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There is conflicting evidence of the date of this sound change. The consonant derived from Latin /k/ before a front vowel seems to have still been a palatalized affricate [dzʲ] or [i̯dz] when the following vowel was lost in a final syllable, resulting in word-final [i̯ts] in Early Old French (spelled "iz"), later simplified to [i̯s].
Grammatical stress is always on the final full syllable (syllable with a vowel other than schwa) of a word. Monosyllables with schwa as their only vowel (ce, de, que, etc.) are generally clitics but otherwise may receive stress. [38] The difference between stressed and unstressed syllables in French is less marked than in English.
French orthography encompasses the spelling and punctuation of the French language.It is based on a combination of phonemic and historical principles. The spelling of words is largely based on the pronunciation of Old French c. 1100 –1200 AD, and has stayed more or less the same since then, despite enormous changes to the pronunciation of the language in the intervening years.
This is the pronunciation key for IPA transcriptions of French on Wikipedia. It provides a set of symbols to represent the pronunciation of French in Wikipedia articles, and example words that illustrate the sounds that correspond to them.
[1] /a/ is not diphthongized, but some speakers pronounce it [æ] if it is in a closed syllable or an unstressed open syllable, [2] as in French of France. The pronunciation in final open syllables is always phonemically /ɑ/, but it is phonetically [ɑ] or [ɔ] (Canada [kanadɑ] ⓘ or [kanadɔ] ⓘ), the latter being informal.
In French, /wa/, /wɛ̃/, /ɥi/ and /ɥɛ̃/ may be considered true diphthongs (that is, fully contained in the syllable nucleus: [u̯a], [u̯ɛ̃], [y̯i], [y̯ɛ̃]). Other sequences are considered part of a glide formation process that turns a high vowel into a semivowel (and part of the syllable onset) when followed by another vowel.
In French, elision (élision) is the suppression of a final unstressed vowel (usually /ə/) immediately before another word beginning with a vowel or a silent h . The term also refers to the orthographic convention by which the deletion of a vowel is reflected in writing, and indicated with an apostrophe .
The process is the movement of final consonants across word boundaries to initial position in vowel-initial words so as to better conform to the French language's preference for open syllables (over 70%) [dubious – discuss], i.e., V, CV, or CCV, especially where two vowels might otherwise link together (vowel hiatus).