2025/05/21 by Delin Deng, Fenqi Wang, Ratree Wayland · 1 voice
Arts and Humanities · Psychology · Social Sciences · #Linguistic Variation and Morphology #Phonetics and Phonology Research #Spanish Linguistics and Language Studies
paper · doi:10.1016/j.lingua.2025.103960
openalex publication_date 2025/05/21 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/23
• The grammaticalization of genre in Swiss French is an ongoing change. • This change is led by female speakers. • When used as a DM, the degree of nasality of /ɑ̃/ in genre reduces significantly. • It is valid to use acoustic correlates to distinguish the DM and non-DM genre . This study investigates the grammaticalization and phonological reduction of the discourse marker (DM) genre in Swiss French, focusing on its nasal vowel /ɑ̃/. By comparing its acoustic properties in DM versus non-DM usage, the analysis highlights significant phonological reduction in DM genre, characterized by lower nasality (A1-P0) and distinct vowel height and backness adjustments. The findings reveal gender-based differences, with female speakers leading the change through more pronounced phonetic shifts, reflecting broader sociophonetic patterns of linguistic innovation. These differences align with established theories on gender and language change. This research contributes to understanding phonological reduction as a marker of grammaticalization and offers insights into sociophonetic variation in Swiss French.