Phonetic and Sociophonetic Conditioning of Voicingpatterns in the Stop Consonants of French.

This paper presents a study of variability in the realisation of voicing timing in phonologically voiced (European) French stop consonants. Data derived from an acoustic analysis of recordings of read speech by male and female speakers from northeastern and southwestern France are compared. The results reveal sexspecific patterning consistent with findings elsewhere that female speakers tend to devoice more than males. The regional patterning of devoicing is, however, unexpected in the light of its historical distribution, and interactions between the independent variables of region and speaker-sex are explored. In the interpretation of the results attention is also drawn to the paradoxes inherent in the desirable goal of trying to marry experimental phonetic and variationist insights and methodology.