Grammatical Variation Across Space and Time: The French Interrogative System (Studies in Language Variation)

Grammatical Variation across Space and Time

Studies in Language Variation The series aims to include empirical studies of linguistic variation as well as its description, explanation and interpretation in structural, social and cognitive terms. The series will cover any relevant subdiscipline: sociolinguistics, contact linguistics, dialectology, historical linguistics, anthropology/anthropological linguistics. The emphasis will be on linguistic aspects and on the interaction between linguistic and extralinguistic aspects — not on extralinguistic aspects (including language ideology, policy etc.) as such.

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Volume 3 Grammatical Variation across Space and Time. The French interrogative system by Martin Elsig

Grammatical Variation across Space and Time The French interrogative system

Martin Elsig University of Hamburg

John Benjamins Publishing Company Amsterdam / Philadelphia

8

TM

The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences – Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ansi z39.48-1984.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Elsig, Martin. Grammatical variation across space and time : the French interrogative system / Martin Elsig. p. cm. (Studies in Language Variation, issn 1872-9592 ; v. 3) Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. French language--Interrogative. I. Title. PC2395.E47

2009

445--dc22

isbn 978 90 272 3483 4 (hb; alk. paper) isbn 978 90 272 9037 3 (eb)

2008050226

© 2009 – John Benjamins B.V. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, by print, photoprint, microfilm, or any other means, without written permission from the publisher. John Benjamins Publishing Co. · P.O. Box 36224 · 1020 me Amsterdam · The Netherlands John Benjamins North America · P.O. Box 27519 · Philadelphia pa 19118-0519 · usa

Table of contents List of figures List of tables Acknowledgments chapter 1 Introduction chapter 2 Overview of the literature 2.1 Descriptive and corpus-based analyses of French interrogatives  15 2.1.1 Pronominal inversion  18 2.1.1.1 Linguistic Factors  18 2.1.1.2 Stylistic Factors.  22 2.1.1.3 Social Factors.  23 2.1.2 Intonation questions  24 2.1.2.1 Linguistic Factors  24 2.1.2.2 Stylistic Factors  25 2.1.2.3 Social Factors  26 2.1.3 -tu questions  26 2.1.3.1 Linguistic Factors  26 2.1.3.2 Stylistic Factors  26 2.1.4 Est-ce que questions  26 2.1.4.1 Linguistic Factors  26 2.1.4.2 Stylistic Factors  27 2.1.4.3 Social Factors  27 2.2 Grammatical treatment of the variants  27 chapter 3 Data and methods 3.1 Methodological fundamentals of variation theory  33 3.2 The data sources  38 3.3 Circumscription of the variable context  42 3.3.1 Yes/no questions  42

ix xi xv

1

13

33

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Grammatical Variation across Space and Time

3.3.1.1 The OH corpus  43 3.3.1.2 The RFQ corpus  46 3.3.1.3 Fifteenth to seventeenth century French  50 3.3.2 Wh-questions  52

3.4 Establishing the independent variables (factor groups)  54 3.4.1 Subject identity  54 3.4.2 Verb identity  56 3.4.3 Verb frequency  59 3.4.4 Tense and mood of the verb  59 3.4.5 Grammatical class of the verb  61 3.4.6 Cognitive verbs  62 3.4.7 Verb syllables  63 3.4.8 Parallel processing  63 3.4.9 Style  64 3.4.10 Localization of the token  68 3.4.11 Social factor groups  68 chapter 4 Results 4.1 Yes/no questions  73 4.1.1 The OH corpus  76 4.1.2 The RFQ corpus  106 4.1.3 Fifteenth to seventeenth century literature and plays  126 4.2 Wh-questions  145 4.2.1 Wh-questions in the RFQ and OH data  146 4.2.2 Late Middle French data  158 chapter 5 Interpretation and discussion of the results 5.1 The interrogative syntax in twentieth and nineteenth century Quebec French  165 5.1.1 Pronominal inversion: the status of the (inverted) subject pronoun  166 5.1.1.1 Pronominal inversion: previous analyses  166 5.1.1.2 Examining Pronominal inversion in the Quebec French data  169 5.1.2 -tu questions: their relatedness to Pronominal inversion  177 5.1.3 /tsy/ and /vu/: a unified account of postverbal subject pronouns and question markers  179 5.1.4 Intonation questions  190

73

165



Table of contents 

5.1.5 5.1.6 5.1.7 5.1.8

Est-ce que questions  191 The TP as the locus for checking the interrogative feature  199 Preverbal subject DPs: evidence for multiple TP-specifiers  205 The interrogative system of contemporary Quebec French  206 5.2 The interrogative syntax in fifteenth to seventeenth century French  210 5.2.1 Interrogatives in Middle French: replacement of VS with SV variants  210 5.2.2 Pronominal inversion in fifteenth to seventeenth century French  212 5.2.3 Complex inversion: previous analyses  213 5.2.4 A unified account of Complex inversion and of -tu questions  218 5.2.5 Middle French: loss of verb-to-C° movement  221 5.2.6 The grammaticalization of est-ce que  223 5.2.7 The interrogative system of late Middle French  225 5.2.8 SpecCP – SpecTP: An A’-chain  229 5.2.9 Free and Stylistic inversion in fifteenth to seventeenth century French  230 5.2.9.1 Stylistic inversion: previous analyses  234 5.2.9.2 Stylistic inversion in fifteenth to seventeenth century French  245 5.2.10 Wh-fronting  254 5.2.11 Contemporary Standard French  255 5.3 Interrogatives in Old French  256 5.3.1 The interrogative system of Old French  257 5.3.2 SpecνP as the subject’s A-position: an account following Barbosa (2001)  259 5.3.3 Reanalysis of the multiple TP-specifiers  260 chapter 6 Conclusion

261

Literary texts consulted

267

References

269

Index

281

List of figures

Figure 1. Figure 2. Figure 3.

Figure 4. Figure 5. Figure 6. Figure 7. Figure 8. Figure 9.

Figure 10.

Figure 11. Figure 12. Figure 13.

Figure 14. Figure 15.

Decision Tree for stylistic analysis of spontaneous speech in the sociolinguistic interview The distribution of vouloir, savoir, voir, avoir, and être in the OH corpus (only yes/no questions) The distribution of yes/no variants in the OH corpus in the group defined by the five verbs vouloir, savoir, voir, avoir, and être, and in the group defined by the remainder of the verbs respectively Distribution of yes/no variants in the RFQ and OH corpus The distribution of avoir, être, voir, savoir, and vouloir in the RFQ corpus (only yes/no questions) Distribution of yes/no variants in the RFQ and OH corpus (vouloir, savoir, voir, avoir, être) Distribution of yes/no variants in the RFQ and OH corpus (other verbs) The distribution of vouloir, savoir, voir, avoir, and être in the fifteenth to seventeenth century data (only yes/no questions) The distribution of yes/no variants in the 15th to 17th century French data across the lexical contexts defined by the verbs vouloir, savoir, voir, avoir, and être and by the remainder of the verbs respectively Percentage of Pronominal inversion in the three data corpora within the context of cognitive verbs versus non-cognitive verbs Distribution of wh-variants in the OH corpus Distribution of wh-variants in the RFQ corpus Proportions of Simple inversion, Free inversion, and ambiguous cases within the wh-questions with a postverbal subject DP in the late Middle and early Modern French data Grammaticalization chain of est-ce que, according to Druetta (2003: 24) Stylistic inversion in 15th to 17th century French (Distribution of verb types)

65 81 82

107 110 111 112 131 133

141

147 149 162

224 251

List of tables

Table 1. Table 2. Table 3. Table 4. Table 5. Table 6. Table 7. Table 8. Table 9. Table 10. Table 11. Table 12. Table 13. Table 14. Table 15. Table 16.

Interrogative variants in previous quantitative studies Constitution of the OH sample by age, sex and neighborhood (Poplack 1989) Constitution of the RFQ and OH sample (Vieux-Hull & MontBleu) by age Subject identity – Distribution of factors across yes/no variants (OH corpus) Verb identity – Distribution of factors across yes/no variants (OH corpus) Verb frequency – Distribution of factors across yes/no variants (OH corpus) The distribution of vouloir, savoir, voir, avoir, and être across yes/no variants in the OH corpus Tense and mood – Distribution of factors across yes/no variants (OH corpus) Grammatical verb type – Distribution of factors across yes/no variants (OH corpus) Semantic verb type – Distribution of factors across yes/no variants (OH corpus) Number of verb syllables – Distribution of factors across yes/ no variants (OH corpus) Parallel processing – Distribution of factors across yes/no variants (OH corpus) Conversational style – Distribution of factors across yes/no variants (OH corpus) Localization of the token – Distribution of factors across yes/ no variants (OH corpus) Cross Tabulation – subject identity and verb syllables (yes/no questions, OH corpus) Conditioning of yes/no variants in the OH corpus (linguistic and stylistic factors) – Factor weights obtained by GoldVarb X

16 39 69 77 79 80 81 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93

 Grammatical Variation across Space and Time

Table 17. Table 18. Table 19. Table 20. Table 21. Table 22. Table 23. Table 24. Table 25. Table 26. Table 27. Table 28. Table 29. Table 30. Table 31. Table 32. Table 33. Table 34. Table 35.

