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Language name French fren(t)ʃ
Language name Fore �fɔ�rei
THE LINGUISTICS STUDENT’S HANDBOOK 264
Autonym (if known and different) français
Autonym (if known and different)
Language family Indo-European Romance
Language family Indo-Pacific Central New
Guinea
Spoken in France, Belgium, Switzerland, Canada and colonial
territories
Spoken in Eastern Highlands of New Guinea
Approximate number of speakers 109m
Approximate number of speakers 13k
Writing system Roman
Writing system Roman
Phonetics/phonology
Phonetics/phonology
Stress phrase-final
Stress variable
Contains following rare uvular
consonant (types)
Contains following rare
consonant (types)
Said to have how many vowels? 12�nasalisation (4)
Said to have how many vowels? 6�4 diphthongs
Marked vowel types front rounded
Marked vowel types
Tone none
Tone tonal accent
Rhythm syllable-timing
Rhythm mora timing
Vowel harmony none (or only marginally in a few words)
Vowel harmony rounded–unrounded
Morphology fusional word-based
Particular formation types prefix; suffix
Morphology agglutinative verbs stembased;
nouns
word-based
Syntax
Word order SVO (though NA prepositions
contemporary NPoss
spoken forms
show deviation
from this)
Particular formation types dvandva; prefix; full reduplication; suffix
Syntax
Word order SOV AN none
NPoss
Particular syntactic phenomena gender; conjugation classes
Particular syntactic phenomena morphological aspect; nominative /accusative marking;
conjugation classes
Points of interest
Points of interest conjunctions are affixed; 5 levels of distance in the
determiner system
Sources Byrne & Churchill (1993), Campbell (1991), Gordon
(2002), Maddieson (1984)
Sources Foley (1986), Ruhlen (1976), Scott (1978), Wälchli (2005)