tite f*i*lle_


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## JClaudeK

Nino83 said:


> I'm sorry,* I still keep hearing an accent on the last syllable*, and I think also English speakers probably do it!
> Maybe this is why the French say Robert*ò* Benign*ì* while English speakers say Rowb*è*rtow Ben*ì*ni, putting the stress on the right syllable. Like Romance speakers *don't hear, at first, the difference between long and short English vowels* (but after some training they are able to do it),* probably French speakers don't hear at first word stress.*


En allemand comme en anglais, la *longueur des voyelles* et les *accents de mots* sont très variables (et très importants pour la compréhension - par exemple: to live / to leave) - phénomènes inconnus en français.
C'est pourquoi beaucoup de  francophones sont immédiatement reconnaissables en tant que tels quand ils parlent des langues étrangères car ils ne respectent (souvent) pas les voyelles longues et* ont tendance à accentuer les mots sur la dernière syllabe comme ils le font (apparemment sans s'en rendre compte, si j'en crois quelques témoignages dans ce fil) en français. *

Je parle d'expérience (après des années d'enseignement de l'allemand à de petits et grands Français).


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## Nino83

JClaudeK said:


> *ont tendance à accentuer les mots sur la dernière syllabe comme ils le font (apparemment sans s'en rendre compte, si j'en crois quelques témoignages dans ce fil) en français.*


Exactly. For example minimal pairs like  *i*nsight [ˈɪnsaɪt] and inc*i*te [ɪnˈsaɪt] are not present in French.
There are a lot of papers on this fact, for example Persistent stress ‘deafness’: The case of French learners of Spanish or some members, like the Belgian teacher I spoke about before.
The fact is that a French speaker says _mon am*i*_ and _le chât*eau*_ (stress on the final syllable) but then he says _l'*a*mi de Pi*e*rre_ | _va au ch*â*teau bl*a*nc_ and the foreign student thinks "what is *à*mi? and ch*à*teau?", while French speakers, at first, don't hear the difference between *i*nsight and inc*i*te, or between _Benìgni_ and _Benignì_.


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## Lacuzon

Nino83 said:


> Exactly. For example minimal pairs like  *i*nsight [ˈɪnsaɪt] and inc*i*te [ɪnˈsaɪt] are not present in French.
> There are a lot of papers on this fact, for example Persistent stress ‘deafness’: The case of French learners of Spanish or some members, like the Belgian teacher I spoke about before.
> The fact is that a French speaker says _mon am*i*_ and _le chât*eau*_ (stress on the final syllable) but then he says _l'*a*mi de Pi*e*rre_ | _va au ch*â*teau bl*a*nc_ and the foreign student thinks "what is *à*mi? and ch*à*teau?", while French speakers, at first, don't hear the difference between *i*nsight and inc*i*te, or between _Benìgni_ and _Benignì_.



You're probably quite right, as JClaudeK. I agree we focus on sentence (at least on words unit) rather than on words. In fact, I'm under the impression that French speakers don't stress anything.


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## JClaudeK

Je viens de tomber sur cette phrase (qui devrait faire réfléchir les tenants du _"je ne vois pas pourquoi accentuer la dernière syllabe."_) 


> Tu veux écrire "crééémeux" [....]  C'est *difficile à prononcer pour un francophone*, avec cet accent tonique sur la première syllabe. Plutôt "cré*meeeu*se". Voir:    Crééémeux


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## Nanon

JClaudeK said:


> En allemand comme en anglais, la *longueur des voyelles* et les *accents de mots* sont très variables (et très importants pour la compréhension - par exemple: to live / to leave) - phénomènes inconnus en français.


Caducs mais pas complètement inconnus - qu'on écoute la diction dans les vieilles actualités cinématographiques de l'entre-deux-guerres pour s'en convaincre. Ou la diction de Piaf (mais la mélodie tend à exagérer ces phénomènes).



JClaudeK said:


> C'est pourquoi beaucoup de  francophones sont immédiatement reconnaissables en tant que tels quand ils parlent des langues étrangères car ils ne respectent (souvent) pas les voyelles longues et* ont tendance à accentuer les mots sur la dernière syllabe comme ils le font (apparemment sans s'en rendre compte, si j'en crois quelques témoignages dans ce fil) en français. *


À accentuer en finale ou à placer l'accent au petit bonheur la (mal)chance.
Inversement, les étudiants de français langue étrangère entendent _clairement _un accent sur la dernière syllabe et le reproduisent parfois de façon exagérée. Je parle d'expérience après quelques petites années d'enseignement du FLE, il y a fort longtemps .


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## Nino83

I add some example to complete my reasoning.
French speakers pronounce every prosodic unit like it were a single word.
u = unstressed, ss = secondary stress, ps = primary stress
If there is u-ss-ps it becomes ss-u-ps.
If there is ss-u-(u)-ps, it doesn't change.
In other words, French speakers move secondary stress in order to have *one* unstressed syllable between secondary and primary stress.
petit-fils pə*ˈti* *ˈfi*s > *ˌpə*ti*ˈfi*s (u-ss-ps > ss-u-ps)
petit café pə*ˈti* ka*ˈfe* > pə*ˌti*ka*ˈfe* (equal) 
petit déjeuner pə*ˈti* deʒø*ˈne* = pə*ˌti*deʒø*ˈne* (equal)
This is the reason why French dictionaries don't indicate which syllable is stressed.


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## Seeda

Nino83 said:


> I'm sorry but my ear and *all* phoneticians say that excusez = [eksky'ze] and écoutez = [eku'te].
> I don't insist.



Kudos to you for knowing all the phoneticians living on this planet. In my (more limited) experience, you'd be hard-pressed to find two linguists who can agree on the way French is stressed, and the claim that all French words are stressed on the last syllable is definitely not universally accepted.


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## Nino83

Seeda said:


> and the claim that all French words are stressed on the last syllable is definitely not universally accepted


Anyway you can ask everyone (English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Brazilian, Danish, Swedish speakers) where the French put the stress when they pronounce nouns like _Roberto Benigni_ or _Silvio Berlusconi_, and everyone will say _Robert*ò* Benign*ì*_ or _Silvi*ò* Berluscon*ì*_.
It is sufficient to hear France24 for some minutes.

This is the easiest and more common way to "fake" the French accent. 


> *Stressing the last syllable.* In French, always stress the last syllable of a sentence or before you pause with a rising pitch as if asking a question. (E.g. "I am from New York(?).")


