# Quentin Garnier, *Phonologie de l'occitan du Haut-Vivarais. Une approche élémentaire et syllabique des réalités dialectales*

Montpellier, Presses universitaires de la Méditerranée, coll. “Estudis occitans”, 2025, 234 p.

Giovanni Depau

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OpenEdition
Journals

**Electronic version**

URL: https://journals.openedition.org/geolinguistique/34458

DOI: 10.4000/15ber

ISSN: 2650-8176

**This article is a translation of:**

Quentin Garnier, *Phonologie de l'occitan du Haut-Vivarais. Une approche élémentaire et syllabique des réalités dialectales* - URL : https://journals.openedition.org/geolinguistique/34472 [fr]

**Publisher**

UGA Éditions/Université Grenoble Alpes

**Printed version**

ISBN: 978-2-37747-578-0

ISSN: 0761-9081

**Electronic reference**

Giovanni Depau, “Quentin Garnier, *Phonologie de l'occitan du Haut-Vivarais. Une approche élémentaire et syllabique des réalités dialectales*,” Géolinguistique [Online], 25 | 2025, Online since 10 December 2025, connection on 10 December 2025. URL: http://journals.openedition.org/geolinguistique/34458; DOI: https://doi.org/10.4000/15ber

This text was automatically generated on December 10, 2025.

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Quentin Garnier, Phonologie de l'occitan du Haut-Vivarais. Une approche élémentaire et syllabique des réalités dialectales

Montpellier, Presses universitaires de la Méditerranée, coll. “Estudis occitans”, 2025, 234 p.

Giovanni Depau

REFERENCES

Quentin Garnier, Phonologie de l'occitan du Haut-Vivarais. Une approche élémentaire et
syllabique des réalités dialectales, Montpellier, Presses universitaires de la Méditerranée,
coll. "Estudis occitans", 2025, 234 p.

<footnote n="1">1 Phonologie de l'occitan du Haut-Vivarais is the published outcome of the doctoral dissertation written by Quentin Garnier and defended under the supervision of Hervé Lieutard at Paul Valéry University - Montpellier 3.</footnote>

<footnote n="2">2 This work offers a synthesis of the linguistic features of Haut-Vivarois, a northern Occitan dialect belonging to the Vivaro-Alpine linguistic group, which extends from the Alps to the eastern edges of the Massif Central.</footnote>

<footnote n="3">3 The study of this variety draws on a plurality of scientific approaches. On the one hand, the adoption of a dialectological and cartographic method—which also includes the use of data from regional linguistic atlases (ALLy and ALMC)—makes it possible to identify its most salient linguistic traits in comparison with the other varieties of the Vivaro-Alpine group and, more broadly, with the diatopic varieties of Occitan. On the other hand, the dialectological approach is combined in particular with the theoretical and methodological contributions of autosegmental phonology, developed through the</footnote>
study of syllabic templates, which enables a description of the phonological functioning
of Haut-Vivarois within the Occitan diasystem.

4

The value of this work is multiple. First, it improves our knowledge of a variety of Occitan that displays significant phonetic and phonological specificities within the Occitan domain, with consequences at the morpho-phonological level. This is the case, among others, of the phonological oppositions based on vowel length and syllable structure. Other specific features of the system (treated less centrally within the volume) are described and analysed by focusing on morphology and, to a lesser extent, on the lexical level. While these features help to identify the distinctive character of Haut-Vivarais in relation to other Occitan varieties, the author also highlights the possibility of relating—through autosegmental phonology—these particularities to rather regular processes observed across the Occitan linguistic group, realized in the relationship between underlying forms and surface forms.

5

Moreover, as already mentioned, Quentin Garnier's study relies on a combination of diverse approaches: fieldwork with speakers of this dialectal variety; experimental methods allowing a more precise measurement of the acoustic values of elements in the Haut-Vivarois phonological system; and a phonological approach grounded especially in the principles of autosegmental theory.