Social (extralinguistic) factor groups – Distribution of factors across yes/no variants (OH corpus) Cross Tabulation – Speakers’ occupations and education (yes/ no questions, OH corpus) Cross Tabulation – Speakers’ age and education (yes/no questions, OH corpus) Conditioning of yes/no variants in the OH corpus (social factors) – Factor weights obtained by GoldVarb X Subject identity – Distribution of factors across yes/no variants (RFQ corpus) Verb identity – Distribution of factors across yes/no variants (RFQ corpus) Verb frequency – Distribution of factors across yes/no variants (RFQ corpus) The distribution of high frequency verbs across yes/no variants in the RFQ corpus Tense and mood – Distribution of factors across yes/no variants (RFQ corpus) Grammatical verb type – Distribution of factors across yes/no variants (RFQ corpus) Semantic verb type – Distribution of factors across yes/no variants (RFQ corpus) Number of verb syllables – Distribution of factors across yes/ no variants (RFQ corpus) Parallel processing – Distribution of factors across yes/no variants (RFQ corpus) Conversational style – Distribution of factors across yes/no variants (RFQ corpus) Localization of the token – Distribution of factors across yes/ no variants (OH corpus) Conditioning of yes/no variants in the RFQ corpus (linguistic and stylistic factors) – Factor weights obtained by GoldVarb X Cross Tabulation – subject identity and verb syllables (yes/no questions, RFQ corpus) Social (extralinguistic) factor groups – Distribution of factors across yes/no variants (RFQ corpus) Distribution of affirmative and negated interrogative tokens across yes/no variants

98 101 102 104 107 108 109 113 114 114 115 115 116 116 117 118 120 125 127



List of tables 

Table 36. Table 37. Table 38. Table 39. Table 40. Table 41. Table 42. Table 43. Table 44. Table 45. Table 46. Table 47. Table 48.

Subject identity – Distribution of factors across yes/no variants (15th to 17th century French) Verb identity – Distribution of factors across yes/no variants (15th to 17th century French) Verb frequency – Distribution of factors across yes/no variants (15th to 17th century French) The distribution of savoir, vouloir, avoir, voir, and être across yes/no variants in the fifteenth to seventeenth century data Tense and mood – Distribution of factors across yes/no variants (15th to 17th century French) Grammatical verb type – Distribution of factors across yes/no variants (15th to 17th century French) Semantic verb type – Distribution of factors across yes/no variants (15th to 17th century French) Number of verb syllables – Distribution of factors across yes/ no variants (15th to 17th century French) Literary source – Distribution of factors across yes/no variants (15th to 17th century French) Conditioning of yes/no variants in the fifteenth to seventeenth century French data – Factor weights obtained by GoldVarb X Cross-tabulation of /εsk/ derivatives (rows) and wh-words (columns) in the RFQ and OH corpus respectively Cross-tabulation of wh-variants (rows) and wh-words (columns) in the RFQ and OH corpus respectively. Distribution of wh-variants in the literary sources from the late Middle and Classical French corpus

128 129 130 132 134 135 135 136 137 138 152 157 159

Acknowledgments The present study is based on my doctoral dissertation which has benefitted from the financial, professional, and moral support of many people and institutions. I thank the University of Hamburg for granting me a PhD scholarship (Promotionsstipendium nach dem Hamburgischen Gesetz zur Förderung des wissenschaftlichen und künstlerischen Nachwuchses) and the German Academic Exchange Service (Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst, DAAD) for a supplementary scholarship financing my stay at the University of Ottawa, Canada in 2003 and 2004. Furthermore, the opportunity to work as a research assistant at the Collaborative Research Center 538 on Multilingualism, established at the University of Hamburg, Germany and funded by the German Research Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, DFG), gave me much appreciated financial support. I would like to express my gratitude and thanks to my academic supervisors, Jürgen M. Meisel and Shana Poplack. It was Jürgen M. Meisel who aroused my interest in linguistics and in everything related to the syntactic aspects of language change. He guided me trough the whole dissertation process with invaluable comments and support. As a research assistant in his project ‘Multilingualism as Cause and Effect of Language Change: Historical Syntax of Romance Languages’ within the Research Center on Multilingualism, I profited from a continuous exchange of opinions with him. An important part of the analysis presented in this study is committed to the sociolinguistic branch of variation theory. It was Shana Poplack who invited me to the Sociolinguistics Laboratory at the University of Ottawa and who inducted me in several courses and numerous informal meetings into the theoretical and methodological fundamentals of this field of research. It also gave me the chance of enjoying the vibrant working atmosphere in the Lab and of being part of the team. I owe special thanks to her for liberally granting me access to the corpus data and tools housed at the Lab. Since the present study is cardinally based on these materials, it would never have been possible without that. Both in the Research Center on Multilingualism and in the Sociolinguistics Lab, I benefitted from the many opportunities to discuss parts of my research with fellow students and colleagues. These exchanges of opinion had a great impact on my work. In this regard, I want to express special thanks to Esther Rinke, Matthias Bonnesen, Imme Kuchenbrandt, Susanne Rieckborn, Lukas Pietsch, Claudia

 Grammatical Variation across Space and Time

Stöber, and Noemi Kintana in the Research Center. I also want to thank the fellow students who worked (or still work) in the research project on the historical syntax of Romance languages, Moïra Berger, Kathrin Konrad, Xavier Protat, and Markus Rohn. They helped manipulate (i.e. coding, extracting, and sorting) part of the data used in this study. I am indebted to the whole team of the Sociolinguistics Lab, but especially to Nathalie Dion, Lidia Jarmasz, Carmen LeBlanc, Martine Leroux, Rebecca Silvert, Jennifer Anderson, Rocío Pérez-Tattam, and Nicole Rosen. I also want to thank Gerard van Herk, Juliane House, Wolfgang Meyer, Hélène Blondeau, James Walker, and France Martineau for their knowledgeable advice and feedback. I had inestimable support from Jackie Adams who proofread several versions of this study and rectified language errors. If any errors remain, they are due to my own inattention. I would also like to thank two anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments and suggestions to an earlier draft of this study. Finally, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my family and friends who gave me moral support and encouragement during the whole process. My wife, Saskia Brix, supported me with all her love and patience and my mother, Ingrid Elsig, shared the thrill with me going through the ups and downs of this time. I would also like to thank my sisters and their families and above all my father, Gerd-Joachim Elsig, who died much too early and who cannot see this day.

chapter 1

Introduction The French interrogative system is a prolific source of morphosyntactic and phonological variation. The observer is faced with a diverse set of forms, ranging from questions featuring the canonical word order as also occurs in declarative clauses to exceedingly complex cleft sentences involving one or several succeeding interrogative markers. Subject-verb inversion, i.e. the occurrence of the subject in postverbal position, may but need not occur. If it does, the inverted subject can be located in several distinct structural positions, depending, among other things, on whether it is a pronoun or a noun. And even within these diverse categories, a variety of more or less specific constraints can be found which rule in or out certain word order patterns. No matter whether one considers the surprising incompatibility of first person subject pronouns in postverbal position with -er conjugated verbs, a constraint which does not apply in each and every case, or the exclusion from postverbal position of certain strong subject pronouns while others yield perfectly fine results, one is tempted to suspect a high degree of arbitrariness in this domain. The most important factors conditioning the occurrence or non-occurrence of certain variants are intralinguistic in nature. It is of primary importance, for instance, whether the interrogative clause is direct (i.e. a matrix clause) or indirect (i.e. an embedded clause) and whether it is a yes/no question, focusing on the verb or on the proposition as a whole, or a wh-question, focusing on the constituent which is replaced by the wh-word. Intralinguistic factors, however, do not help to explain the variability in its entirety. Even within the categories defined by them, a noteworthy amount of variability remains. Grammarians have attempted to attribute each of the competing variants to a certain style, more often than not rejecting particular variants as vulgar regardless of whether they are well established and entrenched in language use, as can be observed in the case of the est-ce que interrogative marker which is in fact far from being restricted to a relaxed style. Consequently, the French interrogative system is one of those grammatical domains in which the discrepancy between normative prescription and actual language use is largest. While grammarians usually impose the use of subject-verb inversion as the default interrogative form, the spontaneous language production is characterized by a remarkable lack of it, instead falling back on variants exhibiting preverbal subjects. It is therefore not surprising that due to normative pressure, judgments about the acceptability of certain interrogative variants

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Grammatical Variation across Space and Time

vary in the attitudes and in the meta-linguistic comments of the speakers. In sum, the French interrogative system appears not only to be highly complex by allowing the alternate choice between several distinct word order variants within the same linguistic contexts, but also highly obscure and difficult to define since every assessment of the question as to which structural variants are actually part of the speakers’ internal grammatical knowledge of the interrogative system has to cope with a strong normative interference. The present study attempts to clarify the issue by modeling the grammar of the French interrogative system as represented in actual language usage. The analysis of spontaneous speech data helps to circumvent and eliminate normative interference from the informants’ side. I have restricted my investigation to direct questions, i.e. matrix yes/no and wh-interrogative clauses. Two synchronic studies of twentieth and nineteenth century vernacular Quebec French are supplemented with a study of late Middle and Classical French literature and plays, allowing me to trace the evolution of the French interrogative system. As a point of departure, the variable system of French direct interrogative clauses is defined in the following paragraphs. As already mentioned, the system can be divided in two distinct variable contexts. The interrogation of yes/no (or polar) questions relates to the entire sentence and thus to the trueness or falseness of the proposition. Wh- (or constituent) questions contain a wh-phrase. Their interrogation relates to the constituent replaced by the wh-element. Within these two variable contexts, a whole range of different variants coexists in French as alternative options. Some of them make use of the inverted verb-subject word order, either with a pronominal or with a nominal subject. Others contain grammaticalized interrogative markers such as est-ce que or the postverbal particle -ti/-tu (cf. Picard 1992, Vecchiato 2000, Vinet 2000 for the latter).1 Still others display the non-inverted, canonical subject-verb-object word order. In wh-questions, the whphrase may further stay in its base-generated in situ position or it may move into a sentence-initial operator position. The following examples illustrate these variable options, the examples in (1) showing instances of yes/no questions and the examples in (2) instances of wh-questions respectively. They stem from the data corpora analyzed in this study. All of the twentieth century interrogative tokens were extracted from the Ottawa-Hull French corpus (referred to as OH in the following), cf. Poplack (1989). The nineteenth century tokens stem from the corpus Récits du français québécois d’autrefois (referred to as RFQ or Réfqua in the following), cf. Poplack & St-Amand 1. Here and in the following, the hyphen is used in front of the interrogative particle -tu in order to distinguish it from the second person singular pronoun tu. For consistency’s sake, it is also used in front of the interrogative particle -ti.