How to Fake a Convincing French Accent (point 6)


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## Kelly B

I'm not a native speaker but even I don't think the French consistently stress anything. It's relatively even, with emphasis depending on context rather than syllable order, and it only sounds like they're accenting the last syllable to a person whose ear expects the syllable in question to have less, rather than equal, stress.


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## broglet

interesting point kelly - perceived stress is not absolute but relative to expectations (like most perception).  Certainly context seems to affect French syllabic stress much more than it does in English.


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## Nino83

Kelly B said:


> with emphasis depending on context


Anyway what people speaking different languages immediately notice is that in French there is a strong stress on the last syllable of every prosodic unit. This phenomenon is so systematic that it's difficult to say that the French language doesn't have any stress.


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## Oddmania

Nino83 said:


> Anyway what people speaking different languages immediately notice is that in French there is a strong stress on the last syllable of every prosodic unit.


Ce n'est pas possible. On ne peut pas accentuer la dernière syllabe de chaque mot.

"_Je parlais mal anglais quand j'étais petit._" → Je par*LAIS* mal ang*LAIS* quand j'é*TAIS* pe*TIT *?? ​
Une de mes amies parle effectivement comme ça. Mais elle est anglaise, et bien qu'elle s'exprime très bien en français, elle a tout de même un fort accent anglais. Je prononcerais cette phrase _Je-parlais-mal-ang*LAIS* quand-j'étais-petit_. L'accentuation fait office de virgule, de pause. Les autres mots sont collés. Aucun ne se détache en particulier. En français, on ne 'hache' pas les phrases pour accentuer chaque mot séparément. On accentue généralement le dernier mot d'un *groupe de sens*.

Sur ce lien, vous pouvez écouter les prononciations anglaise, américaine, australienne, etc. du mot "_petite_". Vous remarquerez que la dernière syllabe ("*-tit"*) est toujours accentuée en anglais.
Sur ce lien, vous pouvez écouter la prononciation française du mot "_petit_". Aucune syllabe n'est particulièrement accentuée.

C'est justement lorsqu'un locuteur accentue la dernière syllabe que je reconnais qu'il est étranger. Si vous dites /puh-TEEET/, vous avez un accent anglo-saxon, pas français.


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## Nino83

Oddmania said:


> Je prononcerais cette phrase _Je-parlais-mal-ang*LAIS* quand-j'étais-petit_.


Hi, Oddmania. That's what I said. _Je parlais mal ang*lais* | quand j'étais pe*tit*_.
Prosodic unit = string of words before a pause.
(I'd transcribe it [ʃpaʁˌlemalɒ̃*ˈglɛ* kɒ̃ˌʒetɛp(ə)*ˈti*])



Oddmania said:


> Sur ce lien, vous pouvez écouter les prononciations anglaise, américaine, australienne, etc. du mot "_petite_". Vous remarquerez que la dernière syllabe ("*-tit"*) est toujours accentuée en anglais.
> Sur ce lien, vous pouvez écouter la prononciation française du mot "_petit_". Aucune syllabe n'est particulièrement accentuée.


My transcription: English [pəˈtʰiːtʰ], French [pə̹ˈti] (the French ə̹ is more rounded than the English ə,  ̹= more rounded)


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## Oddmania

Nino83 said:


> French [pə̹*ˈ*ti]


Vous entendez vraiment une accentuation sur la seconde syllabe dans l'enregistrement que j'ai posté ? Le problème vient peut-être de là, alors.


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## Nino83

Oddmania said:


> Vous entendez une accentuation sur la seconde syllabe dans l'enregistrement que j'ai posté ?


Oui, Oddmania. Je perçois une accentuation sur la seconde syllabe.


Oddmania said:


> Le problème vient peut-être de là, alors.


Peut-être. 
Carla Bruni: C*à*rla Br*ù*ni It vs. Carla Brun*ì* Fr
Marco: M*à*rco It, M*à*rco R*ù*bio En vs. Marc*ò* Fr


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## Oddmania

Il n'y a pourtant aucune accentuation dans aucun de ces mots (en français, bien sûr). Si j'accentue la dernière syllabe, la prononciation est radicalement différente comparée à la prononciation normale où je n'en accentue aucune.

Je suis entièrement d'accord avec la remarque de Kelly dans son post #44. Ce n'est pas parce que la première syllabe n'est pas accentuée comme en italien que la seconde l'est forcément. La seconde syllabe est plus accentuée en français qu'en italien, cela explique peut-être que vous la percevez comme étant "accentuée". Pourtant, elle n'est pas plus accentuée que la première.


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## atcheque

Bonjour,

Simone Hérault, la voix de la SNCF :


> Pour chaque mot, elle enregistre trois versions : montante, descendante et montante avec un « de » ou un « du » devant, afin de respecter le rythme de la phrase et les règles de liaison.


C'est bien le contexte et non le mot, ou ses syllabes, qui est accentué en français.


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## Nino83

Oddmania said:


> La seconde syllabe est plus accentuée en français qu'en italien, cela explique peut-être que vous la percevez comme étant "accentuée".


C'est probable.  


Oddmania said:


> Pourtant, elle n'est pas plus accentuée que la première.


Sur ce point je ne suis pas d'accord. Je perçois que la seconde est plus accentuée. 
La même chose pour Clara (Clàra: Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Catalan, Occitan, English, German; Clarà: French).


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## Oddmania

C'est là que vous vous trompez. Vous êtes tellement habitué à entendre la seconde syllabe moins accentuée que la première que lorsque les deux le sont tout autant, vous avez l'impression que la seconde l'est plus ! 

Si une première personne vous demandait de prononcer "Clara" en italien, vous diriez "Cl*à*ra".
Si une seconde personne vous demandait de prononcer ce même mot en accentuant la première syllabe, vous penseriez sans doute "_Le résultat est le même : Cl*à*ra. L'accent va toujours sur la première syllabe, de toute façon_".

Moi, si une première personne me demandait de dire "Clara" en français, je dirais "_Clara_", sans accent particulier.
Si une deuxième personne me demandait de dire "Clara" en accentuant la dernière syllabe, *j'obtiendrais une prononciation totalement différente *: _Cla*RA*_ (avec une espèce de faux accent russe, peut-être).

Je ne choisirais d'accentuer cette syllabe que si mon cerveau me le dictait : par exemple "Elle ne s'appelle pas Cla*rie*, elle s'appelle Cla*ra* !". Je choisis d'accentuer la syllabe pour la mettre en relief. C'est le contexte qui l'exige, pas la langue française.


