In French, most written word-final consonants are silent in most contexts. Liaison is the pronunciation of such a consonant immediately before a following vowel sound. For example, the letter s in the word les ("the") is generally silent, but it is pronounced /z/ in the combination les amis ("the friends"). In certain syntactic contexts, liaison is impossible; in others, it is obligatory; and in yet others, it is possible but not obligatory. Sandhi is a cover term for a wide variety of phonological processes that occur at morpheme or word boundaries. ... In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a sound in spoken language that is characterized by a closure or stricture of the vocal tract sufficient to cause audible turbulence. ... Note: This page contains IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. ... For other uses, see Syntax (disambiguation). ...

Classification

Liaison is an external sandhi phenomenon: a phonological process occurring at word boundaries. It is a form of paragoge, the addition of a sound to the end of a word. Sandhi is a cover term for a wide variety of phonological processes that occur at morpheme or word boundaries. ... Phonology (Greek phonē = voice/sound and logos = word/speech), is a subfield of linguistics which studies the sound system of a specific language (or languages). ... Paragoge is the addition to a sound to the end of a word. ...

Like elision (as in *je aime → j'aime), it can be characterized functionally as a euphonic strategy for avoiding hiatus. If we look at it like this, we are adopting a synchronic approach. This approach does not explain cases where the first word already ends in a consonant, such as tels‿amis, and is therefore already perfectly euphonic. In French, elision (from elide, to leave out or omit) refers to the practise of combining two logically separate words into one for the convenience of pronunication in live conversation. ... Euphony describes flowing and aesthetically pleasing speech. ... Hiatus in linguistics is the separate pronunciation of two adjacent vowels, sometimes with an intervening glottal stop. ...

It is also possible to analyse liaison diachronically. With this approach, the liaison consonant has always been there since the days of Latin, and has merely been elided in other contexts over time. So, the s pronounced in mes amis can be seen as simply preserving the s that was always pronounced in meos amicos. Seen in this way, it is mes frères that is exceptional, having lost the s that was pronounced in meos fratres.

Realization of liaison

The (usually) silent final consonants of certain words can be pronounced, in certain syntactic contexts, when the following word begins with a vowel. Since the sound thus obtained is an ancient one, spellings that are based on the etymology of the word may not reflect the real pronunciation. Not to be confused with Entomology, the study of insects. ...

For example, final consonants are pronounced as follows in the case of liaison (the transcription uses IPA; in IPA, liaison is indicated by placing an undertie [‿] between the consonant and the vowel): Articles with similar titles include the NATO phonetic alphabet, which has also informally been called the “International Phonetic Alphabet”. For information on how to read IPA transcriptions of English words, see IPA chart for English. ...

• -d = [t]: grand homme ("great man") = [gʁɑ̃t‿ɔm].
• -g = [k]: long article ("long article") = [lɔ̃k‿aʁtikl].
• -s = [z]: les enfants ("the children") = [lez‿ɑ̃fɑ̃].
• -x = [z]: faux ami ("false friend") = [foz‿ami].

Liaisons with [t] and [z] are also found with words ending graphically in -t and -z (e.g. tout "all", venez "come").

With most words whose spellings end in -n and whose pronunciations end in nasal vowels ([ɑ̃], [ɛ̃], [œ̃], or [ɔ̃]), the vowel will be denasalized during liaison: A nasal vowel is a vowel that is produced with a lowering of the velum so that air escapes both through nose as well as the mouth. ...

• with denasalization: bon [bɔ̃], but bon ami [bɔ na mi]; certain [sɛʁ tɛ̃], but certain ami [sɛʁ tɛ na mi].
• without denasalization: mon [mɔ̃], mon ami [mɔ̃ na mi]; aucun [o kœ̃], aucun ami [o kœ̃ na mi].

Liaison with words ending in -er also leads to a change in vowel quality:

• premier [pʁəmje], premier étage [pʁəmjɛʁ‿etaʒ]

Finally, the words trop ("too") and beaucoup ("much") productively allow liaison with the consonant [p].

Constraints on liaison

The primary requirement for liaison at a given word boundary is of course the phonological or lexical identity of the words involved: The preceding word must supply a potential liaison consonant and the following word must be vowel-initial (and not exceptionally marked as disallowing liaison; see the discussion of "aspirated h" below). The actual realization of liaison, however, is subject to interacting syntactic, prosodic, and stylistic constraints.