Chapter 1.  Introduction

(2007). The two corpora contain audio recordings of oral vernacular Quebec French as well as their transcriptions and are housed at the Sociolinguistics Laboratory of the University of Ottawa, directed by Shana Poplack who kindly allowed me to use them for the purpose of this study. The codes refer to the speaker and the line number of the transcript where the utterance can be found. The fifteenth to seventeenth century data were collected and analyzed within the research project H1 ‘Multilingualism as Cause and Effect of Language Change: Historical Syntax of Romance Languages’ under the direction of Jürgen M. Meisel and Esther Rinke. This project is one of currently twenty funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (German Science Foundation) within the Collaborative Research Center on Multilingualism, established at the University of Hamburg. The codes refer to the literary source and to the page and line number where the respective sentence can be found.2 I provide a detailed presentation of these data sources in Section 3.2. Yes/no questions Pronominal inversion (Subject-clitic inversion) (1) a. Il dit, madame, il dit, nous feriez-vous à dîner? “He says, madam, he says, would you prepare us something for dinner?” (RFQ.003.233) Simple inversion b. Et ne m’a le médecin point ordonné de régime? dit madame. “And hasn’t the doctor prescribed me some diet?” (Cnn.140.47) Free inversion c. Feroient pis et acte plus cruel les Gothz, les Scythes, les Massagetes en place ennemie, par longtemps assiegé, à grands frays oppugnée, prinse par force? “Could the Goths, the Scyths, or Massagets do a worse or more cruel act to any of the inhabitants of a hostile city, when, after the loss of 2. Abbreviations of the fifteenth to seventeenth century literary sources: Cnn = Farce = Rabelais = Corneille = Agr.Conf =

Cent nouvelles nouvelles Maistre Pierre Pathelin. Farce du XVe siècle Œuvres de Rabelais Théâtre complet de Corneille Agréables conférences de deux paysans de Saint-Ouen et de Montmorency sur les affaires du temps (1649–1651) Molière = Molière. Œuvres complètes Complete references are provided in Section 3.2

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Grammatical Variation across Space and Time



many of their most considerable commanders, the expense of a great deal of money, and a long siege, they shall have stormed and taken it by a violent and impetuous assault?” (Rabelais.525, translation: Sir Thomas Urquhart of Cromarty and Peter Antony Motteux in Five books of the lives, heroic deeds and sayings of Gargantua and his son Pantagruel by Francois Rabelais, eBooks\@ Adelaide 2007)

Complex inversion d. Ils le relancent; mais ce coup est-il prévu? “They throw it back; but has this coup been foreseen?” (Molière.168.574) Intonation questions e. Ah, tu es du bout comme ça toi, tu connais un petit peu le bout? “Oh, you are from this quarter then, do you know the quarter a little bit?” (OH.113.1242) -tu f. Ah, tu t’en vas-tu te baigner là? “Oh, will you take a bath over there?” (OH.090.413) Est-ce que g. Ton frère est-ce que ton- son rhume est guéri? “Your brother, is your- his cold healed?” (OH.078.1252) Wh-questions Pronominal inversion (Subject-clitic inversion) (2) a. Voyons, il dit, jeune officier d’Arodate qu’as-tu fait de mes trente-neuf princes? “Let’s see, he says, young officer from Arodate, what have you done with my thirty-nine princes?” (RFQ.015.517) Simple inversion b. Comment seroit la folie antique abolie? “How would the ancient folly be abolished?” (Rabelais.266)



Chapter 1.  Introduction

Stylistic / Free inversion c. Que me vient donc conter ce coquin assuré? “What has this assured rogue just told me?” (Molière.89.1027) Complex inversion d. Depuis quand ton Éraste en tient-il pour Mélite? “Since when has your Eraste asked for Melite’s hand?” (Corneille.31.547) Wh-fronting e. De quoi la ville a changé? La ville a changé du tout au tout. “In which way has the city changed? The city hasn’t changed at all.” (OH.095.709) Wh-in situ f. Que c’est que j’allais dire, tu pourrais repasser quand? “What I was about to say, when could you come by again?” (OH.115.302) Est-ce que g. Quand est-ce que c’est que vous allez vous marier? Dans trois jours. “When are you going to marry? In three days.” (RFQ.044.1204) These variants are not entirely interchangeable. Pronominal subjects may appear in a preverbal position (cf. (1)e.), or in a position immediately to the right of the inflected part of the verb (cf. (2)a.). Due to their clitic status, however, they must be adjacent to the inflected verb. Nominal subjects may also appear either preverbally or postverbally. In the latter case, the subject noun may occupy several different structural positions (contrary to a pronominal subject). It appears either in a position superficially similar to the inverted subject pronoun, as in (1)b. and (2)b., a construction which is called Simple inversion (cf. Roberts 1993: 173, 189–197), or it appears clause-finally, possibly in some νP-internal position, as in (1)c. and (2)c. Interrogatives of this type are called Free inversion when they occur both in whquestions and in yes/no questions and when the presence of direct objects does not lead to ungrammaticality (cf. Roberts 1993: 191–192, 217–219). Stylistic inversion is superficially equivalent to Free inversion. The only difference between these two variants is the more restricted linguistic context in which Stylistic inversion may appear (cf. Roberts 1993: 191–192, 217–219). It is excluded from yes/no questions and is illicit with direct objects (unless the wh-word is the direct object or the direct object is a pronoun cliticized to the finite verb). Finally, preverbal subject

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Grammatical Variation across Space and Time

nouns may be resumed by a postverbal co-indexed subject pronoun, a construction called Complex inversion (cf. de Boer 1926: 309, Kayne 1972: 80) and exemplified in (1)d. and (2)d. Besides these instances of subject-verb inversion, the canonical subject-verbobject (SVO) word order may be maintained. The only means of expressing interrogation in this case is phrasal intonation (cf. (1)e.). In wh-questions without inversion, the wh-phrase may variably occur in its base-generated in situ position (wh-in situ, cf. (2)f.) or in a sentence-initial position (wh-fronting, cf. (2)e.). The in situ option is ruled out when inversion takes place. Both types of interrogatives, wh-questions and yes/no questions, may contain the grammaticalized interrogative marker est-ce que or one of its phonological and morphological derivatives (est-ce que c’est que, ce que c’est que, ce que, est-ce, ce or que) as is shown in examples (1)g. and (2)g. The use of est-ce que is incompatible with the wh-in situ option and marginal with subject-verb inversion (but cf. Lefebvre 1982: 80). A variant which occurs exclusively in yes/no questions (at least in the data analyzed in this study) is the particle -tu in a position immediately to the right of the finite part of the verb. This particle never appears in interrogatives with subject-verb inversion or with the est-ce que marker. The paradigm illustrated in (2) does not apply to wh-questions whose whphrase is the subject such as in example (3): (3) Fait que qui c’est qui est indépendant, qui c’est qui a sorti de la- du meeting à télévision à soir là, qu’ils sont après faire à Halifax? “Now, who is independent, who left the meeting on TV tonight which has just finished in Halifax?” (OH.105.2335)

Here, only the variants shown in (2)e. and (2)g. can occur. The interrogative system sketched out in (1) and (2) shows that Simple, Free, and Stylistic inversion are reserved for questions containing a nominal subject while Pronominal inversion is the only kind of inversion found in questions containing a subject clitic. Complex inversion combines a preverbal nominal subject with a postverbal pronominal subject which makes it similar to Pronominal inversion. The variants are mutually exclusive, i.e. they can be used alternatively by the speakers but not in combination with each other. As an example, no interrogative token ever shows both the est-ce que marker and a postverbal particle -ti or -tu. Being mutually exclusive, these forms qualify as variants within their respective variable contexts. The variable system displayed above is also subject to diachronic and diatopic variation. This entails, first, that not all variants can be equally used in all dialects of French and, second, that some variants were predominant at certain times in



Chapter 1.  Introduction

the history of the French language but have since become rare or extinct. They have been replaced by innovative variants. The Simple inversion construction, for instance, is qualified as ungrammatical in contemporary French, even from a normative point of view. Subject-verb inversion is widely known to be an indicator of all dimensions of variation, be it diachronic, diaphasic, diatopic, or diastratic. Beginning with the diachronic dimension, the inversion of the subject was the default means of formulating a question in Old French although the presence of intonation questions was already attested in vulgar Latin texts (cf. Kibbee et al. 2006: 239–240). Alter­native variants only arose in the period of Middle French. Since that time, there has been a steady decline of the use of inversion and a rise in variants featuring the SVO word order. This decline has reportedly resulted in a dwindling of inversion constructions from the contemporary French vernacular (cf. e.g. Behnstedt 1973: 21, Coveney 2002: 204–205). The diachronic decline of inversion was arguably associated with an emerging diaphasic split into a formal (written or literary) variety of French still making use of subject-verb inversion and a colloquial (oral) vernacular completely dispensing with it (e.g. Foulet 1921, de Wind 1995: 144). Such a sharp distinction suggests that the use or non-use of inversion may also vary diastratically, with members of the middle class using it more often than members of the working class, if they use it at all. This hypothesis needs to be verified in the following analysis. Finally, the diatopic dimension comes into play when comparing the patterns observed in the interrogative systems of Quebec French with those reported for European French. As has already been mentioned, the former still displays the use of subject-verb inversion. This study investigates whether there is in fact a development towards the loss of inversion and it also considers where contemporary Quebec French situates itself on the developmental axis. Within the Romance language family, French interrogatives stand out with regard to their high degree of complexity. Arnaiz (1998: 56–60) summarizes the word order patterns in direct interrogative clauses of the main Romance languages. Abstracting away from a number of exceptions, all of these languages share the following common properties: yes/no questions feature either the canonical (declarative) word order with a particular interrogative intonation (cf. Escandell-Vidal 1998) or they optionally show an inverted, postverbal subject (cf. Zagona 2002: 19–20, 50–52); wh-questions require the wh-word (or constituent) to appear in clause-initial position, followed by the inverted verb-subject word order. This general statement about interrogatives in Romance languages has to be qualified in light of certain language specific constraints, as Arnaiz (1998: 57) remarks: in yes/no questions, French allows the inversion of only subject clitics and not subject DPs. Inversion is rare in Portuguese. In addition to intonation and subjectverb inversion, Catalan, Portuguese, and French share the possibility of inserting