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## Barbanellie

Hmmm...  Je ne suis pas experte en phonétique, mais j'ai lu ce fil, et j'ai tendance à être d'accord avec Oddmania, il n'y a pas d'accentuation systématique des syllables, mais plutôt une tendance à accentuer la dernière syllable de certains mots, selon le contexte.



Nino83 said:


> La même chose pour Clara (Clàra: Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Catalan, Occitan, English, German; Clarà: French).



Mais pas toujours.  Si je dis "C'est Clara", à mon oreille, il n'y a pas d'accentuation particulière sur le deuxième "a" de Clara, versus si on pose la question "C'est Clara?", alors là il y a une accentuation sur le deuxième "a", parce que c'est une question.


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## Nino83

Oddmania said:


> Moi, si une première personne me demandait de dire "Clara" en français, je dirais "_Clara_", sans accent particulier.


But it is what happens in those examples taken from forvo.com. Il y a un accent on la dernière syllabe! 
Also Bernard Tranel (in "The Sounds of French: An Introduction, Cambridge" pp. 194-200) says that the stress is put in the last syllable (except if it is a schwa) of every phonological phrase. It is not an invention of Italian and English phoneticians. 
Anyway, I won't try to convince anyone. I provided some audio files from Forvo where there is a clear difference in stress between French and other European languages. Everyone has his own ears and can get an idea of it.


Barbanellie said:


> Mais pas toujours. Si je dis "C'est Clara", à mon oreille, il n'y a pas d'accentuation particulière sur le deuxième "a" de Clara, versus si on pose la question "C'est Clara?", alors là il y a une accentuation sur le deuxième "a", parce que c'est une question.


In this case it's the intonation (pitch) that changes, not the stress (which is in the same point).


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## Barbanellie

Nino83 said:


> In this case it's the intonation (pitch) that changes, not the stress (which is in the same point).



My mistake, you are correct.
I think the stress used by native French speakers is so slight that we don't realize we do it, I guess, but it is there and can be heard by people who look for it, but we spot foreign speakers immediately because they stress those syllables too much?



Oddmania said:


> Je ne choisirais d'accentuer cette syllabe que si mon cerveau me le dictait : par exemple "Elle ne s'appelle pas Cla*rie*, elle s'appelle Cla*ra* !".



That is also what I would infer from someone putting "obvious" stress on the last syllable, emphasizing the correct pronunciation because people often use an incorrect name (sort of like telling someone "My name is Klara, with a K")


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## guillaumedemanzac

Iambic stress is very important in English- and the difference between a strong and a weak vowel is what causes most foreigners pronunciation problems. In addition, in English, the meaning of each phrase is carried by the stress - unimportant articles, prepositions, modal verbs have a weak pronunciation while the verbs, nouns, adjectives generally have a strong stress.

To compare that to French is meaningless as the system is totally different.
And in English the stress changes often to fit the iambic meter  -- JACK 'n' JILL wen UP the HILL ---- note that 'wen(t)' is less important than 'UP' so the weak pronunciation drops the 't'. The "meaning" words are more stressed and the others truncated or elided to a weak form.
French as already said is almost monotone with only the rise and fall to show whether the phrase is the first or the last. I too can't hear any French 'stress' on any particular syllable because, compared to English, there ISN'T any - well, only a little comparatively!!


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## Nino83

guillaumedemanzac said:


> To compare that to French is meaningless as the system is totally different.


I don't agree on it.
French language has a strong vowel reduction. _Je pense qu'il est revenu_ in Parisian fast speech is pronounced [ˌʃpɒ̃skileʁvˈ*ny*], with an extensive drop of almost all _e muets_ while in Francitan it's prononuced [ʒ*ə*ˈpaⁿs*ə* kiˈle ʁ*ə*v*ə*ˈny].
Italian and Spanish have stress and no vowel reduction. French has stress and vowel reduction, to be more precise vowel suppression in *unstressed* syllables. The difference is where this stress is placed. In Italian and Spanish (and English) there is a *word stress*, in French there is a *sentence stress*. By the way, it is a stress, and it is very noticeable, pretty strong.


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## berndf

Nino83 said:


> But it is what happens in those examples taken from forvo.com. Il y a un accent on la dernière syllabe!


Yes, but there is sometimes an equal if not stronger stress on the first syllable, e.g. here.

Since stress accent is non-phonemic, the stress pattern is not always predictable. It is true that the predominant pronunciation is with only the last syllable stressed unless the last one is an open syllable with a Schwa in which case the penultimate syllable is stressed. But since this is not phonemic, variations are always possible.


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## Nino83

berndf said:


> Yes, but there is sometimes an equal if not stronger stress on the first syllable, e.g. here.


I still hear _Clar*à*_ and _je m'appelle Clar*à*, et vous?_


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## berndf

Nino83 said:


> I still hear _Clar*à*_ and _je m'appelle Clar*à*, et vous?_


['kla,ʁa] is what I hear in this particular case.

I share @Oddmania's suspicion: In Italian the stress pattern of word is uniquely identified by the number of unstressed syllables after the last stressed syllable (0=ultima, 1=penultima and 2=ante-penultima). You may therefore ignore the stress level of all syllables before the last stressed one.


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## Christo Tamarin

On the one hand, there are languages like *English*, *Spanish*, *Greek*, *Russian*, *Bulgarian*, etc (German - what about it?). In those language, a stress position is assigned to each multisyllabic word, and even there are words distinguished by the stress position only.
Example_EN: words like *import*, *export*, *address* have different stress positions when a noun and when a verb.
Example_SP: *Hablo* Inglés (I speak English). *Habló* Inglés (He spoke English).
Example_GR: *αχλάδια* (pears), *αχλαδιά* (pear tree).
Example_RU: *большàя* перемена (big change), *бòльшая* перемена (bigger change).
Example_BG: *у̀личен* крадец (street thief, pilferer), *уличѐн* крадец (incriminated thief).

On the other hand, there are languages like *Georgian* or *Japanese*, where although multisyllabic words prevail, no stress position is assigned.

I think, *French* is to be added to the 2nd group: words are not assigned a stress position. Phrases are, words aren't.


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## Nino83

Christo Tamarin said:


> On the other hand, there are languages like *Georgian* or *Japanese*, where although multisyllabic words prevail, no stress position is assigned.


