The status of h-aspiré in French today

Christine Moisset

Sat. 2:00-3:40 A

Based on fieldwork carried out in Paris, this study examines the status of h-aspiré in French today. For at least 90 years, the weakening of h-aspiré has been observed (Nyrop 1904). Following Labov's formal elicitation techniques, a diverse sample of the population was asked to read or perform tasks as well as to evaluate some speech samples in order to test how resistant h-aspiré words are to sandhi phenomena. The data is analyzed by age, sex, and social class to show the effects of social stratification.

French has two classes of words beginning with "h." The majority of these words are considered to begin with a mute "h" because the words behave as though they begin with a vowel for sandhi phenomena. For example, the definite article le for masculine homme is elided in l'homme. The liaison is made between the plural articles les and the noun in LeZ (h)ommes. Finally, suppletion transforms the masculine singular adjective beau into bel in le bel homme. A more restricted class of "h"-initial words are said to begin with so-called aspirated "h." However, in most varieties of French, it is rarely realized phonetically. h-aspiré words differ from mute "h" words in that they behave phonologically as though they begin with a consonant. In other words, elision, liaison, and suppletion do not apply to them and the following is found: le héros, les héros, and le beau héros.

The weakening phenomenon of h-aspiré is not a recent observation. Martinet (1933) noted occurrences of liaison with h-aspiré words: des Z(h)arenges, un N(h)omard. Other studies mention the disappearance of disjunctivity for h-aspiré words, but did not determine whether some disjunctive phenomena are more likely to resist than others. For example, Cohen (1963) explains that les Z(h)éros is shocking because of its homophony with les zéros but that other violations of disjunctivity are more likely to be tolerated: for instance, elision in des sortes d'héros or suppletion in le nouvel héros. My study discusses which words are more susceptible to shift from the class of h-aspiré to that of h-muet. Additionally, the notion of a hierarchy in disjunctive phenomena will be explored, based on people's behavior as well as their reaction to violations of disjunctivity.