Grammatical Variation across Space and Time

a question marker into the yes/no question (que in Catalan, é que in Portuguese, and est-ce que in French). In wh-questions, French and Brazilian Portuguese optionally allow the wh-word to stay in situ. In Catalan and Brazilian Portuguese, the inversion of the subject is generally avoided. In European Portuguese and French, inversion alternates with the use of the declarative word order and the question marker é que / est-ce que in a position following the wh-word. In Spanish and Italian wh-questions, inversion of the subject is not mandatory when the wh-word is an adjunct, such as por qué and cómo, cf. also Zagona (2002: 50–52). As the above-mentioned remarks and the set of variants displayed in (1) and (2) show, the French interrogative system qualifies not only as a linguistic variable but also, as later chapters reveal, as a sociolinguistic variable. In the sense of the former, it can be defined as a “convenient construct employed to unite a class of fluctuating variants within some specified language set” (Wolfram 1991: 23). The concept of a linguistic variable hence requires that several distinct variants can be used in alternation within the same linguistic system, i.e. in the same speaker, the same discourse entity, the same conversational turn, and under the same intra and extralinguistic conditions. In other words, the speaker has at his or her disposal “a set of alternative ways of ‘saying the same thing’” (Labov 1972b: 94). In each particular case, the preference for one variant over another is conditioned by internal and external factors. Internal factors are linguistic in nature, such as the mood and tense of the inflected verb and its grammatical status as a transitive or intransitive verb. External factors relate to the social characteristics of the speaker as well as to the style of the conversation. Crucially, the concept of the (socio)linguistic variable rests upon the assumption of inherent variability (cf. Labov 1969). None of the internal and external constraints which condition variant choice will account for this choice in each and every case. It is rather a question of statistical preference than of a categorical match between a certain factor and an associated variant. If French yes/no and wh-questions indeed represent sociolinguistic variables, one would expect to find a minimal amount of unpredictable variation in the data even though a number of factors will probably turn out to be powerful predictors of variant selection. With this in mind, the first central aim of this study is to uncover, within the variationist paradigm, those intra and extralinguistic independent variables which condition the use of the respective variants, in order to deduce a grammar of actual language usage; in other words, a grammar of the French vernacular as it is used in contemporary Quebec French. This is an important and innovative task since the variationist methodology, in particular the procedure of the sociolinguistic interview technique, helps to bypass the strong bias exerted by normative metalinguistic knowledge and attitudes. Not only do the results of this study serve as a reliable point of reference in research on this specific grammatical domain, supplementing previous empirical and descriptive studies of interrogatives



Chapter 1.  Introduction

in European French (e.g. Behnstedt 1973, Coveney 2002 and Terry 1970) with a Quebec French perspective. It also throws light on the diachronic evolution of the grammar of usage of French interrogatives, by combining studies of language change from an apparent time perspective with a real time assessment of the data (cf. Labov 1994: 43–112). In each of the two synchronic studies of twentieth and nineteenth century oral Quebec French, the speech of informants stemming from different age cohorts is contrastively compared with each other. It is then compared across the data corpora covering a time frame of approximately five hundred years. Rather than a synchronic snapshot of the system of usage at a specific point in time, this approach helps to detect a possible linguistic change in this area. This is essential if one wants to determine whether certain variants such as the diverse phenomena of subject-verb inversion are indeed on their way to extinction from the vernacular and at what stage contemporary varieties of French may be located on this pathway, as compared to earlier varieties. The procedure also permits us to decide whether certain variants in contemporary French are innovations or retentions of earlier stages of the language (cf. Elsig & Poplack 2006) and whether an evolutionary link may be drawn between the variants in the different data corpora. It finally allows us to answer the question as to whether the variation has resolved itself in favor of interrogative variants not featuring any postverbal subjects, such as intonation questions in yes/no interrogatives, and wh-in situ in wh-interrogatives. In other grammatical domains of the French language, similar cases in which one of the variants prevails against the other ones are easy to find. Ne-deletion is one of them (cf. Armstrong 2002, Ashby 1981, Coveney 2002, Martineau & Mougeon 2003, Sankoff & Vincent 1977). Negative polarity in French is expressed by two negation elements: the preverbal particle ne and a postverbal marker (pas, jamais, rien, plus, etc.), cf. (4)b. (4) a. Et nou Ø avont pas pus dormire du tou “And we couldn’t sleep at all.” (adapted from: Martineau & Mougeon 2003: 148, Diary of Lepailleur, 1842–45) b. Ils ne travaillent pas le lundi. “They don’t work on Monday.” (cf. Martineau & Mougeon 2003: 119) In vernacular speech, however, ne usually drops as in (4)a. and its realization as in (4)b. is an exception. Another example is provided by the future temporal reference system in Canadian French which was analyzed by Poplack & Turpin (1999). The authors showed that the periphrastic future (PF) has almost ousted the use of other variants, such as the inflected future (IF) and the present tense (P; cf. (5)).





Grammatical Variation across Space and Time

(5) a. Bien demain, tu vas aller (PF) au bingo, tu vas gagner (PF). “Tomorrow you’re going to go to bingo and you’re going to win.” (Poplack & Turpin 1999: 134, OH.065.2301) b. J’ai dit, “laisse faire, on ira (IF) à messe demain matin.” “I said, ‘forget it, we’ll go to Mass tomorrow morning’.” (Poplack & Turpin 1999: 134, OH.070.686) c. Il dit, “j’y vas (P) demain matin chez vous”. “He says, ‘I’m going to your house tomorrow.’” (Poplack & Turpin 1999: 134, OH.119.861) Negative polarity turned out to be the most powerful predictor when it comes to the choice of the inflected future with other favoring factors such as unspecific adverbials, formal speech, and fixed locutions falling far behind. The periphrastic future is used in all remaining contexts as the default variant. This present study determines whether a certain change is indeed taking place, for instance the loss of subject-verb inversion, or whether the French interrogative system features a stable coexistence of distinct variants. It also allows one to decide whether a potential change has approached or will soon approach completion. In this context, the notion of productivity is a central issue. It is less a matter of whether a certain variant occurs with a high frequency in usage which makes it productive than how diverse the linguistic contexts are in which it occurs. Poplack (1990, 1992) shows that the French subjunctive has lost much of its productivity even though it occurs relatively frequently in the data. The high frequency, however, is mainly due to only one expression, il faut que, which triggers the use of the subjunctive in 89% of the cases: (6) Faut je lui dise (S) c’est la vérité. “I have to tell him it’s the truth.” (Poplack 1992: 241, OH.064.369) A number of other verbs such as vouloir are also strongly associated with subjunctive usage. Yet it has not turned out to be the case that it is the semantic class of the verb which triggers the high rate of the subjunctive. It is rather the lexical identity of the verb itself which is decisive in this regard. The influence of other morphosyntactic factors such as tense concordance between the matrix and the embedded verb or the verb conjugation class (i.e. regular and infrequent versus irregular and frequent) provides further evidence that the choice of the subjunctive is structurally and not pragmatically driven. The studies on the subjunctive and on the future temporal reference system in Canadian French have shown that certain variants implement themselves as default forms by ousting their competitors which feature a loss of productivity.



Chapter 1.  Introduction

Instead of a decline in frequency, this loss of productivity rather arises as an increasing restriction of these variants to highly constrained linguistic contexts, for example negated clauses representing a favoring context for the inflected future and the matrix verbs falloir and, to a minor extent, vouloir representing a favoring context for the subjunctive in the embedded clause. The loss of productivity can ultimately result in a complete lexicalization of the relevant constructions. The methodological layout of the present study is particularly well suited for an assessment of the productivity of the individual variants constituting the French interrogative system. The three synchronic studies (twentieth and nineteenth century Quebec French and late Middle and Classical French literature and plays) permit one to determine whether certain variants increasingly cluster in specific linguistic contexts while others generalize and are less and less constrained. In later chapters, this is of particular importance when it comes to interpreting Pronominal inversion in vernacular Quebec French. The question as to whether individual variants are more or less productive with regard to their linguistic conditioning is intimately connected with another more theoretical problem: are these variants syntactically productive or not? In other words, does their occurrence in language production suggest the productive application of a derivational operation such as Move, or has it rather turned into a morphological phenomenon perhaps not affecting the computational system itself? The est-ce que interrogative marker, for instance, could be analyzed either as an instance of Pronominal inversion (of the copula and the impersonal pronoun ce) followed by the subordinating conjunction que, or as a grammaticalized and hence invariable interrogative morpheme occupying some head position in syntax. The second central aim of this study is hence to provide, within the generative paradigm, a syntactic model of the informants’ internal grammatical system with regard to French interrogatives. The structural interpretation and analysis of the different interrogative variants has crucial repercussions on the formation of this model. As later chapters show, the empirical evaluation of the data is an indispensable resource for modeling this system. This research on French interrogative constructions combines several distinct perspectives on this matter which have most often been treated separately in the previous literature. It delivers a solid descriptive and empirical analysis of interrogative clauses in several extensive corpora of spontaneous, written, and oral language production by utilizing the latest methodological tools of variation theory, in particular the logistic regression model as implemented in GoldVarb  X (cf. Sankoff et al. 2005 and http://individual.utoronto.ca/tagliamonte/Goldvarb/GV_ index.htm). Hereby, this research complements and updates previous studies in this tradition, e.g. Adli (2004), Ashby (1977), Barbarie (1982), Behnstedt (1973), Coveney (2002), Fox (1989), Fromaigeat (1938), Hansen (2001), Pohl (1965), Söll (1971, 1983), Terry (1970), among others. It then provides a syntactic generative





