Variation, contact and convergence in French spoken outside France

Abstract

This article focuses on syntactic phonemena observed in situations of language contact in the French-speaking world, where French finds itself in (usually unfavorable) competition with English. A number of cases are examined where a superficial analysis might conceivably point to a change caused by transfer from English: more specifically, in the verb system (auxiliaries, the subjunctive), the use of clitic pronouns, adjective position (preposed or postposed), certain infinitival constructions, prepositions (including preposition stranding), the use of relative pronouns and que-deletion, the particle back and the marker comme. Our conclusions draw on theories of linguistic contact and change, both with respect to French and, more broadly, the study of language.