Liaison

Liaison is the pronunciation, at a word boundary, of a consonant that would be silent in the citation form of the preceding word. It links two words into a single phonological unit and is most strongly associated with French, though English non-rhotic varieties exhibit a structurally similar phenomenon known as linking and intrusive /r/.

French Liaison

French is the canonical liaison language. Many French words end in an orthographic consonant that is normally unpronounced (les, un, grand, petit, vous, est), but that consonant resurfaces when the following word begins with a vowel or mute h. In les amis "the friends" the silent final s of les is realised as /z/ and resyllabified with the next word: /lez‿ami/. Un homme /œ̃n‿ɔm/, grand homme /ɡʁɑ̃t‿ɔm/, vous avez /vuz‿ave/ all show the same pattern. French grammar distinguishes obligatory liaisons (within a tightly bound phrase such as determiner + noun), optional liaisons (often stylistically marked, more frequent in formal registers), and forbidden liaisons (after singular nouns, before h aspiré, across a major prosodic boundary). The liaison consonant is sometimes a distinct allophone — grand /ɡʁɑ̃/ but grand homme with /t/, not /d/.

English Linking and Intrusive /r/

Non-rhotic varieties of English (RP, Australian, New Zealand, South African, much of England outside the South West) have a parallel system. A historical /r/ that is silent at the end of a word in isolation reappears when the next word begins with a vowel: car /kɑː/ but car engine /kɑːr ˈendʒɪn/, here /hɪə/ but here and there /hɪər ən ðeə/. This is linking /r/. Speakers extend the rule to words that never had an /r/ in the spelling, inserting one between any non-high vowel and a following vowel: law and order /lɔːr ən ɔːdə/, idea of /aɪˈdɪər əv/, Anna and /ænər ən/, drawing /ˈdrɔːrɪŋ/. This is intrusive /r/, structurally identical to linking /r/ but historically unmotivated. Both processes are unconscious and automatic in non-rhotic speech, though intrusive /r/ is sometimes stigmatised in formal contexts.

Other Linking Strategies

When French or non-rhotic English cannot deploy a liaison consonant, speakers fall back on glide insertion (/j/ after front vowels in see it /siːjɪt/, /w/ after back rounded vowels in do it /duːwɪt/) or on consonant-to-vowel resyllabification (catenation). All these mechanisms serve the same end: bridging vowel-vowel hiatus across a word boundary. The cross-linguistic pressure to avoid hiatus drives the linking system that liaison is one expression of.

Teaching Implications

For French learners, liaison is mandatory in some contexts and pedagogically central from beginner level. For ELT, the relevant question is whether learners are targeting a non-rhotic model. Students learning RP need to handle linking /r/ at minimum (for example, more or less, here is) since failure to link there produces audible glottal stops that disrupt rhythm. Intrusive /r/ is more controversial; it is universal in non-rhotic native speech but often resisted by language planners and some teaching materials. A receptive understanding is essential regardless: learners who do not expect an /r/ in law and order will mishear or misanalyse it. For students targeting General American, neither linking nor intrusive /r/ applies in the same way, since rhotic speakers pronounce /r/ in all positions.

References

• Cruttenden, A. (2014). Gimson's pronunciation of English (8th ed.). Routledge.
• Detey, S., Durand, J., Laks, B., & Lyche, C. (Eds.). (2016). Varieties of spoken French. Oxford University Press.
• Roach, P. (2009). English phonetics and phonology: A practical course (4th ed.). Cambridge University Press.
• Wells, J. C. (1982). Accents of English (3 vols.). Cambridge University Press.