6

It is also emphasized how Occitan can serve as a particularly productive observatory for studying variation in linguistic systems—phonological variation among others—thanks to its historical status as a prestigious language, its rich scholarly tradition, and its continuing, though spatially and functionally reduced, presence in contemporary practice.

7

The volume is structured in a balanced manner around five chapters, enabling the drawing of a complete profile of Haut-Vivarois.

8

More precisely, the general characteristics of this northern Occitan variety are presented in the opening chapter. The variety is described structurally, with emphasis on its position within the Occitan diasystem, as well as from a sociolinguistic perspective—including its treatment in previous scientific studies and its dissemination in dialect literature. Haut-Vivarois is compared particularly with other varieties in diatopic contact: more specifically, with Francoprovençal (presented under the glottonym “arpitan” by the author) in an interlinguistic perspective, and with Vivaro-Vellave in a more intralinguistic perspective. Concerning the choice of the glottonym “arpitan”, it would be interesting to better understand the reasons for this somewhat unusual choice in the academic field, where “Francoprovençal” is generally preferred to “arpitan”, a term more commonly associated with activist circles promoting this linguistic group in contact with Occitan.

9

This chapter, mainly descriptive of the Haut-Vivarois system, then focuses on its morphological dimension and concludes with an examination of the dialectal lexicon.

10

The first chapter constitutes, in a way, the general framework for the four following chapters, in which Quentin Garnier analyses and describes the phonological system of Haut-Vivarois in detail. Indeed, in Chapter 2, Element Theory is defined and applied to the Haut-Vivarois vowel system. Chapter 3 is devoted to the consonant system, especially in the context of reflecting on the contribution of Element Theory to the description and analysis of the acoustic particularities of consonants, and with a view to comparing them with vowels in the syllabic context.
11 Chapters 4 and 5 focus more closely on the syllable. The Haut-Vivarois syllable structure is the subject of Chapter 4, where it is compared with other dialectal varieties of the Occitan diasystem. In the fifth and final chapter of the volume, the author highlights the final syllable from both a structural—morphophonological—and variational perspective. Whereas the onset occupies an important part of Chapter 4, this last chapter concentrates more on the syllabic coda and its relation to phonological elements particularly characteristic of the variety studied: diphthongization, the treatment of /s/, and the treatment of liquids.

12 Regarding the sources of Quentin Garnier's work, we can highlight the rich and varied bibliography, which helps readers situate themselves within the broader field of studies forming the theoretical and methodological coordinates of this research.

13 Moreover, *Phonologie de l'occitan du Haut-Vivarais* includes in its appendices a set of five interview transcriptions, which serve both as support and as objects of study in their own right, adding an important ethnolinguistic dimension to the work. The analysis indeed relies on linguistic materials drawn from fieldwork conducted by the author in the Vivarois dialect area. Other documents (two 19th-century newspaper articles and an excerpt from a 15th-century administrative document) accompany the five ethnotexts.

14 Demonstrating his ability to mobilize different approaches, Quentin Garnier shows a perfect command of his field of research by combining fieldwork, diatopic analysis, experimental methods, and phonological theory, approaching the reader in a way that is both precise and accessible. Thus, despite the (sometimes very) high level of abstraction and the complexity of the subject, the writing is precise and clear. This makes the reading pleasant and fairly easy even for less experienced readers or those less accustomed to phonological analysis.

15 In conclusion, it can be stated that Quentin Garnier's *Phonologie de l'occitan du Haut-Vivarais* constitutes an important reference in a domain that presents numerous scientific stakes, both for phonological theory and for dialectological research. By proposing an innovative approach to the study of the Occitan language in its variability, this work provides a valuable contribution to the analysis of phonological systems in contexts of dialectal variation.

## AUTHORS

GIOVANNI DEPAU

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https://idref.fr/184514258

Univ. Grenoble Alpes, CNRS, Grenoble INP*, GIPSA-lab, 38000 Grenoble, France

* Institute of Engineering – Univ. Grenoble Alpes

giovanni.depau@grenoble-inp.fr