Grammatical Variation across Space and Time

account of the different interrogative variants, benefitting from the empirical results obtained in the variationist study, with the aim of modeling the speakers’ respective internal grammar of French interrogative constructions at each different point in time under consideration. In this respect, the present investigation makes its own contribution to an enlargement of insights gained from the numerous previous studies on this matter within the generative paradigm (Boeckx 2001, Bonnesen & Meisel 2005, Cheng & Rooryck 2000, Déprez 1989, 1990, Drijkoningen 1990, Friedemann 1991, 1997, Johnson 2000, Kaiser 1996, Kayne 1972, Kayne 1983, 1986, Kayne & Pollock 1978, 2001, Mathieu 2004, Noonan 1989, Plunkett 1999, Pollock 2005, 2006, Rizzi 1996, Rizzi & Roberts 1989, Roberts 1993, Sportiche 1998, Valois & Dupuis 1992, Vecchiato 2000, Vinet 1997, 2000, de Wind 1995, Zubizarreta 2003, to name but a few of them). Finally, I pay special attention to potential phenomena of language change in this study. Relevant research in this regard by de Boer (1926) and Foulet (1921) in the early twentieth century and by Roberts (1993) in the late twentieth century serve as a point of reference. By pursuing this holistic approach, my objective is not only to bridge the gap between empirically oriented descriptive approaches to language, as represented by variation theory, and a formal way of modeling grammar as represented by generative research in this area: it is first and foremost to contribute to a clarification of the very complex issue of the syntax of French interrogative constructions with a special focus on the status of subject-verb inversion. In Chapter 2, I provide a brief overview of the research literature on the issue of French interrogative constructions, focusing on those which specify intra and extralinguistic factors which have turned out to favor or disfavor the choice of a certain variant. I use these claims in order to assemble the set of independent variables, the factor groups, whose influence are tested with regard to the dependent one, i.e. the different interrogative constructions. Chapter 3 presents the methodology and the data sources used in this study. It also lists the independent variables with the individual factors whose influence is checked in Chapter 4. The results of this study are presented in the fourth chapter which is divided into two parts: the first one focuses on yes/no questions and the second one on wh-questions. Each of these two parts begins with contemporary Quebec French and then moves backwards in time by addressing the earlier data sources. Chapter 5 provides a syntactic interpretation of the results from a generative perspective. Again, it starts out with contemporary Quebec French and then turns to interrogative structures in Middle and Classical French. Finally, I comment on the situation in Old French before concluding the study in Chapter 6.

chapter 2

Overview of the literature The grammar and use of the different interrogative forms in French are a frequently studied object of linguistic research and the focus of discussion is the coexistence of several syntactic options of expressing the same idea. Early studies such as those by de Boer (1926), Foulet (1921) and Fromaigeat (1938) tried to shed light on the linguistic and socio-pragmatic conditioning of the use of these forms. Although they were still strongly influenced by normative views with regard to the different variants,1 they nevertheless recognized the importance of analyzing the interrogative system from a purely objective and descriptive perspective (cf. Fromaigeat 1938)2. 1. De Boer (1926: 322), for example, says the following about wh-fronted questions without subject-verb inversion: “Mais ce sont justement ces phrases-là que la langue n’a jamais reconnues comme normales!” 2. “Or l’usage courant est caractérisé, non par sa nécessité, mais par sa fréquence. En d’autres termes, il s’agit, dans de tels cas, non de règles absolues, qu’on ne saurait enfreindre sans commettre une véritable faute, reconnaissable pour tous ceux qui connaissent la langue en question, mais plutôt d’une espèce de synonymie syntaxique, comportant diverses possibilités d’expression, équivalentes dans certains cas, exprimant des nuances différentes dans d’autres, et qu’on choisit en raison de la fréquence de leur emploi dans la langue courante ou qu’on évite en raison de leur rareté. Cet élément de fréquence, cet examen statistique des faits du langage, est négligeable tant pour la grammaire historique[…], où une seule forme certaine suffit à jalonner une évolution, que pour la grammaire normative, qui se contente de peu d’exemples tirés de bons auteurs pour justifier une manière de s’exprimer. L’étude stylistique du langage, au contraire, doit tenir compte de l’élément de fréquence ou de rareté des formes, soit dans la langue en général, soit dans divers milieux, dans différentes régions, soit dans les langues spéciales : administrative, littéraire etc. […]” (And yet, everyday usage is not characterized by its necessity but by its frequency. In other words, in such cases it is not a matter of absolute rules which one could not break without committing a real mistake, recognizable for all those who know the language under consideration, but it is rather a matter of a sort of syntactic synonymy, comprising diverse possibilities of expression, equivalent in certain cases, expressing different nuances in others, and which one chooses due to their frequency in usage in informal language or which one avoids due to their rarity. This element of frequency, this statistical examination of linguistic facts is negligible as for historical grammar, where a single certain form suffices to mark out an evolution, as for normative grammar, which contents itself with few examples taken from good authors to justify a manner of expressing oneself. The stylistic study of language, on the other hand, has to take the element of frequency or of rarity of the forms into consideration, be it in the language generally speaking, in diverse milieus, in different regions, or be it in the technical languages: the



Grammatical Variation across Space and Time

The numerous analyses which have followed these early studies can be divided into two branches: some authors look at the interrogatives from a grammatical perspective, trying to obtain insight into the mechanisms of the speakers’ i-language (e.g. Kayne 1972, Kayne & Pollock 2001, de Wind 1995, and many others). Their studies primarily focus on the syntactic operation of subject-verb inversion using the methodology of grammaticality judgments and of a qualitative assessment of the respective grammatical and ungrammatical constructions featuring the variants in question. Other authors, on the other hand, rely on the quantitative and statistical assessment of more or less large sets of natural speech data or literary texts (e.g. Behnstedt 1973, Coveney 2002, Fox 1989, Terry 1970, and others). It must be mentioned that a common finding is that subject-verb inversion is nearly absent from the European French vernacular (cf. Behnstedt 1973: 21, Coveney 2002: 204–205). This empirical finding has been used by generativists as an opportunity to attribute the different interrogative variants to distinct linguistic systems with different parameter settings. Kaiser (1996:  176–177) distinguishes between Standard and Colloquial French, the former requiring subject-verb inversion in order to satisfy the wh-criterion at S-structure and the latter not resorting to this syntactic mechanism before the level of LF. De Wind (1995: 123) argues in favor of a distinction between Standard and Popular French. He proposes that a different checking mechanism of the subject in AgrS is responsible for “Pronominal Inversion [being] totally absent in Popular French.” At another point in his argumentation, he concludes “[…] that Standard French and Popular French make use of different grammars. Native speakers of French code-switch between these grammars.” (De Wind 1995: 144). As much as the empirical results of European French might corroborate these assumptions (if one trusts the results from the descriptive literature), the corpus data show that the interrogative variants in Quebec French are used in a different way. Interrogatives with subject-verb inversion co-occur with questions showing the affirmative word order in the same speaker and even in the same conversational turn, as example (7) shows: (7) À matin, sire mon roi, il dit, je suis trahi. Il dit, sire mon roi, moi, à matin, je meurs. Es-tu fou? Tu vas mourir? Oui, il dit, je meurs. “In the morning, my king, he says, I will be betrayed. He says, my king, in the morning I will die. Are you crazy? You will die? Yes, he says. I will die.” (RFQ.036.2673)

administrative jargon, the literary jargon, etc., Fromaigeat 1938:  5, my translation.) The author describes here the rationale for all variationist research.



Chapter 2.  Overview of the literature

Sentences such as these using both the inverted and the non-inverted word order would be unexpected if they were indeed part of two separate grammars. Of course, one can reject the idea of the existence of competing grammars and argue (following the Labovian credo) that inherent variability is at play here. If one supposes, however, that an invariant grammatical system is underlying the performance data as exemplified in (7), and if one believes that the structural option of subject-verb inversion is tied to some fundamental mechanisms of this system, a different interpretation of (7) becomes indispensable. I turn to this problem in Chapter 5. where I discuss the theoretical implications of the empirical findings obtained in Chapter 4. In the following sections of this chapter, I first summarize the claims from the empirical and corpus-based literature with regard to interrogatives in French, before turning to their grammatical treatment in the prescriptive literature. The generative assessment of the variants is presented in Chapter 5. 2.1 Descriptive and corpus-based analyses of French interrogatives Table 1 provides an overview of the distribution of variants obtained by previous empirical studies of French interrogatives. Most of them are evaluations of European French, the only exceptions being the studies of Canadian French by Fox (1989) and Lefebvre (1981). As the overview shows, intonation questions are clearly the default variant in the context of yes/no interrogatives. Only in written language (the letters analyzed by Pohl 1965) and in formal speech (the radio shows and plays) do the inversion variants play a role worth mentioning. Est-ce que questions are the second most frequently used variant which, however, range far behind intonation questions. The use of the interrogative particle -ti/-tu appears to be restricted to Canadian French (Fox 1989) where this particle as well as Pronominal inversion and intonation questions are used with a comparable frequency. There are only two exceptional cases of the usage of -ti in the speech of Mr. Pohl. In wh-questions, the picture is not as clear; different studies report different variants as the majority forms. Yet upon closer inspection, it is again the SVO variants which prevail. The fronting of a wh-word without any further changes in word order is the preferred variant in the two corpora analyzed by Behnstedt (1973) and in the two Canadian studies. Wh-in situ is preferred in Ashby’s (1977) data. The insertion of an est-ce que particle between the fronted wh-word and the SVO part of the clause turns out to be a variant regularly used in the data of all studies. Interestingly, inversion variants again predominate in literary and formal language production (above all in the letters and in the radio plays). The high



 

 