Japanese has pitch accent (two pitches in the standard Tokyo dialect).
ame (low-high) = candy, あめ, 飴
ame (high-low) = rain, あめ, 雨 


Christo Tamarin said:


> I think, *French* is to be added to the 2nd group: words are not assigned a stress position. Phrases are, words aren't.



When a phrase is composed by only one word, the stress is on the last syllable (except schwa).


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## berndf

Christo Tamarin said:


> I think, *French* is to be added to the 2nd group: words are not assigned a stress position. Phrases are, words aren't.





Nino83 said:


> When a phrase is composed by only one word, the stress is on the last syllable (except schwa).


These are completely different things:
*- CT *talks about words being *assigned *a stress position.
- *You *are talking about *phonetic *and not about phonemic syllable stress.

French speakers do not assign stress to the last syllable. Completely independently of this they usually do stress the last syllable. But this is completely irrelevant for understanding the word. The main function of this stress, if it has any, is to support word separation in continuous speech.


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## Nino83

berndf said:


> *You *are talking about *phonetic *and not about phonemic syllable stress.



Yes, I know. This is why I differentiated French from Japanese (which has phonemic accent). 
Since my first comment I've been speaking about *phonetic* stress.


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## berndf

Nino83 said:


> Since my first comment I've been speaking about *phonetic* stress.


Yet you tend to mix this up. CT only spoke about assignment. Your reply started _When a phrase is composed by only one word, ..._ which tries to connect CT's description with yours which is wrong or at least misleading. Even in a multi-word phrase do French speakers *do *stress the last syllable but they don't *assign* stress to it.

And when they do stress the last syllable this does not mean all previous syllables are necessarily unstressed. They often (usually) are but not always. And that is happening in the sample of _Clara_ in #60. You correctly hear the second syllable as stressed. But this first syllable is not unstressed.


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## Nino83

berndf said:


> You correctly hear the second syllable as stressed. But this first syllable is not unstressed.


When speaking about (phonetic) stress, the important thing, I think, is that a syllable is more stressed than others. The strongest stress is primary stress.
Other syllables can have a secondary stress or may be unstressed.
I could agree on a transcription like this, [ˌkaʁˈla]. What I'm speaking about is *primary* (phonetic) stress. I hear it on the final (non-schwa) syllable of every prosodic unit.


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## berndf

Nino83 said:


> I could agree on a transcription like this, [ˌkaʁˈla]. What I'm speaking about is *primary* (phonetic) stress. I hear it on the final (non-schwa) syllable of every prosodic unit.


With my German ear that is tuned to distinguishing secondary and primary stress I hear it the other way round in this particular sample (my German colleague sitting next to me says the same thing without a second of hesitation). I stand by my suspicion that because in Italian only the last stress is significant, you probably underestimate the stress level of the first syllable.

Nevertheless I concede that this sample is an extreme case, probably because the word is pronounced in isolation. In the vast majority of cases, the strongest stress is on the last syllable of each word, except if the last syllable has a Schwa nucleus.


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## berndf

atcheque said:


> Bonjour,
> 
> Simone Hérault, la voix de la SNCF :
> 
> C'est bien le contexte et non le mot, ou ses syllabes, qui est accentué en français.


That is about pitch not about stress. Though pitch and stress are not unrelated, I think we shouldn't go into that here; I suspect it would only add to the confusion and wouldn't clarify anything.


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## Dan2

Nino83 said:


> But it is what happens in those examples taken from forvo.com. Il y a un accent on la dernière syllabe!





berndf said:


> Yes, but there is sometimes an equal if not stronger stress on the first syllable, e.g. here.





Nino83 said:


> I still hear _Clar*à*_ and _je m'appelle Clar*à*, et vous?_


Et moi?  Ça dépend...
I have two observations, probably related.

1. Stressed syllables in English tend to be longer, louder, and to have a different pitch contour, compared to unstressed syllables.  Other languages, even if universally agreed to have clearly defined stressed and unstressed syllables, don't necessarily mark stress precisely as English does.  So for people of different phonemic-stress-language backgrounds to listen to words of French (a language _without _phonemic stress) and argue which syllable is more "stressed" is sure to be an exercise in frustration.  (Unless of course one defines in acoustic terms what one means by "stress".)

2. With my particular background (exposed only to English until teenage years), I can find myself in agreement with Bernd or with Nino with respect to the two renditions of "Clara", depending on how I "prime" myself.  If I tell myself that I'm about to hear Clára, then that's what I hear, similarly for Clará.  I conclude from this that in the French pronunciation of "Clara", neither syllable contains the constellation of acoustic characteristics of an English stressed syllable, but at the same time, neither syllable resembles an English unstressed syllable.  I don't think there's much more that can meaningfully be said, without turning to acoustic measurements.


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## berndf

Dan2 said:


> neither syllable contains the constellation of acoustic characteristics of an English stressed syllable


Indeed. There is too much pitch variation in English. With its virtually nil pitch variation except in pausa, German is a better reference. In Italian, stress is associated with falling pitch and that could influence Nino's perception as well.


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## Dale Texas

I once heard the* general *French pattern of stress explained to English speakers first learning French as something somewhat similar to what English speakers do when they are asked to count off their numbers, which I thought was quite good, since our number words up to ten are all monosyllabic and so avoid the problem of using multi-syllabic English words which would have all kinds of shifting stress patterns within them, and avoids, of course, phonetic transcriptions or concerns:

(My boldface is for visual indication only, not for indicating an overly-strong voicing.)
_*
one*_
one _*two*_
one two* three*
one two three *four*
one two three four *five  *(etc.,)

The above can then be used to show stress lightly touching down on the last syllable of _a complete_ _thought phrase_, not _word._

(This-was-not-to *be*, a so-phis-ti-ca-ted thing at *all*, but-in-stead-a-ve-ry quick *way, *to-get-the-id-e-a   a-*cross*)


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## Erkattäññe

Maybe I'm wrong but I could make things easier by saying all french words have stress on the last syllabe except for words that end in schwa. In that case they are stressed in the penultima.


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## Nino83

berndf said:


> In Italian, stress is associated with falling pitch


Only at sentence level.
Francèsca è andàta a scuòla (the pitch falls on the stressed syllable of the last word of the phrase, i.e *scuò*la) 
scuòla (_scuò_ is a little higher than _la_ in this case, there is no great difference in pitch) 


berndf said:


> and that could influence Nino's perception as well.


As a musician I'm able to distinguish between pitch and stress.


Erkattäññe said:


> Maybe I'm wrong but I could make things easier by saying all french words have stress on the last syllabe except for words that end in schwa. In that case they are stressed in the penultima.



