Introduction

This chapter is devoted to a comparative survey of the French and English consonantal systems, and to an examination of the most important articulatory differences between phonetically close consonants in these systems. The fundamentally distinct properties of l and r in the two languages warrant a separate chapter for these two consonants (Chapter 9). In Chapter 10, we shall consider questions internal to French regarding the pronunciation of double consonants and final consonants. Finally, in Chapter 11, we shall examine the phenomenon of liaison, which was already touched on in the discussion of nasal vowels in Chapter 5.

Consonant inventories and comparative overview

Tables 8.1–2 present the consonant inventories of French and English, together with the main articulatory parameters necessary to their description, with examples.

As these tables indicate, English uses a slightly larger consonant inventory than French: there are 22 consonants in English, compared to 17 in French. The stop systems closely resemble each other; however, the nasal series differ in that English has the velar [ŋ], whereas French has the palatal [ŋ]. The existence of the velar nasal [ŋ] in English does not create great difficulties for French speakers learning English. As a matter of fact, this consonant tends to enter into the French consonantal system; thus, some speakers use it in the ending -ing often found in words borrowed from English (see the first group of examples in Table 8.3), as well as in pseudo-borrowings (see the second group of examples).