Variations in the realization of the French Accentual Phrase in the light of language contact

Abstract

In this paper we discuss the French prosodic system in the light of language contact. Similar data of three contact varieties are compared with two varieties spoken in monolingual contexts. The data are semi-automatically processed, and three prosodic features are analyzed: metrical weight of the realized APs, respect of AP-restructuring rules and realizations of sandhi phenomena. Rhythmic constraints and speech rate measurements are also considered. Our findings suggest that the prosodic systems of the contact varieties share several features with word prosodic systems.