It seems it is evident for Italian and Spanish ears.


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## berndf

Nino83 said:


> Only at sentence level.
> Francèsca è andàta a scuòla (the pitch falls on the stressed syllable of the last word of the phrase, i.e *scuò*la)
> scuòla (_scuò_ is a little higher than _la_ in this case, there is no great difference in pitch)


It is the same thing you have with French: French pay attention only to the strong stress variations on phrase level and not to the weaker ones on word level whereas you and I can hear both because they both matter in our languages. I can equally clearly hear intra-word pitch variation in Italian (because as a German I am used to much subtler pitch variation as German has only very little) although this is of course much weaker than the strong falling pitch in pausa.


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## Nino83

berndf said:


> It is the same thing you have with French


If we analyze the word in isolation we have (this is what I hear): 
['klaː↓ra] (Italian)
[kla↓'ʁa] (French)


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## berndf

berndf said:


> It is the same thing you have with French


That's what I meant: The different ways you and I hear Italian pitch resembles the different ways you and French speakers hear stress in French:
- French speakers tell you _there is no stress withing a word_ and you say _but I hear it_.
- You say _there is no falling pitch associated with stress in non-pausa words_ and I say _but I hear it_.


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## berndf

Nino83 said:


> If we analyze the word in isolation we have (this is what I hear):
> ['klaː↓ra] (Italian)
> [kla↓'ʁa] (French)


In French, I hear a rising pitch in the second syllable, not a falling pitch in the first.


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## Nino83

With the arrow I want to indicate that the first syllable has a higher pitch than the second one.


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## berndf

Nino83 said:


> With the arrow I want to indicate that the first syllable has a higher pitch than the second one.


I hear in both languages a system of rising and falling pitches, not of high and low ones.


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## Nino83

berndf said:


> I hear in both languages a system of rising and falling pitches, not of high and low ones.


I measured the pitch with praat.
In the French sample _cla_ is 1614 Hz  while _ra_ is 1242 Hz. There are more or less 370 Hz of difference between the two syllables.
In the Italian sample the range is wider. _Cla_ is 1351 Hz while _ra_ is 737 Hz with a difference of more or less 600 Hz.
But the range is different from speaker to speaker.


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## berndf

Nino83 said:


> In the French sample _cla_ is 1614 Hz while _ra_ is 1242 Hz. There are more or less 370 Hz of difference between the two syllables.


Again: I hear in both languages a system of rising and falling pitches, not of high and low ones. Average pitch is of little significance (certainly in French but I think also in Italian). The direction of the pitch change within the syllable matters.


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## guillaumedemanzac

And in English the syllable stress change makes a big change to the vowel sound in that syllable - see long list of words on the internet like refuse/object/present which as verbs have a second syllable stress and as nouns stress the first syllable - causing a considerable pronunciation difference.
SIMilarly, with CLARa the second 'a' has a schwa vowel sound in British whereas in French I perso wouldn't hear any difference in the two 'a's  = cla ra - the French system (for most native Brits) has a fairly monotone stress throughout the sentence with tone rises and falls for start/finish/emphasis.
It's the reason why French speakers often cannot get a rhythmic rise and fall in the iambic system  =  the GRAND old DUKE of YORK / he HAD ten THOUSand MEN .... 

Try a few simple nursery rhymes for this learning/teaching process!!!!!  childish but effective.


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## Dan2

Nino83 said:


> I measured the pitch with praat.
> In the French sample _cla_ is 1614 Hz while _ra_ is 1242 Hz. There are more or less 370 Hz of difference between the two syllables.
> In the Italian sample the range is wider. _Cla_ is 1351 Hz while _ra_ is 737 Hz with a difference of more or less 600 Hz.


Nino, these numbers are far too high to be pitch (fundamental frequency) values.  Either you are reading pitch values incorrectly, or these numbers are something else, like formant values (which we do not perceive as pitch).

guillaume: several good points in your post directly above.  Just wanted to comment on...


guillaumedemanzac said:


> And in English the syllable stress change makes a big change to the vowel sound in that syllable - see long list of words on the internet like refuse/object/present which as verbs have a second syllable stress and as nouns stress the first syllable - causing a considerable pronunciation difference.


That is usually the case but not always: consider noun vs verb forms of "pervert".  Certainly in American English the vowel qualities are the same in noun and verb even while the stress shifts.


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## berndf

Dan2 said:


> Nino, these numbers are far too high to be pitch (fundamental frequency) values.


Indeed. For reference: 1396.91Hz is the highest tone the Queen of the Night sings in her famous aria _Der Hölle Rache _in Mozart's_ Zauberflöte_.


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## Nino83

Dan2 said:


> Nino, these numbers are far too high to be pitch (fundamental frequency) values.


Yes, you're right 
The software calls it "pitch" but there's something wrong.


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## Nino83

French (pitch):
_cla_ = 150 Hz (D - Eb)
_ra_ = 117 Hz (Bb)


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## MickaelV

Accent on the last syllable of words in French is a myth. Some words might get emphasized in the general flow of conversation, but not syllables. If you start putting stress on one syllable in a word, then you stop sounding French.


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## berndf

MickaelV said:


> Accent on the last syllable of words in French is a myth. Some words might get emphasized in the general flow of conversation, but not syllables. If you start putting stress on one syllable in a word, then you stop sounding French.


We are talking about different things here. You are talking of prosodic and we are talking about phonemic stress. French is exceptional within European languages in not having phonemic stress. Most European languages have both, phonemic and prosodic stress and they distinguish between them.

French once had phonemic stress like all other Romance languages. But during the middle ages most syllables after the word stress fell off. This made the stress pattern of French words irrelevant because the stress was always at the same point and stress became non phonemic. But this does not mean that French also lost all the phonetic charactistics of this lost phonemic stress and that is what Nino and others hear while French speaker ignore that information and think people like Nino mean prosodic stress because that is the only type of stress French speakers themselves continously perceive in their own language. But he hears both types of stress.


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## Nino83

MickaelV said:


> Some words might get emphasized in the general flow of conversation, but not syllables.


If this were true, why do we have verbs like relever? Why does [ɛ] become [ə] (often dropped) in unstressed syllables if there is no stress in French?
J(ə) rəl*è*v(ə) > J(ə) rəl*(ə)*vè


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## berndf

Nino83 said:


> If this were true, why do we have verbs like relever? Why does [ɛ] become [ə] (often dropped) in unstressed syllables if there is no stress in French?
> J(ə) rəl*è*v(ə) > J(ə) rəl*(ə)*vè


It is quite obvious that the two of you are talking about completely different concepts when you use the word _stress_. You have to sort that out before it makes sense to continue.

