The paper investigates, on the basis of a large empirical data set (33 hours from the PFC corpus), to what extent the behavior of postconsonantal final liquids is conditioned by the lexicon, in a comparable manner for very different regional varieties (Southern, Antillean and Parisian French). Results show that the elision rate of the liquid is minimal in the case of entre, approximately average for être, notre and autre(s) and maximal for par exemple, peut-être and par contre. This cannot be explained by the frequency of these words in the usage, as suggested by previous studies, but by the frequency of occurrence of the word in question in the different prosodic contexts, which, on their part, are closely tied to morphosyntactic factors: the more a word appears in a context of strong morphosyntactic and prosodic cohesion, the more the liquid will be maintained –and the opposite.