L'Interrogation directe

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The alternation between l'on and on in spoken French

© Cambridge University Press 2004Although frequent reference is made to l'on as an alternative to on in standard grammars, judgements vary as to whether or not l'on is used at all in spoken French. This question is investigated here by treating l'on [similar] on as a sociolinguistic variable. A review of the historical, dialectal and cross-linguistic background is followed by an examination of the traditional ‘rules’ for the use of l'on, as described by Vaugelas and reconsidered by Goosse for written French. The frequency of l'on in speech, and the contexts in which it is used, are then examined in a corpus of informal interviews, and some comparisons are made with a corpus of TV news reports. (The total N of on + l'on in the two corpora is 3,549.) In general, l'on can be viewed as a ‘long form’, marking formality and comparable in some respect to l'un(e), cela, ce sont and nous -ons. But there are some individuals who use l'on even when speaking informally, especially in relative clauses opening with que.The work was partly supported by a grant from the AHRB

Vouvoiement and tutoiement: sociolinguistic reflections

Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2009. Published version reproduced with the permission of the publisher.This article offers a critical review of research on the T/V (tu/vous) choice in French, and an analysis of this alternation in terms of markedness, variation and change. While there is unique public interest in T/V as a sociolinguistic phenomenon, it is a subject that has paradoxically been under-represented in linguistics and sociolinguistics publications produced in France. Much of the research conducted on the topic has been carried out by scholars based in other countries, and this is characterised by a rich variety of disciplinary approaches. T/V in contemporary French is a non-probabilistic phenomenon and is therefore not a sociolinguistic variable, in the Labovian sense. Considering the various senses of ‘markedness’, discussed by Haspelmath (2006), there is a good case for considering T as the unmarked option, rather than V, as has often been suggested. The long-term historical tendency for French to lose many of its inflections suggests that, at some time in the future, it is quite possible that vouvoiement will all but disappear. Yet there is no sign in France at present of a massive and decisive shift away from V

L'approche variationniste et la description de la grammaire du français : le cas des interrogatives

Aidan Coveney: L'approche variationniste et la description de la grammaire du français. Le cas des interrogatives This article presents the case for the sociolinguistic (variationist) analysis of variable areas of grammar, such as French interrogatives. This type of analysis can reveal not only the social and stylistic distribution, but also the linguistic and pragmatic constraints. The problem of equivalence is addressed in this article, and a set of defining criteria for such variables is proposed.Coveney Aidan. L'approche variationniste et la description de la grammaire du français : le cas des interrogatives. In: Langue française, n°115, 1997. La variation en syntaxe, sous la direction de Françoise Gadet. pp. 88-100