Introduction

The preceding two chapters were essentially devoted to the articulatory differences separating English and French consonants. In this chapter and the next one, we shall focus on some specific properties of French regarding the presence or absence of pronounced consonants in certain contexts. This chapter is concerned with the relation between pronunciation and spelling as far as double consonants and final consonants are concerned when words are produced in isolation. The next chapter deals with liaison, that is, roughly speaking, the question of the pronunciation of word-final consonants when words are strung together in phrases and sentences.

Double consonants

In this section, we shall first consider the question of the pronunciation of double consonant-letters. We shall see that this type of spelling corresponds to a double pronunciation of the consonant only in relatively rare and very specific cases. Secondly, we shall survey the cases (also well defined) where a double consonant is found in the pronunciation, but without any indication of such a pronunciation in the orthography.

The pronunciation of the double consonants of the orthography

French orthography comprises numerous cases of double consonants; the following examples illustrate the possible doublings: abbé ‘abbot’, occuper ‘to occupy’, addition ‘addition’, affectueux ‘affectionate’, aggraver ‘to aggravate’, coller ‘to glue’, hommage ‘homage’, année ‘year’, apporter ‘to bring’, arrêt ‘stop’, assez ‘enough’, attaque ‘attack’, jazz ‘jazz’.