Study of French Consonantal Enchaînement by Thai speakers in French Self-learning Handbooks

Abstract

The study examines consonantal enchaînement, affixing the final consonant to the vowel of the following word, as it appears in French self-learning handbooks written by Thai authors. A corpus of word pair transcriptions is compiled in which the first word ends with a consonant and the following one begins with a vowel. This corpus is analyzed from the perspective of French phonetics and phonology, particularly in relation to liaison and resyllabification. Results are that Thai speakers mostly pronounce words in isolation rather than linking them, echoing the patterns of their native language. Consonantal enchaînement only occurs in a few familiar, frequently used expressions. Additionally, an extra consonant is inserted without restructuring the syllabic pattern.