Non-final stress for foreign names in French

[Kuchigakatai]

This post by Salmoneus about people having multiple names reminded me of something.

So, my first name is Renato. It's pronounced [reˈnato] in Spanish, but I live in Vancouver, so naturally I often hear it pronounced [ɹəˈnæɾoʊ], adapted to the local English dialect (using [æ] for foreign stressed -a- is normal in Canadian English, [ɑ] for such is marked as an American thing here). Years ago, I figured that the French version would be [ʁenaˈto, ʀ-], but then I started going to some French conversation groups and noticed I'd usually get corrected by native speakers, both from Quebec and France, to say [ʁeˈnato, ʀ-] instead, with some kind of surprising stress in the second-to-last syllable.



Then I started noticing this kind of thing sometimes applied to other foreign names too, but by no means in a consistent way. Here are the pronunciations of some American politicians' names, taken from this video by some European news service on YouTube:

• Bernie Sanders [bɛʁˈni sanˈdœːʁs] (0:01)
• Hillary Clinton [ilaˈʁi klinˈtɔn] (0:03)
• Donald Trump [ˈdonal ˈtɹ̥ɔmp] (0:36)

"Bernie" gets regular final stress, but "Donald" gets the foreign-marked non-final stress. Does "Bernie" end in stressed [ i ] because French words often end in a stressed final [ i ]? Note, too, that these pronunciations are also utterly foreign-marked in terms of nasals: the spellings "Trump", "Clinton" and "Sanders" would normally reflect [tʀ̥õp klæ̃ˈtõ sɒ̃ˈdɛːʁs] following general French orthographic rules. I find the English-y rhotic [tɹ̥] in "Trump" especially surprising.



Some Canadian ones, taken from this video uploaded to YouTube by Radio Canada:

• Andrew Scheer [ˈandɹu ˈʃiɚ] (0:40, 0:46)
• Stephen Harper [ˈstiːvn ˈɑɹpɚ] (0:48, 0:53)
• Justin Trudeau [ʒʏsˈtæ̃ tʀ̥yˈdo] (1:51, really a fully nativized name)

Note the non-final stress in "Andrew". I've also heard the phenomenon going on in "Steven" in "Kevin" [kɛvn] before.



I have various questions for our French native speakers.

- To what extent do you think non-final stress exists in your French or in the native French you hear where you live?
- Would you apply it to Spanish/Italian/Portuguese names like Ricardo, Pedro, Giovanni, Cherubino, María, Nicoletta, Marcella, Cecilia, Patricio, Alessio? If it only applies to some of these names, is there some pattern such as the similarity between French -ette [ɛt] and Italian -etta leading to, I imagine, French -etta [ˈɛta]? (If so, how would someone from Quebec even pronounce the -a in Nicoletta?)
- What about Japanese names like Tsubasa, Kenta, Tomoya, Haruna, Aoi, Yuka, Haruka, Mayu, Rina?
- What about Russian names like Sasha, Katia, Olga, Yuri, Andrei, Dmitri? Can I assume those with a word-final consonant get word-final stress, like Fiodor and Vladimir?

(Also, please, if you're someone who believes "[ˈ]" shouldn't be used in French transcriptions because it's not phonemic, then just mentally substitute all those [ˈ]s for [ˑ]s after the relevant following vowel. It doesn't ultimately matter.)

[Ares Land]

- To what extent do you think non-final stress exists in your French or in the native French you hear where you live?
- Would you apply it to Spanish/Italian/Portuguese names like Ricardo, Pedro, Giovanni, Cherubino, María, Nicoletta, Marcella, Cecilia, Patricio, Alessio? If it only applies to some of these names, is there some pattern such as the similarity between French -ette [ɛt] and Italian -etta leading to, I imagine, French -etta [ˈɛta]? (If so, how would someone from Quebec even pronounce the -a in Nicoletta?)
- What about Japanese names like Tsubasa, Kenta, Tomoya, Haruna, Aoi, Yuka, Haruka, Mayu, Rina?
- What about Russian names like Sasha, Katia, Olga, Yuri, Andrei, Dmitri? Can I assume those with a word-final consonant get word-final stress, like Fiodor and Vladimir?

