Prosodic Rhythm in Ontario French

Authors

Svetlana Kaminskaiä, University of Waterloo
Jeff Tennant, The University of Western OntarioFollow
Alexander Russell, The University of Western Ontario

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

7-1-2016

Volume

26

Issue

2

Journal

Journal of French Language Studies

First Page

183

URL with Digital Object Identifier

10.1017/S0959269515000307

Last Page

208

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.