Advances in Sociophonetics

Chapter 2. French liaison and the lexical repository 43

On the other hand, as long as frequency decreases, the number of lexical envi-

ronments per frequency value increases, and the curve ends up in a flat distribu-

tion where many liaison types feature a frequency value equal to 1. The latter

group of lexical environments with frequency = 1 is obviously more numerous

Table 2. Number of occurrences (frequency), percent and cumulative percent for the 30

highest ranked liaison types in the PFC corpus, separately for the three consonants /n/,

/t/ and /z/.

Realizations of liaison specified by consonants

/n/, /t/ and /z/

RankLiaison FrequencyCumulative

percent

/n/ consonant/t/ consonant/z/ consonant

1 on_L_a 1318 7.8 1318 0 0
2 on_L_est 653 11.7 653 0 0
3 ils_L_ont 555 15.0 0 0 555
4 en_L_a 401 17.4 401 0 0
5 on_L_avait 339 19.4 339 0 0
6 on_L_était 290 21.2 290 0 0
7 quand_L_on 268 22.8 0 268 0
8 dans_L_un 240 24.2 0 0 240
9 deux_L_ans 210 25.4 0 0 210
10 dans_L_une 209 26.7 0 0 209
11 on_L_a 199 27.9 199 0 0
12 est_L_un 183 28.9 0 183 0
13 les_L_enfants 169 30.0 0 0 169
14 vous_L_avez 156 30.9 0 0 156
15 trois_L_ans 150 31.8 0 0 150
16 tout_L_à 143 32.6 0 143 0
17 les_L_autres 141 33.5 0 0 141
18 n_L_ai 124 34.2 124 0 0
19 quand_L_il 122 34.9 0 122 0
20 est_L_une 120 35.6 0 120 0
21 ils_L_avaient 119 36.4 0 0 119
22 ils_L_étaient 116 37.0 0 0 116
23 nous_L_a 113 37.7 0 0 113
24 vous_L_etes 113 38.4 0 0 113
25 un_L_an 107 39.0 107 0 0
26 nous_L_avons 100 39.6 0 0 100
27 on_L_en 95 40.2 95 0 0
28 on_L_allait 92 40.7 92 0 0
29 des_L_études 87 41.2 0 0 87
30 quand_L_ils 84 41.7 0 84 0