This paper provides a comparative gestural account of nasal vowels in Southern French (Marseille, Toulouse; France) and in Northern French (Liege, Tournai; Belgium). Timing measurements based on acoustic data confirm a different temporal organisation of the gestures between the two regiolects. We also report on statistical comparisons between phonetic events (such as duration of the Southern French enasal appendixf vs. duration of a plain nasal consonant), that help to confront competing hypotheses concerning the underlying phonological representation of SF nasal vowels.
Index Terms: nasal vowels, timing, cross-regiolect variation, experimental phonology