Liaison (French)

In French, most written word-final consonants are silent in most contexts. Liaison is the pronunciation of such a consonant immediately before a following vowel sound. For example, the letter s in the word les ("the") is generally silent, but it is pronounced /z/ in the combination les amis ("the friends"). In certain syntactic contexts, liaison is impossible; in others, it is obligatory; and in yet others, it is possible but not obligatory.

Classification
Liaison is an external sandhi phenomenon: a phonological process occurring at word boundaries. It is a form of paragoge, the addition of a sound to the end of a word.

Like elision (as in *je aime → j'aime), it can be characterized functionally as a euphonic strategy for avoiding hiatus. If we look at it like this, we are adopting a synchronic approach. This approach does not explain cases where the first word already ends in a consonant, such as tels‿amis, and is therefore already perfectly euphonic.

It is also possible to analyse liaison diachronically. With this approach, the liaison consonant has always been there since the days of Latin, and has merely been elided in other contexts over time. So, the s pronounced in mes amis can be seen as simply preserving the s that was always pronounced in meos amicos. Seen in this way, it is mes frères that is exceptional, having lost the s that was pronounced in meos fratres.

Realization of liaison
The (usually) silent final consonants of certain words can be pronounced, in certain syntactic contexts, when the following word begins with a vowel. Since the sound thus obtained is an ancient one, spellings that are based on the etymology of the word may not reflect the real pronunciation.

For example, final consonants are pronounced as follows in the case of liaison (the transcription uses IPA; in IPA, liaison is indicated by placing an undertie between the consonant and the vowel):
 * -d = : grand homme ("great man") =.
 * -g = : long article ("long article") =.
 * -s = : les enfants ("the children") =.
 * -x = : faux ami ("false friend") =.

Liaisons with and  are also found with words ending graphically in -t and -z (e.g. tout "all", venez "come").

With most words whose spellings end in -n and whose pronunciations end in nasal vowels (,, , or ), the vowel will be denasalized during liaison:
 * with denasalization: bon, but bon ami ; certain , but certain ami.
 * without denasalization: mon, mon ami ; aucun , aucun ami.

Liaison with words ending in -er also leads to a change in vowel quality:
 * premier, premier étage

Finally, the words trop ("too") and beaucoup ("much") productively allow liaison with the consonant.

Constraints on liaison
The primary requirement for liaison at a given word boundary is of course the phonological or lexical identity of the words involved: The preceding word must supply a potential liaison consonant and the following word must be vowel-initial (and not exceptionally marked as disallowing liaison; see the discussion of "aspirated h" below). The actual realization of liaison, however, is subject to interacting syntactic, prosodic, and stylistic constraints.

Grammatical descriptions of French identify three kinds of liaison contexts: Those where liaison is obligatory, those where it is impossible, and those where it is optional. Pedagogical grammars naturally emphasize what is obligatory or forbidden, and these two categories tend to be artificially inflated by traditional prescriptive rules. Speakers' natural behavior in spontaneous speech shows that in fact relatively few contexts can be said to systematically give rise to, or fail to give rise to, liaison. Any discussion of liaison must take both descriptive and prescriptive perspectives into account, because this is an area of French grammar where speakers can consciously control their linguistic behavior out of an awareness of how their speech diverges from what is considered "correct".

Obligatory liaison
We can identify a small number of contexts where speakers consistently produce liaison in all speech styles, and where the absence of liaison is immediately perceived as an error of pronunciation. These are the contexts where liaison is truly obligatory: Note that the first two contexts also require obligatory vowel elision for the relevant determiners and pronouns (le, la, me, se, etc.)
 * between a determiner and a following adjective or noun: les enfants ("the children"), ton ancien prof  ("your former teacher")
 * between a subject or object pronoun and the verb, or vice versa, or between two pronouns: nous avons ("we have"), prenez-en  ("take some"), elles en achètent  ("they buy some")
 * in some lexicalized expressions and compound words: Etats-Unis  ("USA"), porc-épic  ("porcupine")

The following contexts are often listed as obligatory liaison contexts, but they are more accurately characterized as contexts where liaison is frequent: Specific instances of these combinations reveal varying tendencies. For certain lexical items (e.g. petit, très), speakers may have a preference for liaison approaching that of the obligatory liaison contexts.
 * between an adjective and a noun: important effort ("important effort"), certaines études  ("some studies")
 * between an adverb and the word it modifies: assez intéressant ("quite interesting"), trop amuser  ("amuse too much")
 * after a (monosyllabic) preposition: chez un ami

Liaison with -t- with inverted verbs
In one very special case, the liaison consonant is actually unwritten unless it is pronounced. This is when (a) the third-person singular form of the word does not already end in -t or -d, (b) the verb is inverted with its subject, and (c) its subject is il, elle or on. When these three conditions are met (most notably in the present tense of -er verbs and the future tense of all verbs), -t- is inserted in writing. Depending on the word, this -t- may be deemed to be euphonic, but in 100% of cases it is the preservation of an ancient t. Examples:

The French could of course have chosen to always write the consonant (e.g. il parlet), but that would have conflicted with the rule that makes e non-silent before a final t (e.g. cachet, ballet, cabaret).

