Nathalie Dion

Phrase-Final Prepositions in Quebec French: An Empirical Study of Contact, Code-Switching and Resistance to Convergence.

In this study, we investigate whether preposition stranding, a stereotypical non-standard feature of North American French, results from convergence with English, and the role of bilingual code-switchers in its adoption and diffusion. Establishing strict criteria for the validation of contact-induced change, we make use of the comparative variationist framework, first to situate stranding with respect to the other options for preposition placement with which it coexists in the host language grammar, and then to confront the variable constraints on stranding across source and host languages, contact and pre-contact stages of the host language, mainstream and “bilingual” varieties of the source language, and copious and sparse code-switchers. Detailed comparison with a superficially similar pre-existing native language construction also enables us to assess the possibility of a language-internal model for preposition stranding. Systematic quantitative analyses turned up several lines of evidence militating against the interpretation of convergence. Most compelling are the findings that the conditions giving rise to stranding in French are the same as those operating to produce the native strategy, while none of them are operative in the presumed source. Explicit comparison of copious vs. sparse code-switchers revealed no difference between them, refuting claims that the former are agents of convergence. Results confirm that surface similarities may mask deeper differences, a crucial finding for the study of contact-induced change.

Myths and facts about loanword development

This study traces the diachronic trajectory and synchronic behavior of English-origin items in Quebec French over a real-time period of 61 years. We test three standard assumptions about such foreign incorporations: (1) they increase in frequency; (2) they originate as code-switches and are gradually integrated into recipient-language grammar; and (3) the processes underlying code-switching and borrowing are the same. Results do not support the assumptions. Few other-language items persist, let alone increase. Linguistic integration is abrupt, not gradual. Speakers consistently distinguish lone other-language items from multiword fragments on each of five linguistic diagnostics tested. They borrow the former, and code-switch the latter. Code-switches are not converted into borrowings; instead the decision to code-switch or borrow is made at the moment the other-language item is accessed. We explore the implications of these findings for understanding the processes by which other-language incorporations achieve the status of native items and their consequences for theories of code-switching and borrowing.

What counts as (contact-induced) change

We are most grateful to our commentators for their careful reading of our Keynote Article (henceforth KA) and their incisive observations on contact-induced change, and for the many challenging and thought-provoking issues they raise. We welcome the opportunity to respond to (some of) them, especially since, perhaps not surprisingly, these are symptomatic of the very issues in the field of contact linguistics that prompted us to write this KA in the first place.

The evolving grammar of the French subjunctive

Abstract This paper compares the evolution and contemporary distribution of subjunctive and indicative in spoken Quebec French with the development of normative injunctions on variant choice over five centuries of grammatical tradition. The subjunctive has been prescribed with hundreds of lexical governors, verb classes and semantic readings since the 16th century, but in spontaneous speech, it is virtually limited to a handful of matrix and embedded verbs. Our analysis shows that the overriding determinant of variant choice is not meaning, as most would claim, but the lexical identity of the governor. The only other factors that play a role are those pertaining to the construal of the context as canonical for subjunctive (e.g. suppletive morphology, presence of the complementizer que, and adjacency of main to embedded clause); where these are present, subjunctive is favored. Quantitative discrepancies among governors and embedded verbs, their previously undocumented associations (or lack thereof) with the subjunctive, and the unpredictable mood preferences they display at different points in time have all conspired in obscuring community patterns. Once actual usage facts are systematically analyzed, however, the grammar of subjunctive selection emerges as regular and stable. Its discrepancies with respect to both normative and theoretical linguistic accounts stem from attempts to impose the doctrine of form-function symmetry on a phenomenon which is inherently variable.

Future temporal reference in the bilingual repertoire of Anglo-Montrealers: A twin variable

This article focuses on the development of sociolinguistic competence in a second language, (here, French being acquired by young Anglo-Montrealers) in a naturalistic context where the target language is part of daily life. Sociolinguistic competence is assessed through analysis of Anglo-Montrealers’ use of a morphosyntactic variable, Future Temporal Reference (FTR), in both French and English. Variationist analyses reveal that Anglo-Montrealers possess distinct FTR variation systems for each of the languages of their linguistic repertoire. Results show that substantial contact with native speakers is a necessary condition for detailed and complete mastery of target sociolinguistic variation, in particular because the rules that govern it are rarely, if ever, explicitly taught.

8. Variation and grammaticalization in Romance: a cross-linguistic study of the subjunctive

Building on studies seeking to position the Romance languages on the cline of grammaticalization, this study targets the evolution of subjunctive into subordination marker in speech corpora of French, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish. By considering the conditioning of variation between subjunctive and indicative in complement clauses, we operationalize parameters of late-stage grammaticalization, and establish measures of productivity. Results show that, with the exception of Spanish, subjunctive selection is constrained neither by contextual elements consistent with its oft-ascribed meanings nor by semantic classes of governors harmonic with such meanings. Instead, in all four languages, lexical bias is the major predictor of subjunctive selection, abetted by structural elements of the linguistic context. The overriding processes are lexical routinization, which is language-particular, with cognate governors displaying idiosyncratic associations with the subjunctive, and structural conventionalization, which is cross-linguistically parallel, with languages differing merely in degree.

Searching for standard French: The construction and mining of the Recueil historique des grammaires du français

Abstract This paper describes a massive project to characterize “Standard French” by constructing and mining the Recueil historique des grammaires du français (RHGF), a corpus of grammars whose prescriptive dictates we interpret as representing the evolution of the standard over five centuries. Its originality lies in the possibility it affords to ascertain the existence of prior variability, date it, and determine the conditions under which grammarians accept or condemn variant uses. Systematic meta-analyses of the RHGF reveal that grammarians rarely acknowledge the existence of alternate ways of expressing the same thing. Instead, they adopt three major strategies to establish form-function symmetry. All involve partitioning competing variants across distinct social, semantic or linguistic contexts, despite pervasive disagreement over which variant to associate with which. This effectively factors out variability. In contrast, systematic analysis of actual language use, as instantiated in the spontaneous speech of 323 speakers of Quebec French over an apparent-time period of a century and a half, reveals robust variability, regularly conditioned by contextual elements which have never been acknowledged by grammarians. This conditioning has remained largely stable since at least the mid-nineteenth century. Taken together, these results indicate that the “rules” for variant selection promulgated by grammarians do not inform the spoken language, nor do grammars take account of the variable rules structuring spontaneous speech. As a result, grammar and usage are evolving independently.