Grammatical descriptions of French identify three kinds of liaison contexts: Those where liaison is obligatory, those where it is impossible, and those where it is optional. Pedagogical grammars naturally emphasize what is obligatory or forbidden, and these two categories tend to be artificially inflated by traditional prescriptive rules. Speakers' natural behavior in spontaneous speech shows that in fact relatively few contexts can be said to systematically give rise to, or fail to give rise to, liaison. Any discussion of liaison must take both descriptive and prescriptive perspectives into account, because this is an area of French grammar where speakers can consciously control their linguistic behavior out of an awareness of how their speech diverges from what is considered "correct".

Obligatory liaison

We can identify a small number of contexts where speakers consistently produce liaison in all speech styles, and where the absence of liaison is immediately perceived as an error of pronunciation. These are the contexts where liaison is truly obligatory:

• between a determiner and a following adjective or noun: les enfants [le.zɑ̃.fɑ̃] ("the children"), ton ancien prof [tɔ̃.nɑ̃sjɛ̃.pʁɔf] ("your former teacher")
• between a subject or object pronoun and the verb, or vice versa, or between two pronouns: nous avons [nu.za.vɔ̃] ("we have"), prenez-en [pʁəne.zɑ̃] ("take some"), elles en achètent [ɛl.zɑ̃.naʃɛt] ("they buy some")
• in some lexicalized expressions and compound words: Etats-Unis [eta.zyni] ("USA"), porc-épic [pɔʁkepik] ("porcupine")

Note that the first two contexts also require obligatory vowel elision for the relevant determiners and pronouns (le, la, me, se, etc.) In psycholinguistics lexicalisation is the process of going from meaning to sound in speech production. ... A compound is a word (lexeme) that consists of more than one free morpheme. ... In music, see elision (music). ...

The following contexts are often listed as obligatory liaison contexts, but they are more accurately characterized as contexts where liaison is frequent:

• between an adjective and a noun: important effort [ɛ̃pɔʁtɑ̃.(t)ɛfɔʁ] ("important effort"), certaines études [sɛʁtɛn.(z)etyd] ("some studies")
• between an adverb and the word it modifies: assez intéressant [asɛ.(z)[ɛ̃teʁɛsɑ̃] ("quite interesting"), trop amuser [tʁɔ.(p)amyze] ("amuse too much")
• after a (monosyllabic) preposition: chez un ami [ʃe.(z)œ̃nami]

Specific instances of these combinations reveal varying tendencies. For certain lexical items (e.g. petit, très), speakers may have a preference for liaison approaching that of the obligatory liaison contexts.

Liaison with -t- with inverted verbs

In one very special case, the liaison consonant is actually unwritten unless it is pronounced. This is when (a) the third-person singular form of the word does not already end in -t or -d, (b) the verb is inverted with its subject, and (c) its subject is il, elle or on. When these three conditions are met (most notably in the present tense of -er verbs and the future tense of all verbs), -t- is inserted in writing. Depending on the word, this -t- may be deemed to be euphonic, but in 100% of cases it is the preservation of an ancient t^{[citation needed]}. Examples:

The French could of course have chosen to always write the consonant (e.g. il parlet), but that would have conflicted with the rule that makes e non-silent before a final t (e.g. cachet, ballet, cabaret).

When the etymological t is already evident in the spelling, liaison is simply made with this letter. This occurs with the present tense of all non-er verbs:

N.B. When the stem ends in -d or -t, no extra -t is added to the spelling (e.g. partir gives part rather than the otherwise expected partt, and vendre gives vend rather than vendt.)

It also occurs with the t already there in all third-person plural forms (with ils and elles):

All of these examples of a liaison with t are absolutely obligatory. No French speaker would ever even accidentally say parl'il for parle-t-il as it is quite a formal construction.

Impossible liaison

There are other contexts where speakers produce liaison only erratically (e.g. due to interference from orthography while reading aloud), and perceive liaison to be ungrammatical.