When the etymological t is already evident in the spelling, liaison is simply made with this letter. This occurs with the present tense of all non-er verbs:

N.B. When the stem ends in -d or -t, no extra -t is added to the spelling (e.g. partir gives part rather than the otherwise expected partt, and vendre gives vend rather than vendt.)

It also occurs with the t already there in all third-person plural forms (with ils and elles):

All of these examples of a liaison with t are absolutely obligatory. No French speaker would ever even accidentally say parl'il for parle-t-il as it is quite a formal construction.

Impossible liaison
There are other contexts where speakers produce liaison only erratically (e.g. due to interference from orthography while reading aloud), and perceive liaison to be ungrammatical.
 * between a non-pronominal subject and the verb: Mes amis arrivent ("My friends are arriving.")
 * between two complements of a ditransitive verb: donner des cadeaux à Jean ("give presents to Jean")
 * between two complete clauses: "Ils parlent et j'écoute." ("They talk and I listen.")
 * after certain words, for example et ("and"), and all singular nouns. This can help disambiguate between word uses: un précieux ǀ insolent (pronounced without liaison) could mean "an insolent member of the précieuses literary movement" (précieux can be a noun), but with liaison un précieuxinsolent can only refer to a precious insolent person (précieux can only be an adjective). In fixed expressions, singular nouns can allow liaison (accentaigu, faitaccompli, caséchéant, de partet d'autre)
 * before "aspirated h" words: These are phonetically vowel-initial words that are exceptionally marked as not allowing liaison. Most of these words are spelled with an h (haricot, héros, haleter) but a few begin with a vowel or glide (onze, oui, yaourt)

Grammars mention other contexts where liaison is "forbidden", despite (or precisely because of) the fact that speakers sometimes do produce them spontaneously.
 * Règle de Littré. A liaison consonant should not be pronounced immediately after . Plural is recognized as an exception to this rule, and various other counterexamples can be observed: parsavec lui, fortagréable, versune solution.

Optional liaison
All remaining contexts can be assumed to allow liaison optionally, although exhaustive empirical studies are not yet available. Preferences vary widely for individual examples, for individual speakers, and for different speech styles. The realization of optional liaisons is a signal of formal register, and pedagogical grammars sometimes turn this into a recommendation to produce as many optional liaisons as possible in "careful" speech. The conscious or semi-conscious application of prescriptive rules leads to errors of hypercorrection in formal speech situations (see discussion below).

Conversely, in informal styles, speakers will semi-consciously avoid certain optional liaisons in order not to sound "pedantic" or "stilted". Other liaisons lack this effect. For example Ils ontattendu ("they have waited") is less marked than tu asattendu ("you have waited"), and neither liaison is likely to be realized in highly informal speech (where one might instead hear  and, or simply .) On the other hand, the liaison in pasencore can be either present or absent in this register.

Errors of liaison
As can be seen, liaison, outlined above, is only obligatory in rare cases. The omission of such a liaison would be considered an error, not simply as taking liberties with the rule. In cases of optional liaison, the omission is common, and liaison appears only in careful speech.

On the other end, producing a liaison where one is impossible is perceived as an error. For example, pronouncing a liaison consonant instead of respecting hiatus before an aspirated h is taken to indicate an uncultivated or unsophisticated speaker. While all speakers know the rule, they may have incomplete knowledge about which words it must apply to. The effect is less noticeable with rare words (such as hiatus itself), which many speakers may not spontaneously identify as aspirated h words.

Errors due to hypercorrection or euphony are also observed: a liaison is pronounced where it doesn't exist (where it is possible by spelling, but forbidden, as with et‿ainsi, or where it is impossible even by spelling, as with moi-z-avec). This phenomenon is called pataquès. In rare cases, these liaisons may be conserved by the language and become obligatory, such as in donnes-en. Otherwise, they are perceived in the same way as omissions of disjunction, suggesting an "uncultivated" speaker or extremely informal speech. Such an error is sometimes called cuir ("leather") when the inserted consonant is, velours ("velvet") when it is , although dictionaries do not all agree on these terms:
 * Cuir:
 * tu peut‿avoir (instead of tu peux‿avoir)
 * Édith Piaf's je sent‿en moi (instead of je sens‿en moi or je sens en moi without liaison) in La Vie en rose
 * Velours:
 * moi-z-aussi.
 * cents‿euros (instead of cent‿euros &mdash; although deux cents‿euros is correct)

Special cases: poetic verse and applied diction
The reading of poetry (whether said or sung) requires that all liaisons be used (except those described above as impossible), even those of -es in the second-person singular as well as the reading of all necessary “null e’s” (see the French article on poetry, for more details). The reading of the liaisons affects the number of syllables pronounced, hence is of chief importance for the correct pronunciation of a verse. French-speakers tend as much as possible to avoid a hiatus or a succession of two consonants between two words, in a more or less artificial way.

