Rhythm Types and the Speech of Working-Class Youth in a Banlieue of Paris 113
(1) c’est une histoire incroyab(le) (Karl, EF)
‘this is an incredible story’
(2) ce qu’il est devenu (Khatib, AF)
‘what happened to him’
Yasin, the fastest speaker in the sample, combined as many different allo-
phonic realizations as Mousa, Laith, Karl, and Khatib who articulated more
slowly. Schwa insertion (examples (3) and (4)) have also occurred, which goes
against the logic of fast speech processes that tend to reduce and compress
rather than increase vocalic segment durations:
(3) c’e st s ûr [schwa] qu’on ne l’a plus jamais revu (Ramey, AF)
‘it is certain that he has not been seen ever since’
(4) notre prof d’anglais a disparu (Octave, EF)
‘our English teacher has disappeared’
Figure 4.6 Intra-speaker variations in the frequencies of onset, nucleus, and coda
types for French speakers of North African (top ¿ ve) and European (bot-
tom ¿ ve) descent.