• between a non-pronominal subject and the verb: Mes amis arrivent [mezami.aʁiv] ("My friends are arriving.")^{[citation needed]}
• between two complements of a ditransitive verb: donner des cadeaux à Jean [dekado.aʒɑ̃] ("give presents to Jean")^{[citation needed]}
• between two complete clauses: "Ils parlent et j'écoute." [ilpaʁl.eʒekut] ("They talk and I listen.")
• after certain words, for example et ("and"), and all singular nouns. This can help disambiguate between word uses: un précieux ǀ insolent (pronounced without liaison) could mean "an insolent member of the précieuses literary movement" (précieux can be a noun), but with liaison un précieux‿insolent can only refer to a precious insolent person (précieux can only be an adjective). In fixed expressions, singular nouns can allow liaison (accent‿aigu, fait‿accompli, cas‿échéant, de part‿et d'autre)
• before "aspirated h" words: These are phonetically vowel-initial words that are exceptionally marked as not allowing liaison. Most of these words are spelled with an h (haricot, héros, haleter) but a few begin with a vowel or glide (onze, oui, yaourt)

Grammars mention other contexts where liaison is "forbidden", despite (or precisely because of) the fact that speakers sometimes do produce them spontaneously. The literary style called préciosité (preciousness) arose from the lively conversations and playful word games of les précieuses, the witty and educated intellectual ladies who frequented the salon of the marquise de Rambouillet; her Chambre bleue (the blue bedroom of her hôtel particulier) offered a Parisian refuge...

• Règle de Littré. A liaison consonant should not be pronounced immediately after [ʁ]. Plural [z] is recognized as an exception to this rule, and various other counterexamples can be observed: pars‿avec lui, fort‿agréable, vers‿une solution.

Optional liaison

All remaining contexts can be assumed to allow liaison optionally, although exhaustive empirical studies are not yet available. Preferences vary widely for individual examples, for individual speakers, and for different speech styles. The realization of optional liaisons is a signal of formal register, and pedagogical grammars sometimes turn this into a recommendation to produce as many optional liaisons as possible in "careful" speech. The conscious or semi-conscious application of prescriptive rules leads to errors of hypercorrection in formal speech situations (see discussion below).

Conversely, in informal styles, speakers will semi-consciously avoid certain optional liaisons in order not to sound "pedantic" or "stilted". Other liaisons lack this effect. For example Ils ont‿attendu ("they have waited") is less marked than tu as‿attendu ("you have waited"), and neither liaison is likely to be realized in highly informal speech (where one might instead hear [i(l)zɔ̃atɑ̃dy] and [taatɑ̃dy], or simply [taːtɑ̃dy].) On the other hand, the liaison in pas‿encore can be either present or absent in this register.

Errors of liaison

As can be seen, liaison, outlined above, is only obligatory in rare cases. The omission of such a liaison would be considered an error, not simply as taking liberties with the rule. In cases of optional liaison, the omission is common, and liaison appears only in careful speech.

On the other end, producing a liaison where one is impossible is perceived as an error. For example, pronouncing a liaison consonant instead of respecting hiatus before an aspirated h is taken to indicate an uncultivated or unsophisticated speaker. While all speakers know the rule, they may have incomplete knowledge about which words it must apply to. The effect is less noticeable with rare words (such as hiatus itself), which many speakers may not spontaneously identify as aspirated h words.

Errors due to hypercorrection or euphony are also observed: a liaison is pronounced where it doesn't exist (where it is possible by spelling, but forbidden, as with et‿ainsi, or where it is impossible even by spelling, as with moi-z-avec). This phenomenon is called pataquès. In rare cases, these liaisons may be conserved by the language and become obligatory, such as in donnes-en. Otherwise, they are perceived in the same way as omissions of disjunction, suggesting an "uncultivated" speaker or extremely informal speech. Such an error is sometimes called cuir ("leather") when the inserted consonant is [t], velours ("velvet") when it is [z], although dictionaries do not all agree on these terms: This article does not cite any references or sources. ... Euphony describes flowing and aesthetically pleasing speech. ...

• Cuir:
  • tu peut‿avoir (instead of tu peux‿avoir)
  • Édith Piaf's je sent‿en moi (instead of je sens‿en moi or je sens en moi without liaison) in La Vie en rose
• Velours:
  • moi-z-aussi.
  • cents‿euros (instead of cent‿euros — although deux cents‿euros is correct)

For the Gundam ship, see La Vie en Rose (Gundam). ...