%

N

P-INV %

1

N

C-INV

Pohl (1965: 505–511) Mrs. Pohl 0.6 4   Mr. Pohl   letters — 92.5 — working class speech — 4.6 — middle class speech — 8.9 —   “Le livre des 2000 — 11.0 — phrases” by Henri Frei (cited in Pohl 1965: 510) Terry (1970: 83)   — 11.2 — Behnstedt (1973: 217,255–256) corpus I — 0.9 — corpus II   radio shows 16.0 1937     radio plays — 16.1 — Söll (1971: 497) Söll 1.1 5 0.2   “Francais fondamental” 37.9 120   (cited in Söll 1971: 497) Ashby (1977: 49,50)   9.2 12   Fox (1989)   29.1 253   Coveney (2002: 118) Coveney    

Yes/no quetions

  1.6

3.9

%

     

 

5

104 310 143

3

80.0 35.7 79.4

94.7 322 94.5 171 41.0 4953 76.7 181 90.9 411  

339

473 38

3.2

85.5 2580

86 7 24 17

97

77 33 1 7 24 51

N

10.8 1.3 20.6

14 11 37

4.4 15 5.5 10 39.0 4706 7.2 17 7.7 35 60.6 192

12.0 19.1 1.1 4.6 8.9 33.1

560 138 6 137 222 86

87.4 79.8 6.5 90.7 82.2 55.8

%

ECQ N

INT %

N

St-INV

Table 1.  Interrogative variants in previous quantitative studies (P-INV: Pronominal inversion, C-INV: Complex inversion, St-INV: Stylistic inversion, ECQ: est-ce que)

  33.9  

           

 

1.2        

%  

294

2

N

TI/TU

130 868 180

340 181 12069 236 452 317

3016

641 173 93 151 270 154

TOTAL N

 Grammatical Variation across Space and Time

 

 

%

N

P-INV %

25.1   50.6 24.6 87.5

11 3

3.5   2.5

395 29 63

77

128 35.4

3.6

119 91 401

46.9 47.4 9.4

4

3 9

8.7 10.4 9.5

19 11 2

134

6 16 4

1 3

N 89 32

65.9 66.7   53.6 46.8 40.5

38.0 512

37 72 17

N

%

ECQ

 

39 38,8% 33 197 23,4% 183 19 50,0% 59  

45.9 25.2 16.1

47

45 15,3% 14.7

33.9 86 15.4 39 32.8 63 16.7 32 25.0 1063 3,2% 136 — 18.7 — 17 13.0 47 47,5% 172

0.7 6.3

%

3 2

N

— 9.9 —

2.2 4.2   27.5 7.1 4.8

42 11 14 7 55 19

703

%

N

Wh-fronting Wh-in situ

5 2 689 74 0.6 2

2.0 1.0 16.2

%

St-INV

5 4

N

C-INV

Pohl (1965: 508–511) Mrs. Pohl — 31.1 — Mr. Pohl — 22.9 — letters — 100.0 — working class speech — 10.1 — middle class speech — 35.7 —   “Le livre des 2000 — 45.2 — phrases” by Henri Frei (cited in Pohl 1965: 509) Terry (1970: 83)   — 52.1 — Behnstedt (1973: 222,255,293) corpus I — 2.0 — corpus II — 2.1 — radio shows 46.1 1957     radio plays — 81.3 — Söll 3.6 13 Söll (1971: 499–   501,506) 123 1.3 “Francais fondamental” 40.1 (cited in Söll 1971: 506) Ashby (1977: 49,50)   11.8 10   Fox (1989)   0.8 6   Coveney (2002: 118) Coveney 6.8 8     Lefebvre (1981) (cited in — 12.5 — Coveney 2002: 112)

Wh-questions

85 781 118 72

307

254 192 4246 91 362

1349

135 48 14 69 154 42

TOTAL N

Chapter 2.  Overview of the literature 



Grammatical Variation across Space and Time

percentage of Pronominal inversion questions reported by Terry (1970) is noteworthy insofar as it contrasts with its relatively low percentage in yes/no questions: while in the latter context, the language use of the playwrites approximates the style of familiar oral speech (indicated by the preferential use of intonation questions), in the context of wh-questions the supposedly more formal variants of subject-verb inversion are preferred. It is however rather unlikely that a change of context (yes/no versus wh-questions) correlates with a stylistic change. A more plausible interpretation of Terry’s data would be to assume that in the playwrites’ vernacular subject-verb inversion was more deeply entrenched in wh-questions than in yes/no questions for unknown reasons. In the remainder of this chapter (in Sections 2.1.1 through 2.1.4 and in 2.2), I focus on what has been said in the literature about the conditioning and use of yes/ no variants. The empirical evaluation of the interrogative data presented in Chapter 4. shows that wh-questions in Quebec French do not show the same degree of variability as yes/no questions do. This is why I have confined myself to investigating the patterns of conditioning of only yes/no variants. The sections below discuss the intralinguistic and extralinguistic factors reportedly influencing variable choice among French yes/no interrogatives. 2.1.1 Pronominal inversion Subject-verb inversion has generally been acknowledged to be vanishing from the French vernacular. According to Coveney (2002: 190), “[…] subject clitic inversion in interrogatives has been declining in French, and, in informal spoken varieties, is now found only marginally.” Complex inversion (i.e. the variant which features the co-occurrence of a preverbal nominal subject with a co-indexed postverbal pronoun, cf. (1)d. and (2)d. on pages 4 and 5) is even claimed to be extinct in the vernacular (cf. Behnstedt 1973: 55). In this section, I present and discuss those linguistic and extralinguistic contexts which have been proposed in the literature to still constitute a favorable environment for this variant. 2.1.1.1 Linguistic Factors. Subject identity:  The identity of the inverted subject has been claimed to influence variable choice. Terry (1970: 90) states that the “[…] first person shows a relatively equal preference for inversion and est-ce que.” According to Behnstedt (1973: 152, in regard to radio speech), first person (singular and plural) subject pronouns have neither a favoring nor a disfavoring influence on the choice of Pronominal inversion. Coveney (2002), on the other hand, claims that the linguistic contexts in which Pronominal inversion may occur have become more and more restricted. This particularly concerns the inversion of a first person pronoun and a verb in the present tense: “Verbs of the first conjugation (i.e. regular



Chapter 2.  Overview of the literature 

–ER verbs) have been increasingly unacceptable in this context since Classical French” (Coveney 2002:  190). His informants judged sentences such as the following as ungrammatical: (8) *Qu’oublié-je? “What did I forget?” (Coveney 2002: 190, example (100), my translation) The class of verbs which can still be inverted with je has become restricted to the following lexical items: suis, ai, puis, dis, dois, sais, vais, fais, vois, and veux in descending order of acceptability (according to four grammars which the author has evaluated, cf. Coveney 2002: 190). Such a lexicalization could be taken as an indicator of the loss of productivity of Pronominal inversion. Turning to second person subjects, Behnstedt (1973: 152) reports no influence of the singular pronoun tu on Pronominal inversion (in radio speech). Terry (1970: 90) finds that second person plural pronouns show “[…] a preference for inversion”, whereas Behnstedt (1973:  152, in regard to radio speech) claims the contrary. A number of authors observe a virtual restriction of Pronominal inversion to the context of second person subject pronouns in varieties of Quebec French (cf. Auger 1996: 26, Barbarie 1982: 161, 210, Fox 1989, Morin 1985, Picard 1992, Rodriguez 1991, St-Pierre 1977: 3). With regard to third person subject pronouns, Coveney (2002: 210) states that Pronominal inversion leads to a resyllabification of the last consonant of the verb.3 Inversion questions are therefore disfavored in this context due to perceptual difficulties. The inversion of ce “[…] seems only barely acceptable today with anything but est […]” (Coveney 2002:  209). Coveney’s statements contradict Behnstedt’s (1973: 152) assertion that (in radio speech) third person singular subjects favor Pronominal inversion (and plural ones disfavor it). Tonic subject pronouns (such as ça and cela) and nominal subjects may appear either preverbally (in intonation questions and Complex inversion) or postverbally

3. Coveney (2002: 210) cites sentence (i) as evidence in favor of this assumption. A native speaker of French misinterpreted the sentence as involving ces styles instead of cessent-ils. (i)

Cessent-ils pour autant d’être des chômeurs? “Do they in return cease from being unemployed persons?” (Antenne 2, 5 February 1988) (Coveney 2002: 210, example (191), my translation)

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Grammatical Variation across Space and Time

(in Simple and Free inversion).4 Behnstedt (1973: 145–148)5, Coveney (2002: 209), and Fromaigeat (1938:  30) agree in their statement that the third person (nonclitic) subject pronouns cela and ça disfavor Complex inversion. Verb identity: Another factor group which supposedly influences the choice of interrogative variants is the identity of the lexical verb. Several authors claim that Pronominal inversion is currently restricted to lexically fixed expressions (cf. Ashby 1977:  43), such as as-tu, est-il/-elle, avez-vous (Behnstedt 1973:  52), vois-tu, voyez-vous, penses-tu and comprenez-vous (Behnstedt 1973: 21, 52, Dewaele 1999, Pohl 1965: 511). Dewaele (1999: 174) lists five verbs which arguably favor the use of Pronominal inversion: avoir, pouvoir, trouver, faire, and vouloir. In his analysis of radio speech and middle class speech and attitudes, Behnstedt (1973: 52–58, 149–151) reports a favoring effect of modal and auxiliary verbs on Pronominal inversion. Yet even here the postverbal occurrence of the subject pronoun does not appear to be productive but rather restricted to a limited class of certain lexical contexts (such as voulez-vous, veut-il, pouvez-vous, peut-on, etc.). Modal and auxiliary verbs: As I mentioned in the preceding paragraph, modal and auxiliary verbs have a favorable influence on the choice of Pronominal inversion according to a number of authors (e.g. Behnstedt 1973: 286–289, Coveney 2002: 210, Terry 1970: 90, 92, Wandruszka 1970: 69). It therefore seems necessary to attach due attention to this group of verbs. Verbal tense and mood: Terry (1970: 87) reports a favoring effect of the imperfect, the pluperfect, and the (present and perfect) conditional on Pronominal inversion. In line with the previously mentioned claim that modals and auxiliaries favor this variant, Ashby (1977: 40) states that all periphrastic tenses favor it. According to Behnstedt (1973: 153), the (synthetic and periphrastic) future favors Pronominal inversion in radio speech, whereas the conditional and the imperfect disfavor it.

