(Reviewers: Florence Villoing and Olivier Rizzolo)
Abstract : French slang’s suffixation process to produce colloquial words can produce non-etymological consonants at the morphological boundary: directeur → dirlo. Although many morphological hypotheses have been proposed to explain this phenomenon, we argue that its formation is purely phonological. Focusing on the /l/ selection, we suggest that syllabification is blended with element’s propagation over the morphological boundary, expecting a certain segment realisation. /l/ is then preferred over /t/ in our case because of a mooring situation: linking an |U| element to the properties of /l/ in the speakers’ grammar due to the diachronic monophthong-ising process of rounded vowels with Vl endings via high frequency use of lexical and grammatical items containing this opposition like à le → au.
Michard, Clément. 2024. “A phonological approach to selection of nonetymological /l/ in dirlo-like words”. Radical: A Journal of Phonology, 6, 74-135.