Abstract EN:

This study deals with the timing organisation of spoken french : the interaction of timing elements with other prododic elements, and with extralinguistic factors is experimentally investigated. Tendencies specific to french are observed : 1) initial syllable shorter than successive unstressed syllables, 2) unstressed syllables less affected by tempo variations, which suggests that the unstressed syllable is the element to which the listener refers. Other characteristics appear to be more general : alternating pattern durations for stressed and unstressed syllables, and in consecutive unstressed syllables, pause and final lengthening governed by the same underlying rhythmic pattern, temporal organisation specific to various speech modes.