4. “Cela/ça itself, of course, cannot be inverted at all, as in ([i]) and can only occur with an inverted ‘reprise’ il, as in ([ii]) […] and even then sounds rather awkward […]” (Coveney 2002: 209). The author refers to Complex inversion (cf. (ii)). (i) is an instance of Simple inversion which is ungrammatical in contemporary varieties of French. (i) *Va-ça/cela servir en Angleterre? “Will that be of use in England?” (Coveney 2002: 209, example (185), my translation) (ii) Cela va-t-il se servir en Angleterre? (Coveney 2002: 209, example (186)) Cf. Kayne & Pollock (2001) and Pollock (2006) for an account of the observation that only tonic third person subject pronouns may occur in Stylistic and Complex inversion. 5.

Elsewhere, Behnstedt (1973: 131) reports a favoring influence of cela on (Complex) inversion.



Chapter 2.  Overview of the literature 

Length of the inflected verb (number of syllables): The length of the verb has also been mentioned in the literature as a determining factor: Behnstedt (1973: 152– 153, with regard to radio speech) states that the shorter the verb (in terms of its number of syllables) the more likely Pronominal inversion is; and, conversely, the longer the verb is – three or more syllables – the less likely Pronominal inversion is to occur (compare (9) with (10)). (9) peut-on can-we (10) accepteriez-vous accept.COND.2PL-you.2Pl (Behnstedt 1973: 152, Section 4.4.1.2.2., my translation) Polarity: Negated questions are said to disfavor the use of Pronominal inversion (cf. Terry 1970: 92). Coveney (2002: 212) cites (and contests) Borillo’s (1979: 27) claim that this variant is disfavored by negatively-biased negated questions (i.e. questions involving a negation marker and presupposing a negative answer, cf. (11)) and that it is favored by positively-biased negated questions (i.e. questions involving a negation marker and presupposing an affirmative answer, cf. (12)). B:…is ont pas goûté les enfants? / X: non non mais il est pas quatre heures / B: il est pas quatre heures? ^ / X: non (il est seulement…) / (29673) “B: Haven’t they eaten, the children? X: No, no, but it isn’t four o’clock. B: It is not four o’clock? X: No, it’s only…” (Coveney 2002: 168, example (137), my translation) (11)

(12) B:… mais c’est toujours comme ça c’est-à-dire que / c’est l copain d quelqu’un qu est déjà venu ici // et en fait l’autre se porte un peu garant d la personne qu’il a introduit au groupe tu vois? // …ça ça évite des problèmes. bon maintenant / est-ce que c’est bon aussi? j veux dire est-ce qu’on vit pas un peu sur nous-mêmes? (et) ça j’en sais rien. / (21224) “B: But it’s always like that, which means that it’s the friend of someone who has already come here; and in fact, the other one vouches somewhat for the person whom he has introduced to the group, you know? That avoids problems, well now is it good like this? I mean, don’t we live somewhat on our own? and I have no idea about that.” (Coveney 2002: 172, example (154), my translation) Markedness and emphasis: There is little unanimity in the literature with regard to the question as to which variant is the unmarked default one and which one rather

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Grammatical Variation across Space and Time

transfers emphasis. Coveney (2002: 212) and Behnstedt (1973: 31) claim that Pronominal inversion is the emphatic, marked variant, while Terry (1970: 104) states that “[i]nversion […] has a very weak interrogative intensity and is used in a large part for purely rhetorical or for exclamatory questions. It is also inversion that is chosen when there is a relatively weak curiosity attached to the evoked response.” According to the author, it is unsuitable for expressing surprise, astonishment, or interrogative intensity (cf. Terry 1970: 104). 2.1.1.2 Stylistic Factors.  It is widely accepted that subject-verb inversion is favored by a formal, careful, or literary style of conversation (Behnstedt 1973: 75, 124, de Boer 1926:  315, Coveney 2002:  98, Pohl 1965:  512, Söll 1971:  499). Behnstedt (1973: 31) states that it preferentially appears in the parlure bourgeoise when the question is emphatic. According to Fontaney (1991: 113) and Terry (1970: 107), Complex inversion is indicative of a formal, polite, literary, and even archaic style. Pronominal inversion is likely to co-occur with the verbs vouloir and permettre in contexts of politeness (Terry 1970: 90, 102, 107). Interestingly (and contrary to the above statements), Pohl (1965:  513) affirms that inversion is favored in texts written by uneducated rural Gaumais villagers from Belgium (which indicates that even a low level of education does not prevent writers from preferring to use the standard variants)6. In general, however, inversion is disfavored in colloquial and familiar speech (Söll 1971: 499). Contrary to expectation, Ashby (1977: 40) found in his data that subject-verb inversion occurs more frequently towards the end of the interview than in the beginning. The author expected the contrary; as a feature of formal speech it should be more likely to appear when the interlocutors still have to become familiar with each other. A number of communicative functions have been ascribed to inversion questions. It is claimed to be mostly used in rhetorical questions (Ashby 1977:  43, Behnstedt 1973: 116, Coveney 2002: 212, Terry 1970: 104, cf. (13)), in questions which express a probability or a possibility in conjunction with a verb in the conditional (Terry 1970: 87, cf. (14)), in sub-topic introducing questions (Dewaele 1999: 174, cf. (15)), monologues (Terry 1970: 105, cf. (16)), and in exclamatory questions expressing a weak curiosity about the answer (Terry 1970: 104, cf. (17)). Behnstedt (1973: 196) states that inversion questions are neither particularly favored nor disfavored when the question presupposes the answer.

6. Dialects of Belgian French (e.g. Walloon and possibly also Gaumais) are qualified as rather conservative (cf. Michel 1999: 39). The presence of Pronominal inversion in the language production by speakers of these dialects might be a consequence thereof.



Chapter 2.  Overview of the literature 

(13) Comment veux-tu que…? “How do you want that...” (Coveney 2002: 209, example (182)) (14)

Seriez-vous belliciste, revanchard? “Would you be warmonger, revanchist?” 12:2p9c1b (Terry 1970: 87, example b))

(15) *TER: je pense je crois qu’il faut vraiment euh connaître une langue très bien. *MAR: oui. *TER: euh assez pour enseigner ça c’est le cas bien sûr. *MAR: et voudriez-vous euh enseigner dans un collège pour les adultes # comme Birkbeck? “TER: I think I believe that one really needs to know a language very well. MAR: Yes. TER: Sufficiently to teach it that’s of course the case. MAR: and would you like to teach in a college for adults like Birkbeck?” (Dewaele 1999: 174–175, example 12) (16)

Arriverai-je un jour à finir cette phrase? “Will I manage to finish this sentence one day?” 19:Ip7c2t (Terry 1970: 87, example b)

(17)

Ne sont-ils pas charmants, la tête alourdie de songe? “Aren’t they charming, the head weighted with dreams?” 12:9p33c2b (Terry 1970: 105, example b) my translations

2.1.1.3 Social Factors.  As for the social factors, Ashby (1977:  51) found that Pronominal inversion is preferentially used by old speakers over 50 years of age and by young speakers under 30 years of age, by male informants, and by administrators and professionals (as opposed to teachers and students). However, his results are hardly representative since they are based on no more than twelve tokens of inversion. Behnstedt (1973: 75, 124) states that the use of Pronominal inversion is particularly frequent when one of the interlocutors has a high social prestige in contrast to the other, i.e. in cases of social inequality between the speakers.

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Grammatical Variation across Space and Time

2.1.2 Intonation questions 2.1.2.1 Linguistic Factors.  Among the linguistic factors which allegedly favor intonation questions are all subject pronouns and ça (cf. Barbarie 1982: 1617, Terry 1970:  90, as for radio speech cf. Behnstedt 1973:  131, 141, 145), a dislocated nominal subject (cf. Söll 1971: 497, 504, Terry 1970: 100), the verbs aller, être, and dire (cf. Terry 1970: 92), periphrastic tenses, the future and the present perfect (cf. Terry 1970: 87–89), negation (cf. Söll 1971: 498, Terry 1970: 92), and interrogative particles such as hein, non, oui, or quoi (cf. Söll 1971: 497). Intonation questions are claimed to be disfavored by emphatic or marked contexts expressing surprise, astonishment, or interrogative intensity (Behnstedt 1973: 31, 189, Coveney 2002: 205, Pohl 1965: 506), nouns, the conjunction mais, and adverbs such as vraiment, véritablement, and réellement (in radio speech, cf. Behnstedt 1973:  144, 190, 194), as well as in quoted questions (Coveney 2002: 206). Coveney (2002: 179) states that intonation questions (when lacking a modal or auxiliary verb and when involving a request for action) do not occur with an equal likelihood with all kinds of lexical verbs in the present tense (cf. (18) with (19)). (18) ?*Tu pars deux minutes (s’il te plaît)? “Will you please leave for two minutes?” (19) Tu t’éloignes deux minutes (s’il te plaît)? “Will you please move away for two minutes?” (Coveney 2002: 179, examples (22) and (23)) He discusses Givón’s (1978: 89) claim “[…] that external negation tends to be expressed in natural languages by special marked patterns” (cited in Coveney 2002:  207) and hence disfavors the intonation variant. The author could not confirm this assertion in his data, finding interrogative sentences such as the following (which is in line with Borillo (1979: 27)): (20) … t as quelques gamins qui sont bien mûrs et qui eux viennent discuter avec toi / ‘on pourrait pas faire ceci? moi (j’ai) j voudrais bien aller à l / faire une rando comme ça’… (2397) “you have some kids who are quite mature and who come to debate with you ‘could we do this? I would like to go for a walk like this …” (Coveney 2002: 208, example (178))