Prosodic stress (and that is what Mickael is talking about) does indeed work quite differently in French than, e.g., in English. While prosodic stress (almost) only affects the main stress syllable of the emphasised word in English, it effects all syllables equally in French, plus the syllables are spaced out so that the whole word is longer:
English: _This wine is *EX*cellent!_
French: _Ce vin est *EX*-*CE*-l*LENT*._


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## merquiades

French has no accented syllables in a word at all, just a longer syllable at the end of a rhythmic group accompanied by rising or falling intonation.
Speakers of (most) other languages have a strong stressed syllable on the first or second syllable of a word, sometimes accompanied by a weakened final syllable.  French noticeably never has this, and final syllables are fully articulated.  If speakers of a given language are naturally expecting from their background /Klá-ra/ or /kláa-rə/ and what you get is /kla-ra/ with two equally articulated monotone syllables or /Kla-raa/ with a longer second syllable if it is the end of the sentence/rhythmic group (je vais parler avec Claraa), they perceive a final accented syllable because of a combination of lack of stress on a first syllable and elongation at the end of a rhythm group.
Another example:
Mar-ko-ru-bjo-a-par-lee.  No syllable is accented in Marco Rubio and all are equal.  But if your language requires Má(a)r-ko Rú(u)-bjo and that is missing you perceive the final syllable accented.

On the other hand, French speakers will never perceive any final syllable being accented, just a monotone staccato rhythm which is required.  Foreigners do learn in school to accent the final syllable. I suppose this is easier than trying to explain to amateurs what I have had a hard time explaining. Plus it does work.  Some really internalize it.  I met a German friend in Paris, and he really stressed the endings.  Garçoón, un vin roouúge, s'il vous plaaaaít.  Merciiií beaucouuúp, monsieeeúr!   French people hear this as foreign accent, extravagant, and might even say, wow Englishmen and Germans really accent final syllables don't they?


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## Nino83

This is the reason why I said in one of my initial comments "I don't insist". 
Then I have to repeat what I said. 
I stay with what I and many phoneticians hear. 
I won't insist. 
It would be a repetition of the same concepts.


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## berndf

merquiades said:


> French has no accented syllables


That I would agree with. The claim was that the last syllable has (phonetic) dynamic stress on the last syllable without it being an accent, i.e. phonemically or prosodically relevant.


merquiades said:


> Speakers of (most) other languages have a strong stressed syllable on the first or second syllable of a word


There is no Romance language where this characterization it appropriate. Accent patterns that occur are antepenultimate, penultimate and ultimate. Classical Latin developed an accent system that was defined from the end rather than from the beginning no Romance language has reverted to a system that defines accent from the beginning.


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## merquiades

berndf said:


> That I would agree with. The claim was that the last syllable has (phonetic) dynamic stress on the last syllable without it being an accent, i.e. phonemically or prosodically relevant.


 No, clearly not.  If you take any word and give stress to any syllable for whatever reason, like musicians do, it makes no difference.  One problem the French have at learning Spanish is "internalizing" that accenting a different syllable has some importance.  Distinguishing the future from the imperfect subjunctive (cantará - cantára) and the present from the past (canto - cantó) is often terribly daunting for them and they do not even see why.  They may say /_can-to-muy-bien_/ with equal syllabic stress (in their mind they don't) but communication breaks down.
Want a torture for francophones?  _Ojalá no me dejara pero me dejará_.  Not only do they have to get accented syllables but need to distinguish /x/ and /r/ too.  They simply may not hear the difference.



> There is no Romance language where this characterization it appropriate. Accent patterns that occur are antepenultimate, penultimate and ultimate. Classical Latin developed an accent system that was defined from the end rather than from the beginning no Romance language has reverted to a system that defines accent from the beginning.


  Yes, you determine the accent starting from the last syllable (Spanish, Portuguese, Italian) and it falls on the penultimate or anti-penultimate syllable.  In practice that is usually the first or second syllable, not usually the last one.  That is what I meant.  (_Téngo úna cása gránde y rosáda_)


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## berndf

merquiades said:


> No, clearly not. If you take any word and give stress to any syllable for whatever reason, like musicians do, it makes no difference. One problem the French have at learning Spanish is "internalizing" that accenting a different syllable has some importance. Distinguishing the future from the imperfect subjunctive (cantará - cantára) and the present from the past (canto - cantó) is often terribly daunting for them and they do not even see why.


Yes, that phenomenon is well known. Because dynamic stress within a word carries no information in French, speakers ignore it. In language acquisition it is almost as important to learn what to ignore as it is what to pay attention to. But as useful as ignoring intra-word dynamic stress is in French, it is a problem for French speakers in learning foreign languages.


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## berndf

merquiades said:


> the present from the past (canto - cantó)


The reflex of this distinction in French is that in present the _-o _was weakened to Schwa and subsequently completely muted while the past tense retained the full vowel at the end: _[je] chante - [il] chanta_. Thus the former today is a one syllable and the latter a two syllable word. This loss (or reduction to Schwa) of syllables following the stress syllable caused the stress pattern to become uniform and, hence, not to carry any information any more.


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## Nino83

berndf said:


> This loss (or reduction to Schwa) of syllables following the stress syllable caused the stress pattern to become uniform and, hence, not to carry any information any more.


The same thing happened with proparaxytones: àncora > àncre (anchor) vs. ancòra > encòre (again).


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## merquiades

Nino83 said:


> The same thing happened with proparaxytones: àncora > àncre (anchor) vs. ancòra > encòre (again).


In Spanish post-tonic syllables were dropped too, _ancla_.  There is no equivalent to _encore/ancora_ in this language to make a comparison (in some old Spanish text I remember seeing _encor _but it could be dialectal), but final -e was routinely dropped after r, d, l, z etc:  _flor, amor_.

But this is different than the discussion here about modern pronunciation which shows equal syllable stress.
The /ɔ/ is lengthened in encore in closed syllable environment as all vowels are before /ʁ/


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## leolucas1980

I've lived in France and think that most French people don't even grasp what syllable stress is. It's an irrelevant concept in French, just as syllable tone in most European languages.


