The objective of the present study is to investigate contextual assimilation and/or reduction in French and Swedish. F2 values at the consonant boundary and in the nucleus of the vowel -called the locus-nucleus patterns- were measured in identical nonsense words. It was found that the F2 locus-nucleus differences are smaller in French than in Swedish at the surface level, confirming previous results on spontaneous speech. In the two languages, prominent syllables were shown to exhibit a larger distance from the CV boundary to the minimum-maximim than non-prominent syllables. The differences observed were higher in Swedish, partly due to significantly longer vowels than in French. F2 locus-nucleus differences and vowel duration were found to be very close in non-prominent Swedish syllables and non- prominent French syllables. However the F2 locus-nucleus distances obtained for non-prominent syllables in French and in Swedish were found to be significantly different The results obtained in the present study show a clear influence of the prominence pattern on reduction processes in French and Swedish; however, they do not allow us to quantify the extent ofcoarticulation in either language.

Keywords: Second formant locus-nucleus patterns, locus equation, vowel duration, reduction processes, comparison between French and Swedish.