The Acoustic Status of the Mute-e in French

Abstract

Abstract A recent article in Phonetica has shown the effect of linguistic and paralinguistic factors on the frequency of elision of the French mute-e. The present study deals primarily with its spectral characteristics and identifiability. It also describes a new computer-assisted technique of acoustic analysis which advantageously replaces conventional spectrograms. The results of the study show that the entity in question has hardly half the phonetic individuality of other French vowels, and while it is closest in color to /ø/, it is only half as discrete.