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## Wai Ho

Eugens said:


> Bonjour!
> I have this lingering doubt (I hope it is not very stupid). All words of more than one syllable in all languages (or at least I suppose so?) have one syllable that is stressed more than the others. In English, a word's stressed syllable is shown beside the word in the phonetic pronunciation where a mark like an apostrophe appears before the stressed syllable. But in French I have this problem: I don't know which the stressed syllable is because the "apostrophe" doesn't appear in the phonetic pronunciation. I asked a friend who is learning French why this mark is not shown and he told me that it is because all words in French are stressed on the last syllable (?) Is he right? Then, I asked another friend of mine about this and she told me that that wasn't true and she gave as an example that "fenêtre" is not stressed on the last syllable. Do the diacritics indicate where the word is stressed like in Spanish?
> Thank you.


Yes or no, he can be right. The apostrophe is not written in French IPA, because when we're reading a single word, for example, "télévision", we can change the stresses, we can put the stress on the beginning or at the end, also, we can pronounce all the syllables in mid tones. Otherwise, we need some stresses in a whole sentence, for exemple, "J'ai regardé la télévision", the "-dé" of "regardé" should be pronounced in a high tone, but the "-sion" of "télévision" can be pronounced with a half-high tone or a mid tone, not very high, because it's not a question. Remember, in the sentence, the important thing is the last syllable of words.


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## berndf

Wai Ho said:


> Yes or no, he can be right. The apostrophe is not written in French IPA, because when we're reading a single word, for example, "télévision", we can change the stresses, we can put the stress on the beginning or at the end, also, we can pronounce all the syllables in mid tones. Otherwise, we need some stresses in a whole sentence, for exemple, "J'ai regardé la télévision", the "-dé" of "regardé" should be pronounced in a high tone, but the "-sion" of "télévision" can be pronounced with a half-high tone or a mid tone, not very high, because it's not a question. Remember, in the sentence, the important thing is the last syllable of words.


This discussion is about stress (that is dynamic stress) and not about tone. Those are different things and only loosely related.


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## broglet

leolucas1980 said:


> I've lived in France and think that most French people don't even grasp what syllable stress is. It's an irrelevant concept in French, just as syllable tone in most European languages.


I don't think it's irrelevant, it is just that syllable stress in French is not a property of each word _per se _but it can be just about anywhere (or nowhere) depending on the context.  It is certainly the case that when confronted with a systematically accented foreign language such as English or Latin, most native French speakers seem to be completely at sea as far as accentuation is concerned. This is beautifully illustrated by Poulenc's bizarre accentuation in his wonderful Gloria. (His lau'damus 'te, benedici'mus te is particularly endearing  )


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## berndf

broglet said:


> I don't think it's irrelevant


They said it was irrelevant (=does not carry any information) *in French *and that is certainly so.


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## broglet

berndf said:


> They said it was irrelevant (=does not carry any information) *in French *and that is certainly so.


That is not what "irrelevant" means


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## berndf

broglet said:


> That is not what "irrelevant" means


Yes, that in exactly what "irrelevant in a language" means. "Irrelevant in a language" is not the same as "irrelevant" per se.


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## Penyafort

merquiades said:


> In Spanish post-tonic syllables were dropped too, _ancla_.  There is no equivalent to _encore/ancora_ in this language to make a comparison (*in some old Spanish text I remember seeing encor but it could be dialectal*),


I'd say most if not all medieval samples you find of _encor(a)_ or _encar(a)_ are Aragonese or influence from it.


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## Terio

In French, the stress is always on the last syllable of isolated words : élé'*phant*, télépho'*ner*, générale'*ment*.
If the word ends with a so called mute e, it does not form a syllable : é'*tud*(e), com'*prendr*(e)
So, the sound [ə] is seldom stressed, but it can be, for example : dis-'*le*
In a sentence, the only stressed words are the ones that come before a pause:
Je mange une pomme chaque '*jour.*
Chaque *'jour*, je mange une '*pomm*(e).
Chaque '*jour*, si je '*peux*, je mange une '*pomm*(e).

Even a pretty long sentence may be stressed on only one syllable if it is prononced with no pause :

Je mange une pomme bien mûre et bien rouge chaque fois que je peux en cueillir une dans le pom'*mier*.

In words inherited from latin, the stress syllable is generally the same as in other romance languages. For example, if we compare with spanish:

(un) '*term*(e) / ( un) '*tér*mino

(je) ter'*min*(e) / (yo) ter'*mi*no

(il) termi'*na* / (él) termi*'nó*

But it is not the case with later borrowings :

gra'*cil*(e) / '*grá*cil


​


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## berndf

Terio said:


> n words inherited from latin, the stress syllable is generally the same as in other romance languages.


This is mostly true in French as well. The particularity of French is that syllables after the stressed one got lost or were deduced to a terminal Schwa and then mostly lost. This is probably why stress eventually become non-phonemic because it became so regular.


Terio said:


> (un) '*term*(e) / ( un) '*tér*mino


Latin derived words like _terminer, _which seem to defy this rule, are usually re-borrowings and not inherited words.


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## broglet

berndf said:


> Yes, that in exactly what "irrelevant in a language" means. "Irrelevant in a language" is not the same as "irrelevant" per se.


Thank you for the English lesson, berndf


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## berndf

broglet said:


> Thank you for the English lesson, berndf


We are talking about technical terms in linguistics (phonology to be precise) here. This is not about "English lessons".


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## Wai Ho

broglet said:


> I don't think it's irrelevant, it is just that syllable stress in French is not a property of each word _per se _but it can be just about anywhere (or nowhere) depending on the context.  It is certainly the case that when confronted with a systematically accented foreign language such as English or Latin, most native French speakers seem to be completely at sea as far as accentuation is concerned. This is beautifully illustrated by Poulenc's bizarre accentuation in his wonderful Gloria. (His lau'damus 'te, benedici'mus te is particularly endearing  )


Yes, it's relevant, because when there's a stress, it's higher than elsewhere.


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## berndf

Wai Ho said:


> Yes, it's relevant, because when there's a stress, it's higher than elsewhere.


Like where? Can you give a word where stress is phonemic? (The topic here is stress and not tone and word stress and not sentence stress.)


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## Awwal12

I have to note that "phonemic" isn't equal to "relevant". You can speak Russian using the basic allophones of the phonemes only, and you surely will be understood all right, but it would be positively painful to listen to. In Chuvash stress is decided by the phonemic composition of the word and is therefore non-phonemic (basically it falls on the last strong vowel, or, if there is none, on the first weak vowel), but an incorrect stress placement in normal speech would be instantly noted (even though it may happen in poems and songs for the reasons of the rhythm), and so on.


