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Sylvius used the circumflex to indicate so-called "false diphthongs".Early modern French as spoken in Sylvius' time had coalesced all its true diphthongs into phonetic monophthongs; that is, a pure vowel sound, one whose articulation at both beginning and end is relatively fixed, and which does not glide up or down towards a new position of articulation.
Î is a letter which appears in several French words, like naître (to be born), abîme (abyss), maître (master), fraîche (fresh), and more. Unlike Â, Ê, and Ô, the circumflex does not alter the pronunciation of î or û. The circumflex usually denotes the exclusion of a letter (usually an s) that was in a prior version of the word:
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.
French phonology is the sound system of French. This article discusses mainly the phonology of all the varieties of Standard French . Notable phonological features include its uvular r , nasal vowels , and three processes affecting word-final sounds:
à la short for (ellipsis of) à la manière de; in the manner of/in the style of [1]à la carte lit. "on the card, i.e. menu"; In restaurants it refers to ordering individual dishes "à la carte" rather than a fixed-price meal "menu".
Also, many words are pronounced with the long /ɛː/, even though there is no circumflex: aide, presse, cesse, caisse, graisse, sirène, scène, palmarès, etc. [5] There are a few exceptions, which are pronounced with the short /ɛ/ phoneme even though there is a circumflex: êtes, bêche, extrême, suprême, pimbêche, prête (adjective), etc ...
The complex but regular French sound changes have caused irregularities in the conjugation of Old French verbs, like stressed stems caused by historic diphthongization (amer, aim, aimes, aime, aiment, but amons, amez), or regular loss of certain phonemes (vivre, vif, vis, vit). Later in Modern French, these changes were limited to fewer ...
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).