(Also, please, if you're someone who believes "[ˈ]" shouldn't be used in French transcriptions because it's not phonemic, then just mentally substitute all those [ˈ]s for [ˑ]s after the relevant following vowel. It doesn't ultimately matter.)

Isn't that a Canadian thing?

I'm French, and I believe my own dialect is pretty typically Parisian.

Stress is always phrase-final. Sometimes people may stress Italian names according to native rules (which we're vaguely aware of), but it's mostly meant as a joke, and not a very good one at that. Nobody would bother doing anything special with Japanese names or Russian names.

Oh and stress is phrase-final, I believe, not word-final, so I think I say something like:

Bernie Sanders [bɛʁni sanˈdœːʁz] (0:01)
Hillary Clinton [ilaʁi klinˈtɔn] (0:03)
Donald Trump [donald ˈtχœmp] (0:36)
I'd pronounce your name [ʁenaˈto]

Bascially, we know that there's no nasal vowel in Clinton and try to approximate the [ʌ] in Trump, but that's about it.
I know that French Canadians pronounce English words and names pretty much like English speakers, whereas we mostly pronounce them as if they were French, except for a few concessions.

[Vijay]

This post by Salmoneus about people having multiple names reminded me of something.

So, my first name is Renato. It's pronounced [reˈnato] in Spanish, but I live in Vancouver, so naturally I often hear it pronounced [ɹəˈnæɾoʊ], adapted to the local English dialect (using [æ] for foreign stressed -a- is normal in Canadian English, [ɑ] for such is marked as an American thing here).

Also for American names sometimes. I remember a Canadian using [æ] in Obama even when speaking Spanish.

[Ryusenshi]

Ah, this is an interesting subject!

Donald Trump [ˈdonal ˈtɹ̥ɔmp] (0:36)
"Donald" gets the foreign-marked non-final stress.

I don't hear any foreign-mark stress here. To my ears, both syllables of Donald are more or less equally stressed.

On a related note, when putting emphasis on a word, French speakers often stress the first syllable. If, say, I want to call you and I'm particularly exasperated, I may say something like [ˈʁenaˌto]. So I wouldn't be surprised to hear [ˈdonald ˈtχœmp] from a French speaker, but this has nothing to do with the original stress position.

Note, too, that these pronunciations are also utterly foreign-marked in terms of nasals: the spellings "Trump", "Clinton" and "Sanders" would normally reflect [tʀ̥õp klæ̃ˈtõ sɒ̃ˈdɛːʁs] following general French orthographic rules

Yeah. I often rail about French speakers using French orthographic rules for foreign words[*], but at least we know that most languages do not nasalize their vowels. Most loanwords tend to keep their nasals intact: week-end is [wiˈkɛnd], for instance. (There are two exceptions, which I'll mention below.)

[*] e.g. U as /y/, EU as /ø/, OU as /u/ — where most languages have /u/ for U, and some sort of diphthong for EU and OU.

I find the English-y rhotic [tɹ̥] in "Trump" especially surprising.

Yes, it seems the speaker made a conscious effort to pronounce this word in an English-like way.

Some Canadian ones, taken from this video uploaded to YouTube by Radio Canada:
Andrew Scheer [ˈandɹu ˈʃiɚ] (0:40, 0:46)
Stephen Harper [ˈstiːvn ˈɑɹpɚ] (0:48, 0:53)
Justin Trudeau [ʒʏsˈtæ̃ tʀ̥yˈdo] (1:51, really a fully nativized name)

I can almost hear the speakers switching from a French phonology to an English one, on the fly. I guess many people from Canada are functionally bilingual.

- To what extent do you think non-final stress exists in your French or in the native French you hear where you live?

I agree with Ars Lande: people just don't care about the original stress of foreign names, unless they're consciously trying to imitate a foreign accent, for instance as a joke. For instance, when serving food, my father would often announce spaghetti alla carbonara [spaˈgɛti ala karbɔˈnara] in a faux-Italian accent.

As for the names you mentioned, I'd say something very close to Ars Lande (I also have a Parisian accent):
Bernie Sanders [bɛʁˌni sɒ̃nˈdœχs]
Hillary Clinton [ilaˌʁi klinˈtɔn]
Donald Trump [doˌnald ˈtχœmp]

The exception is for Sanders. In my dialect, it's impossible to have *[anC]: it has to be replaced by [ɒ̃nC] (or possibly [ɛnC]). For instance, free-lance is [fχi ˈlɒ̃ns]. Similarly, *[ɔnC] will be replaced by [õnC]: James Bond is [dʒɛms ˈbõnd], Hong Kong is [õŋɡ kõŋɡ]. These sequences do not appear in French because they have historically been transformed into nasal vowels. But [ɛnC, inC, unC, œnC] are perfectly possible (for loanwords or foreign names): I don't know why.

