{"id":4974,"date":"2012-01-30T23:53:45","date_gmt":"2012-01-30T23:53:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.widmann.org.uk\/?p=4974"},"modified":"2012-01-30T23:53:45","modified_gmt":"2012-01-30T23:53:45","slug":"the-impossibility-of-saying-neuf-oeufs-in-french","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/widmanniana.org\/blog\/the-impossibility-of-saying-neuf-oeufs-in-french\/","title":{"rendered":"The impossibility of saying “neuf \u0153ufs” in French"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\"\"<\/a>
\n
\nDay 34: Nine eggs<\/a>
\nOriginally uploaded by aaocarroll<\/a>
\n<\/span>\n<\/div>\n

In an essay by Jurgen Klausenburger called “The morphologization and grammaticalization of French liason”, he quotes Pierre Swiggers (“How to Order Eggs in French” in Folia Linguistica<\/i> 1985) for the following data<\/a>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
les \u0153ufs<\/td>\n[le-z\u00f8]<\/td>\n“the eggs”<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
des \u0153ufs<\/td>\n[de-z\u00f8]<\/td>\n“(some) eggs”<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
un \u0153uf<\/td>\n[??-n\u0153f]<\/td>\n“an, one egg”<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
deux \u0153ufs<\/td>\n[d\u00f8-z\u00f8]<\/td>\n“two eggs”<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
trois \u0153ufs<\/td>\n[trwa-z\u00f8]<\/td>\n“three eggs”<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
quatre \u0153ufs<\/td>\n[katr-\u0153f]<\/td>\n“four eggs”<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
cinq \u0153ufs<\/td>\n[s??k-\u0153f]<\/td>\n“five eggs”<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
six \u0153ufs<\/td>\n[si-z\u00f8]<\/td>\n“six eggs”<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
sept \u0153ufs<\/td>\n[s?t-\u0153f]<\/td>\n“seven eggs”<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
huit \u0153ufs<\/td>\n[?it-\u0153f]<\/td>\n“eight eggs”<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
*neuf \u0153ufs<\/td>\n[avoided!]<\/td>\n“nine eggs”<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
dix \u0153ufs<\/td>\n[di-z\u00f8]<\/td>\n“ten eggs”<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n

On the same topic, this blog posting<\/a> states the following:<\/p>\n

\n

I had a professor when I was in college \u2014 a linguist from Normandy whose native language was French \u2014 who was very interested in and amused by such language quirks. He would come to France in the summer and go to outdoor markets to try to get people the say neuf \u0153ufs because he thought it was funny.<\/p>\n

Almost always, when he asked for nine eggs, the person replying would stick an adjective in between neuf and \u0153ufs \u2014 neuf beaux \u0153ufs, or neuf petits \u0153ufs, or neuf gros \u0153ufs. He said French people hesitated over the pronunciation of “nine eggs” otherwise.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The blogger who wrote this seems to think the pronunciation of *neuf \u0153ufs<\/i> ought to be [n\u0153v-\u00f8]. This seems also to be the opinion of my beloved wife, who thinks it’s avoided because this would sound very similar to the French word for “nephew”, neveu<\/i>.<\/p>\n

So I’m a little confused. Is the missing pronunciation [n\u0153v-\u00f8] or [n\u0153v-\u0153f]? And why is it avoided?<\/p>\n

Also, are Klausenburger and Swigger right in claiming that \u0153ufs<\/i> is pronounced as [\u0153f] after a numeral ending in a consonant other than [-z]? Do French native speakers even agree?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Day 34: Nine eggs Originally uploaded by aaocarroll In an essay by Jurgen Klausenburger called “The morphologization and grammaticalization of French liason”, he quotes Pierre Swiggers (“How to Order Eggs in French” in Folia Linguistica 1985) for the following data: les \u0153ufs [le-z\u00f8] “the eggs” des \u0153ufs [de-z\u00f8] “(some) eggs” un \u0153uf [??-n\u0153f] “an, one egg” deux \u0153ufs [d\u00f8-z\u00f8] “two eggs” trois \u0153ufs [trwa-z\u00f8] “three eggs” quatre \u0153ufs [katr-\u0153f] “four eggs” cinq \u0153ufs [s??k-\u0153f] “five eggs” six \u0153ufs [si-z\u00f8] “six eggs” sept \u0153ufs [s?t-\u0153f] “seven eggs” huit […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[159,162,117],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4974","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-en","category-fr","category-linguistics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/widmanniana.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4974","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/widmanniana.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/widmanniana.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/widmanniana.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/widmanniana.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4974"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/widmanniana.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4974\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/widmanniana.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4974"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/widmanniana.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4974"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/widmanniana.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4974"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}