Special cases: poetic verse and applied diction

The reading of poetry (whether said or sung) requires that all liaisons be used (except those described above as impossible), even those of -es in the second-person singular as well as the reading of all necessary “null e’s” (see the French article on poetry, for more details). The reading of the liaisons affects the number of syllables pronounced, hence is of chief importance for the correct pronunciation of a verse. French-speakers tend as much as possible to avoid a hiatus or a succession of two consonants between two words, in a more or less artificial way. The Chinese poem Quatrain on Heavenly Mountain by Emperor Gaozong (Song Dynasty) Poetry (from the Greek , poiesis, a making or creating) is a form of art in which language is used for its aesthetic and evocative qualities in addition to, or in lieu of, its ostensible meaning. ... A syllable (Ancient Greek: ) is a unit of organization for a sequence of speech sounds. ...

Careful pronunciation (but without the obligatory reading of “null e’s”) is necessary in a formal setting. The voice is a tool of persuasion: it reflects, through a pronunciation perceived as correct (according to prevailing norms), intellectual qualities, culture, self-control, and wit. Pushed too far, the over-proliferation of liaisons can render a speech ridiculous. It has been pointed out that French politicians and speakers (Jacques Chirac, for example) pronounce some liaison consonants, independently of the following word, introducing a pause or a schwa afterwards. For example, ils ont entendu (“they heard”) is normally pronounced [ilz‿ɔ̃‿ɑ̃tɑ̃dy] or, in more careful speech, [ilz‿ɔ̃t‿ɑ̃tɑ̃dy]. A speaker using this "politician" pronunciation would say [ilz‿ɔ̃t ǀ ɑ̃tɑ̃dy] (where [ǀ] represents a pause; ils ont'… entendu). One might even hear ils ont décidé (“they decided”) pronounced [ilz‿ɔ̃t ǀ deside] (ils ont’… décidé) or [ilz‿ɔ̃təː(ːːː) deside] (ils onteuh… décidé). In the first example, we have liaison without enchaînement, not the normal configuration in ordinary speech. In the second, the liaison is completely non-standard, since it introduces a liaison consonant before another consonant. Jacques René Chirac (born 29 November 1932) is a French politician and a former President of France. ...

Origins of liaison

In order to understand the origins of liaison, as well as the divergencies between the written form and the pronunciation, it is necessary to study the language from a diachronic point of view. While the current orthography is recent and artificial, liaison produces the re-appearance of ancient consonants that had been masked by orthographical modifications. The adjective diachronic (from Greek elements dia through and chronos time) means historically, over time. It is generally opposed to synchronic. ...

Medieval consonants

For example, the word grand is written grant in medieval manuscripts (grant served for both masculine and feminine gender). The orthography of that age was more phonetic; the word was in all likeliness pronounced [grɑ̃nt], with an audible final /t/, at least until the 12th century. When that consonant became mute (like the majority of ancient final consonants in French), the word continued to be written grant (the preservation of this written form is explained by other reasons; see note), and then become grand by influence of its Latin etymology grandis, with a new (analogic) feminine form grande. The current spelling with a final mute d allows to better show the alternation between grand and grande (an alternation gran ~ grande or grant ~ grande would look less regular to the eye), as well as the lexical relation to grandeur, grandir, grandiloquent, etc. The root grand is written thus regardless of whether the d is pronounced [d], [t] or mute in order for its derivatives to have a single graphic identity, which facilitates memorization and reading. The root is the primary lexical unit of a word, which carries the most significant aspects of semantic content and cannot be reduced into smaller constituents. ... There are several meanings of derivation: A derivation in abstract algebra is a linear map that satisfies Leibniz law. ...

However, the ancient final [t] of grand did not cease to be pronounced when the following word began with a vowel and belonged to the same tonic cell; It is effectively not at the end of the word anymore, since the ear identifies the stressed group (formed by univerbation), in which the final consonant and the initial vowel appear together, as a new group (or "word") within which the consonant in question has ceased to be final. Bearing in mind that stress in French falls on the last syllable of a word, or a group of words when they are bound grammatically, this situation can be symbolized as follows (the acute represents stress): In linguistics, stress is the relative emphasis that may be given to certain syllables in a word. ... In Linguistics, univerbation is the diachronic process of combining a fixed expression of several words into a new single word. ...

• gránd is virtually ['gʁɑ̃t], which becomes ['grɑ̃] at the end of a stressed syllable;
• gránd + hómme = ['gʁɑ̃t] + ['ɔm], which becomes grand hómme [gʁɑ̃'tɔm] (a single group stress); grand does not elide the final consonant because the syllable is no longer stressed.