[Travis B.]

Yeah. I often rail about French speakers using French orthographic rules for foreign words[*], but at least we know that most languages do not nasalize their vowels. Most loanwords tend to keep their nasals intact: week-end is [wiˈkɛnd], for instance. (There are two exceptions, which I'll mention below.)

Actually, the English I know has nasal vowels - they just have a distribution opposite to that in French (namely that nasal vowels are typically found before nasal consonants*, whereas French does not have nasal vowels before nasal consonants).

* except that vowels do not nasalize before nasals derived from reduction of /dn bm/, and conversely nasal vowels are found by themselves in the case of elided nasal consonants (such as IMD can't [kʰɛ̃ʔ] versus cat [kʰɛʔ])

[Ares Land]

As for the names you mentioned, I'd say something very close to Ars Lande (I also have a Parisian accent):
Bernie Sanders [bɛʁˌni sɒ̃nˈdœχs]
Hillary Clinton [ilaˌʁi klinˈtɔn]
Donald Trump [doˌnald ˈtχœmp]

The exception is for Sanders. In my dialect, it's impossible to have *[anC]: it has to be replaced by [ɒ̃nC] (or possibly [ɛnC]). For instance, free-lance is [fχi ˈlɒ̃ns]. Similarly, *[ɔnC] will be replaced by [õnC]: James Bond is [dʒɛms ˈbõnd], Hong Kong is [õŋɡ kõŋɡ]. These sequences do not appear in French because they have historically been transformed into nasal vowels. But [ɛnC, inC, unC, œnC] are perfectly possible (for loanwords or foreign names): I don't know why.

Oh, yes, that's correct, I do that too. So that's [bɛʁˌni sɒ̃nˈdœχs] for me as well.

[anteallach]

Yeah. I often rail about French speakers using French orthographic rules for foreign words[*], but at least we know that most languages do not nasalize their vowels. Most loanwords tend to keep their nasals intact: week-end is [wiˈkɛnd], for instance. (There are two exceptions, which I'll mention below.)

Actually, the English I know has nasal vowels - they just have a distribution opposite to that in French (namely that nasal vowels are typically found before nasal consonants*, whereas French does not have nasal vowels before nasal consonants).

* except that vowels do not nasalize before nasals derived from reduction of /dn bm/, and conversely nasal vowels are found by themselves in the case of elided nasal consonants (such as IMD can't [kʰɛ̃ʔ] versus cat [kʰɛʔ])

Could Clinton actually be something like [kʰlɪ̃ʔn̩ ], with a nasal vowel and no [n] in the first syllable? I have a feeling that it could be in some parts of the English-speaking world.

Not that that would particularly help French speakers, as the French nasal vowel system doesn't include anything close to [ɪ̃].

[zompist]

Could Clinton actually be something like [kʰlɪ̃ʔn̩ ], with a nasal vowel and no [n] in the first syllable?

Absolutely— in fact, I'm pretty sure that's how I say it in quick speech. Slowed down slightly it becomes [kʰlɪnʔn̩ ], and if I were enunciating slowly and clearly, [kʰlɪntn̩].

[Travis B.]

Could Clinton actually be something like [kʰlɪ̃ʔn̩ ], with a nasal vowel and no [n] in the first syllable?

Absolutely— in fact, I'm pretty sure that's how I say it in quick speech. Slowed down slightly it becomes [kʰlɪnʔn̩ ], and if I were enunciating slowly and clearly, [kʰlɪntn̩].

I agree completely - my normal pronunciation of "Clinton" is [ˈkʰɰɘ̃ʔn̩(ː)] while a more careful pronunciation of mine is [ˈkʰʟ̞ɘ̃nʔn̩(ː)]~[ˈkʰɰɘ̃nʔn̩(ː)] and a very careful pronunciation of mine is [ˈkʰʟ̞ɘ̃ntn̩(ː)]