Face-to-face , second term, 45 hours of theory.

French

By the end of the course, the students should be able to consult reference works efficiently, to master phonetic transcription, to apply to Latin etymons the major principles of phonetic evolution that have been studied in class, to recognise the result of these evolutions in contemporary French words, to distinguish the words that derive from the “regular” evolution from those that were modified by analogy, created scholarly or borrowed from foreign languages and to establish comparisons with the other Roman language that they are learning. The students should have a new perspective on their mother tongue, perceive the relative nature of linguistic phenomena, be aware of the differences between oral and written, between use and norm, and they should also think about the way that language functions and evolves nowadays.

For the Bachelor in French and Romance Languages and Letters : General :

None

In second year, the course of historical linguistics is devoted to historical phonetics.
The course is structured as follows:
- Explanation of the title.
- Notions of general phonetics.
- French descriptive articulatory phonetics.
- General characteristics of the phonetic evolution.
- Historical phonetics:
A. Vocalism: vocalic system of vulgar Latin and principles of accentuation. Treatment of unstressed vowels. Spontaneous diphtongisation. Nasalisation.
B. Consonantism: the initial, intervocalic and final positions. Phonetic erosion phenomena. Palatalisation.

The course alternates between lecture and application. It is up to the students to apply what they have learned in class. A handbook (as well as reference works) enables the students to check the content of the notes they have taken in class. In addition to the lectures, exercise sessions are also organised.

Formative assessment. For the first sessions, all the students will be asked to complete written exercises after each session; the corrections will be done at the following session. Thereafter, the exercises will be done in class (which requires the progressive application of the different phonetic phenomena studied); simultaneous correction, allowing to draw attention to the possible problems encountered by the students.
Students can also "blindly" continue the developments contained in the manual, which then serves as a sort of "answer key". The exercises of the tutorials are directly evaluated and explained.

Final assessment: written examination.

A detailed bibliography will be handed out and commented during the first session.

Handbook. Reference works available at the library.