This has to do with what the hearer considers to be a word. If grand homme is analyzed as ʁɑ̃t‿ɔm], the ear in fact understands [gʁɑ̃'tɔm], a continuous group of phonemes whose tonic accent signals that they form a unit. It is possible to make a division as [gʁɑ̃] + [tɔm] instead of [gʁɑ̃t] + [ɔm]. Then this [t] will no longer be felt to be a final consonant but a pre-stress intervocalic consonant, and therefore it will resist the deletion that it would undergo if it were at the end of a stressed syllable. It can however undergo other modifications thereafter.

The written form, though, was adapted to criteria that are not phonetic, but etymological (among others): where grand is written, [gʁɑ̃t] is pronounced in front of certain vowels, without that being really awkward: the maintenance of the visual alternation -d ~ -de is more productive.

The other cases are explained in a similar fashion: sang, for example, was pronounced [sɑ̃ŋk] (and written sanc) in Old French, but the final -g has replaced the -c in order to recall the Latin etymology, sanguis, and derivatives like sanguinaire, sanguin. Currently this liaison is almost never heard except in one part of the singing of the Marseillaise ("qu'un san(g) /k/ impur") or in the expression "suer sang et eau". Outside those, the hiatus is tolerated. This article is about the anthem La Marseillaise. A sculpture popularly called La Marseillaise is part of the sculptural programme of the Arc de Triomphe. ...

Finally, the case of -s and -x pronounced [z] in liaison is explained differently. One must be aware, firstly, that word-final -x is a medieval shorthand for -us (in Old French people wrote chevax for chevaus, latter written chevaux when the idea behind this -x was forgotten). The sound noted -s and -x was a hard [s], which did not remain in French after the 12th century (it can be found in words like (tu) chantes or doux), but which was protected from complete elision when the following word began with a vowel (which effectively means, when it was found between two vowels). However, in French, such [s] is voiced and becomes [z] (which explains why, in words like rose and mise, the s is pronounced [z] and not [s]).

Note: if the final -t of grant was kept in the Middle Ages in spite of the disappearance of the corresponding [t], it is because there existed, along with this form, others like grants (rather written granz), wherein the [t] was heard, protected from elision by the following [s]. The ancient orthography rendered this alternation visible before another one replaced it (the one with d). Indeed, it would be false to state that the orthography of Old French did not follow usage, or that it was without rules.

Fluctuating usages

From the 16th century onward, it was common for grammarians who wished to describe the French language or discuss its orthography to write documents in a phonetic alphabet. From some of these documents, we can see that the liaisons have not always been pronounced as they are today.

For example, the Prayer by Gilles Vaudelin (a document compiled in 1713 using a phonetic alphabet, and introduced in the Nouvelle maniere d'écrire comme on parle en France ["A New Way of Writing as We Speak in France"]), probably representative of oral language, maybe rural, of the time, shows the absence of the following liaisons (Vaudelin's phonetic alphabet is transcribed using equivalent IPA):

• Saint Esprit: [sɛ̃ ɛspri] instead of [sɛ̃t‿ɛspri];
• tout à Vous glorifier: [tu a]... instead of [tut‿a];
• qui êtes aux cieux: [ki ɛt o sjø] instead of [ki ɛt(ə)z‿o sjø].

References

• An earlier version of this article was translated from the French Wikipedia.
• M. Grevisse. Le bon usage. 12th edition by A. Goosse, Duculot, Paris.
• Y.-C. Morin and J. D. Kaye. (1982) "The syntactic bases for French liaison". Journal of Linguistics 18, pp. 291–330.
• P. Encrevé. La Liaison avec et sans enchaînement. Le Seuil, Paris, 1988.
• N. Laborderie. Précis de phonétique historique. Nathan Université, 1994, Paris.
• H. Bonnard and C. Régnier. Petite grammaire de l'ancien français. Magnard, 1991.

Maurice Grevisse (October 7, 1895—July 4, 1980) is a Belgian grammarian. ...

See also

• Sandhi
• Elision
• Linking consonant
• Crasis
• Metaplasm
• Paragoge

Sandhi is a cover term for a wide variety of phonological processes that occur at morpheme or word boundaries. ... In music, see elision (music). ... A linking consonant is a consonant that is inserted between two vowels. ... Crasis is the contraction of a vowel or diphthong at the end of a word with a vowel or diphthong beginning the following word. ... A metaplasm is a change to the orthography of a word. ... Paragoge is the addition to a sound to the end of a word. ...