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Prosodic Rhythm in Ontario French*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 August 2015

SVETLANA KAMINSKAÏA ,
JEFF TENNANT  and
ALEXANDER RUSSELL
SVETLANA KAMINSKAÏA*
Affiliation:
University of Waterloo
JEFF TENNANT
Affiliation:
University of Western Ontario
ALEXANDER RUSSELL
Affiliation:
University of Western Ontario
*
Address for correspondence: Department of French Studies, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, ON, CanadaN2L 3G1 e-mail: [email protected]
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Abstract

This article presents the results of a study of rhythm in Ontario French in local minority and majority contexts. To determine whether French in a minority situation shows a less syllabic rhythm due to English influence than it does in a majority situation, we used the following rhythm measurements: %V, ΔV, ΔC, VarcoV, VarcoC and nPVI-V. The results suggest no effect of language contact on the minority setting data where we find even more syllable-timed rhythm than in the majority variety. In addition, we observe that women and older speakers exhibit a more syllabic rhythm than men and younger speakers.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of French Language Studies , Volume 26 , Issue 2 , July 2016 , pp. 183 - 208
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Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2015 

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Footnotes

*

This analysis was conducted with support from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Counsel of Canada, grant #410-2010-0822 to S. Kaminskaïa. We thank three anonymous reviewers whose comments and suggestions helped improve this paper.

References

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