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## berndf

Yes, you are right. It is not necessarily the same.

But as we have seen from the discussion here, native speakers don't perceive syllable stress within a word at all but they do perceive prosodic stress, i.e. the perceive the opposition between _Clara_ and _Cla_*ra* but not between *Cla*_ra_ and _Cla_*ra*. The latter is indeed irrelevant.


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## broglet

berndf said:


> We are talking about technical terms in linguistics (phonology to be precise) here. This is not about "English lessons".


With all due respect berndf it is not in the usual courteous spirit of this forum for a native German speaker to suggest, even if it were true, that he knows more about the meaning of English words than a native English speaker.


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## berndf

broglet said:


> With all due respect berndf it is not in the usual courteous spirit of this forum for a native German speaker to suggest, even if it were true, that he knows more about the meaning of English words than a native English speaker.


Again, we are not talking about the meaning of a common English word but of a technical term. That is one of the reasons, by scientists usually prefer artificial terms because they avoid such misunderstandings. If common terms or re-used as scientific technical terms they invariably have a narrower meaning than in common language.

Can we end this discussion by defining _relevant_ as shorthand meaning _phonologically relevant_ for the purpose of this discussion.
I had originally equated relevant with phonemically relevant but @Awwal12 had a good point that this might be a bit too narrow, That's why I nor propose the understanding _phonologically relevant_.


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## Linnets

Here in Italy there's a strong perception of French stressed on the last syllable; this is particular evident with Italian names pronounced by the French: _Platinì_, _Bianchì_, and so on.


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## Wai Ho

Linnets said:


> Here in Italy there's a strong perception of French stressed on the last syllable; this is particular evident with Italian names pronounced by the French: _Platinì_, _Bianchì_, and so on.


In Italian, the stress is low or high?


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## berndf

Wai Ho said:


> In Italian, the stress is low or high?


Stress is neither high nor low. Tone is high or low. Those are different things.

The stressed syllable of a word in pausa has a low tone. In non-pausa, the stressed syllable has no phonologically relevant tone.

Swedish phonemically distinguishes high and low tone.

In most European languages, tone distinguishes sentence types and has nothing to do with stress. Rising tone is a comma, strongly rising tone a question mark, falling tone a full stop and strongly falling tone an exclamation mark.

EDIT: The kind of stress we are taking of here is _dynamic syllable stress_. This is the distinction between more or less forcefully pronounced syllables within a word that can affect the meaning of a word (not in French, though), like in English, where _*pro*ject_ and _pro_*ject* are different words. The former is a noun and the latter is a verb.


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## Awwal12

berndf said:


> In most European languages, tone distinguishes sentence types and has nothing to do with stress.


I can say that in Russian tone surely isn't *defined* by stress, and yet stressed syllables tend to be focal points of intonational patterns, that is, tone has something to do with stress after all. I suppose it's more or less the same in most European languages.


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## berndf

Awwal12 said:


> ... in Russian ... yet stressed syllables tend to be focal points of intonational patterns... I suppose it's more or less the same in most European languages.


Yes, tonal information usually coded in stressed syllables. In my language it is the same. The tonal difference between
_Das ist eine *Dàmpf*lok!_​_Ist das eine *Dámpf*lok?_​is on _Dampf-_, the stressed syllable of _Dampflok_ and not on the last syllable of the sentence, i.e on _-lok_.


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## tsoapm

Apologies if someone’s beaten me to it between 2005 and now, but:


> Where are French words stressed?


France, principally.


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## DearPrudence

They are sometimes stressed in England as well, and maybe even more so 
What about a _rendezvous _in a _chateau_?


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## Wai Ho

DearPrudence said:


> They are sometimes stressed in England as well, and maybe even more so
> What about a _rendezvous _in a _chateau_?


Hi, do French people from Normandie pronounce the word “tempête” with a long and stressed ê?


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## DearPrudence

Do we have long and stressed vowels in French?
We just pronounce it like these 2 guys from Paris and les Vosges, and these people.


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## Linnets

DearPrudence said:


> Do we have long and stressed vowels in French?


According to Warnant, yes, long vowels do exist in French: _teillage_ is pronounced [tɛjaːʒ(ǝ)]. As far as _tempête_ is concerned, there's no long vowel: [tɑ̃pɛt(ǝ)].


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## berndf

Linnets said:


> According to Warnant, yes, long vowels do exist in French: _teillage_ is pronounced [tɛjaːʒ(ǝ)]. As far as _tempête_ is concerned, there's no long vowel: [tɑ̃pɛt(ǝ)].


At some time in the development of modern French there was phonemically relevant lengthening of the vowel before a lost _s_ and the ^ was more than pure orthographic convention. This manifested in minimal pairs like _maître_ and _mettre_. I have asked around quite a bit but not found any French person who still maintained this distinction. But in other French speaking regions this distinction might still be alive.


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## Terio

The distinction is still alive in Canadian French : mettre ≠ maître ; prète ≠ prête ; faite ≠ fête ;  trempette ≠ tempête. The long vowel even tends to diphtong to [aj], though it is considered a vicious prononciation to be corrected in formal speech.


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## Swatters

The /ɛ/-/ɛː/ distinction is also alive and well in Belgium, with the distinction usually purely marked by length, except before a nasal where the long vowel gets nasalised (penne /pɛn/ [pɛn] vs. peine /pɛːn/ [pɛ̃ːn]). There's a stigmatised tendency to raise non-nasalised /ɛː/ to [eː] for some speakers (same for the other long mid-low vowels, so that tempête can surface as [tɒ̃ˑpeːt̪], gueule as [ɟøːl] and mode as [moːd̪]).

To come back to stress, length can interact with it in Belgian French, so that the normal phrase-final declarative intoneme (that normally consists of a fast pitch rise in the last few ms of the pretonic syllable then a slow drop over the tonic syllable) can spread over the last two syllables when the penult is long or underlyingly long (= mid-high and nasal vowels), especially when the final is short (say, "aussi", "elle se présentera" or "un détenu"): the pitch rises over the whole long penult then  drops over the whole last syllable. This can make the penult seem more prominent than the final syllable.


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## Wai Ho

Terio said:


> The distinction is still alive in Canadian French : mettre ≠ maître ; prète ≠ prête ; faite ≠ fête ;  trempette ≠ tempête. The long vowel even tends to diphtong to [aj], though it is considered a vicious prononciation to be corrected in formal speech.


Fête = fight


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