Careful pronunciation (but without the obligatory reading of “null e’s”) is necessary in a formal setting. The voice is a tool of persuasion: it reflects, through a pronunciation perceived as correct (according to prevailing norms), intellectual qualities, culture, self-control, and wit. Pushed too far, the over-proliferation of liaisons can render a speech ridiculous. It has been pointed out that French politicians and speakers (Jacques Chirac, for example) pronounce some liaison consonants, independently of the following word, introducing a pause or a schwa afterwards. For example, ils ont entendu (“they heard”) is normally pronounced or, in more careful speech,. A speaker using this "politician" pronunciation would say (where [ǀ] represents a pause; ils ont'… entendu). One might even hear ils ont décidé (“they decided”) pronounced (ils ont’… décidé) or  (ils onteuh… décidé). In the first example, we have liaison without enchaînement, not the normal configuration in ordinary speech. In the second, the liaison is completely non-standard, since it introduces a liaison consonant before another consonant.

Origins of liaison
In order to understand the origins of liaison, as well as the divergencies between the written form and the pronunciation, it is necessary to study the language from a diachronic point of view. While the current orthography is recent and artificial, liaison produces the re-appearance of ancient consonants that had been masked by orthographical modifications.

Medieval consonants
For example, the word grand is written grant in medieval manuscripts (grant served for both masculine and feminine gender). The orthography of that age was more phonetic; the word was in all likeliness pronounced, with an audible final , at least until the twelfth century. When that consonant became mute (like the majority of ancient final consonants in French), the word continued to be written grant (the preservation of this written form is explained by other reasons; see note), and then become grand by influence of its Latin etymology grandis, with a new (analogic) feminine form grande. The current spelling with a final mute d allows to better show the alternation between grand and grande (an alternation gran ~ grande or grant ~ grande would look less regular to the eye), as well as the lexical relation to grandeur, grandir, grandiloquent, etc. The root grand is written thus regardless of whether the d is pronounced, or mute in order for its derivatives to have a single graphic identity, which facilitates memorization and reading.

However, the ancient final of grand did not cease to be pronounced when the following word began with a vowel and belonged to the same tonic cell; It is effectively not at the end of the word anymore, since the ear identifies the stressed group (formed by univerbation), in which the final consonant and the initial vowel appear together, as a new group (or "word") within which the consonant in question has ceased to be final. Bearing in mind that stress in French falls on the last syllable of a word, or a group of words when they are bound grammatically, this situation can be symbolized as follows (the acute represents stress):
 * gránd is virtually, which becomes  at the end of a stressed syllable;
 * gránd + hómme =, which becomes grand hómme (a single group stress); grand does not elide the final consonant because the syllable is no longer stressed.

This has to do with what the hearer considers to be a word. If grand homme is analyzed as, the ear in fact understands , a continuous group of phonemes whose tonic accent signals that they form a unit. It is possible to make a division as instead of. Then this  will no longer be felt to be a final consonant but a pre-stress intervocalic consonant, and therefore it will resist the deletion that it would undergo if it were at the end of a stressed syllable. It can however undergo other modifications thereafter.

The written form, though, was adapted to criteria that are not phonetic, but etymological (among others): where grand is written, is pronounced in front of certain vowels, without that being really awkward: the maintenance of the visual alternation -d ~ -de is more productive.

The other cases are explained in a similar fashion: sang, for example, was pronounced (and written sanc) in Old French, but the final -g has replaced the -c in order to recall the Latin etymology, sanguis, and derivatives like sanguinaire, sanguin. Currently this liaison is almost never heard except in one part of the singing of the Marseillaise ("qu'un san(g) impur") or in the expression "suer sang et eau". Outside those, the hiatus is tolerated.

Finally, the case of -s and -x pronounced in liaison is explained differently. One must be aware, firstly, that word-final -x is a medieval shorthand for -us (in Old French people wrote chevax for chevaus, latter written chevaux when the idea behind this -x was forgotten). The sound noted -s and -x was a hard, which did not remain in French after the twelfth century (it can be found in words like (tu) chantes or doux), but which was protected from complete elision when the following word began with a vowel (which effectively means, when it was found between two vowels). However, in French, such is voiced and becomes  (which explains why, in words like rose and mise, the s is pronounced  and not ).

Note
If the final -t of grant was kept in the Middle Ages in spite of the disappearance of the corresponding, it is because there existed, along with this form, others like grants (rather written granz), wherein the was heard, protected from elision by the following. The ancient orthography rendered this alternation visible before another one replaced it (the one with d). Indeed, it would be false to state that the orthography of Old French did not follow usage, or that it was without rules.

Fluctuating usages
From the sixteenth century onward, it was common for grammarians who wished to describe the French language or discuss its orthography to write documents in a phonetic alphabet. From some of these documents, we can see that the liaisons have not always been pronounced as they are today.

For example, the Prayer by Gilles Vaudelin (a document compiled in 1713 using a phonetic alphabet, and introduced in the Nouvelle maniere d'écrire comme on parle en France ["A New Way of Writing as We Speak in France"]), probably representative of oral language, maybe rural, of the time, shows the absence of the following liaisons (Vaudelin's phonetic alphabet is transcribed using equivalent IPA):


 * Saint Esprit: instead of ;
 * tout à Vous glorifier: ... instead of ;
 * qui êtes aux cieux: instead of.