7. The author found an equally favoring effect of the subject pronoun tu on both inversion and intonation questions.



Chapter 2.  Overview of the literature 

2.1.2.2 Stylistic Factors.  According to Coveney (2002: 234), the intonation variant has a lower socio-stylistic status than other interrogative variants. It is the favored variant in a colloquial or familiar speech style (Coveney 2002: 98, Pohl 1965: 512). In Ashby’s data (1977: 40), intonation questions are more often chosen in the first part of the interview than in the second part. Many communicative functions have been attributed to intonation questions, in particular by Coveney (2002). They are supposedly favored by requests for action and suggestions with a second person pronominal subject and a lexical verb in the present tense, or by suggestions with the subject on and a lexical verb (Coveney 2002: 178, 179), a contextual setting in which the author of the question presupposes the answer (Behnstedt 1973: 196), information questions (Coveney 2002: 207, Fontaney 1991: 129), positively-biased questions (Behnstedt 1973:  189), echo questions (Ashby 1977:  38), postannouncements, fixed locutions, positively biased affirmative questions, checks on the knowledge of the speaker, requests for clarification, self-addressed requests for reminder of content and negatively biased negative questions (Coveney 2002: 180–182), when an interlocutor repeats a question (because he or she did not fully understand it or found it not credible, cf. Pohl 1965: 505), requests for reminder and repetition, routine questions, general requests, and offers. The intonation variant is claimed to be disfavored by rhetorical questions (Ashby 1977: 43, Coveney 2002: 212, Fontaney 1991: 132, and Terry 1970: 100), as well as sub-topic introducing questions (Coveney 2002:  200), tentative and emphatic assertions (Coveney 2002:  180–182), and quoted positively-biased affirmative requests for information (Coveney 2002: 201). I refrain from providing examples for the communicative functions mentioned here and in the following. The attempt to verify or falsify these claims in the present data (i.e. the Ottawa-Hull French corpus, the Récits du français québécois d’autrefois, and the fifteenth to seventeenth century literature and plays) has proven to be quite unsuccessful. On the one hand, it is virtually impossible (except in the most obvious cases) to decide for each and every token to which extent the speaker insinuates a certain (positive or negative) answer from his or her interlocutor. On the other hand, the categories of the diverse communicative functions are not always mutually exclusive. However, this is a necessary prerequisite for conducting a variable rule analysis. Due to the lack of a reliable system which allows for the numerous communicative functions to be operationalized into coding factors which exhaustively account for the data, I desisted from coding for these claims.

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Grammatical Variation across Space and Time

2.1.2.3 Social Factors.  Behnstedt (1973:  118) states that intonation questions represent a colloquial interrogative form which is therefore more likely to be used in conversations with children. According to Coveney (2002: 234), the intonation variant is preferentially used by young and male speakers from the intermediate social class. 2.1.3 -tu questions 2.1.3.1 Linguistic Factors.  Little has been said in the literature about the use and the conditioning of -tu questions (-ti questions in European French). Behnstedt (1973: 27–28, 31) states that this variant is favored by the subject pronouns ils and elles, as well as by ce in the lexically fixed expression c’est-ti. Furthermore, he states that it is a feature of emphasis or markedness. Barbarie (1982: 162) found a favoring effect exerted by subject nouns. The particle is less likely to occur with the subject pronoun on and in the lexically fixed expressions j’y vas-ti and c’est-i que (Behnstedt 1973: 28). 2.1.3.2 Stylistic Factors.  Both Behnstedt (1973: 26) and Coveney (2002: 98) claim that -tu questions are a feature of speech produced by rural, working-class and uneducated speakers. Pohl (1965: 505) says that it sometimes occurs in jokes. 2.1.4 Est-ce que questions 2.1.4.1 Linguistic Factors.  According to a number of authors, subject pronouns favor est-ce que questions (Fontaney 1991: 139, Terry 1970: 90). Ashby (1977: 39) found that nouns disfavor this variant. In contrast to these authors, Behnstedt (1973: 144–145) observes that est-ce que is favored by the subjects ça, cela, and by subject nouns but disfavored by pronominal subjects. If the first person subject pronoun je co-occurs with an er conjugated verb in the present tense, est-ce que questions are favored over the other variants according to Daudon (1962:  17). Terry (1970:  92) states that the verb avoir exerts a favoring influence. Negation supposedly has a disfavoring effect on the choice of est-ce que questions, as Söll (1971:  498) states. Coveney (2002:  207) discusses Givón’s (1978:  89) claim that positively-biased negated questions favor est-ce que. He concludes, however, that this is not the case. Long and quoted questions arguably represent a favorable context for est-ce que (Coveney 2002: 206, Grundström 1973: 25). Several authors affirm that est-ce que questions express markedness or interrogative intensity,



Chapter 2.  Overview of the literature 

contrary to intonation questions (cf. Behnstedt 1973: 189,193, de Boer 1926: 319, Coveney 2002: 205, Pohl 1965: 506, Söll 1971: 498, Terry 1970: 103). 2.1.4.2 Stylistic Factors.  The authors disagree considerably when it comes to the style which is most suitable for the use of est-ce que: According to Terry (1970: 102), est-ce que indicates a literary style. Coveney (2002: 98) qualifies it as neutral (cf. also Behnstedt 1973: 104) although inelegant in writing. He attributes a higher sociostylistic status to est-ce que than to intonation questions (Coveney 2002: 98). Vigner (1978: 88) states that est-ce que questions may be used to express politeness and that the verbs vouloir and permettre are particularly privileged in this context. Söll (1971: 498) claims that a colloquial style of conversation disfavors the use of est-ce que. Many authors, however, affirm that colloquial, familiar, uneducated, rural, or working-class speech styles favor the use of this variant (de Boer 1926: 314, Daudon 1962: 17, Foulet 1921: 312, Mansion 1928: 190, Pohl 1965: 512). Coveney (2002: 205) and Söll (1983: 47) state that est-ce que is preferentially used in the beginning of a conversational unit. A number of communicative functions have been attributed to est-ce que questions. Terry (1970: 104) states that this variant is the preferred form in affective rhetorical questions expressing impatience or doubt and in which the author of the respective question has a keen desire to know the response (cf. also Fontaney 1991: 138). Coveney (2002: 207) disagrees by stating that est-ce que questions are used when the author of the question knows the answer in advance. Subtopic introducing questions have been proposed to be a favorable context for this variant by Behnstedt (1973:  146), Coveney (2002:  205) and Söll (1971:  498, 1983: 47). Ashby (1977: 43) and Behnstedt (1973: 116) claim that rhetorical questions are less likely to be est-ce que questions. Coveney (2002: 201, 207) states that pre-announcements and questions whose author expects an answer represent an unfavorable context for est-ce que questions. 2.1.4.3 Social Factors.  According to Coveney (2002:  234), the speakers who preferentially use est-ce que questions are women, rather old speakers, and speakers from the upper social class. Barbarie (1982: 154), who analyzed Quebec French, specifies retailers, teachers, and senior executives as the occupational classes who prefer the use of this variant. 2.2 Grammatical treatment of the variants In this subsection, I provide a short review of the statements made in the normative and prescriptive literature and grammars with regard to the yes/no interrogative



Grammatical Variation across Space and Time

variants. The evaluation of this kind of literature is useful since it may serve as an indicator as to what time a certain variant emerged and what role it played in a particular period. An explicit repulse of a specific, perhaps innovative, form suggests that its usage has reached an extent where it provoked a rejection by prescriptivists. For this purpose, grammars covering the time from the middle of the sixteenth century (Meigret 1550) up to the late twentieth century (Riegel et al. 1994) have been consulted (cf. Poplack et al. 2002, Poplack et al., in preparation). Grammars from before the first quarter of the twentieth century treat Pronominal inversion as if it were the only way to form a question (Beauzée 1767: 416, Demandre 1802:  230–231, Lhomond 1810:  60–61, Meigret 1550:  69, Oudin 1633: 80–81, Radouant 1922: 232, Ramée 1587: 170–171). However, the existence of other variants such as intonation and est-ce que questions was already recognized by Radouant (1922:  233) for intonation questions and by Demandre (1802: 263), Lhomond (1810: 60–61) and Radouant (1922: 232–233) for est-ce que questions. Earlier grammars (Meigret 1550:  67–69, Wailly 1786:  184–185, 211) mention the use of a conjugated form of the copula être and of the inverted demonstrative pronoun ce yielding interrogatives of the still ungrammaticalized pattern ‘est/sont/…-ce + NP + qui/que’ (cf. (21)). (21) Traître, traître Lysandre, est-ce là donc le fruit / Qu’en faveur de mes feux ton amitié produit? “Traitor, traitor Lysandre, is this then the fruit which your friendship creates in favor of my fires?” (Corneille.284.1107) From the earliest grammars on, est-ce que and its different derivatives have been considered as incongruent or inelegant redundancies (Dauzat 1958, Meigret 1550:  67–69) and as indicative of common spoken speech styles (Chevalier et al. 1978: 94, Dauzat 1958, Demandre 1802: 362, Gougenheim 1962: 274, Grevisse 1993: 604, Radouant 1922: 232–233). Some grammarians recognize the existence of Complex inversion. If an interrogative clause contains a preverbal nominal subject, it may still contain a postverbal resumptive subject pronoun which has the same referee as the noun (Beauzée 1767: 416, Damourette & Pichon 1930: 336, Demandre 1802: 230–231, Riegel et al. 1994: 392–393). Grammarians from the nineteenth century state that an inverted third person subject pronoun is phonologically attached to the inflected verb by the phoneme /t/ (Demandre 1802: 230–231, Lhomond 1810: 60–61). Since the early nineteenth century, est-ce que has been claimed to be a more appropriate variant than Pronominal inversion when the subject is the first person pronoun je (Chevalier et al.  1978:  93, Gaiffe et al.  1936:  77, Grevisse 1993:  606, Lhomond 1810: 60–61, Radouant 1922: 233, Riegel et al. 1994: 393) or when it is the



Chapter 2.  Overview of the literature 

impersonal pronoun ce (in the not yet grammaticalized form, according to Wailly (1786: 211) and in its grammaticalized form contained in /εsk/, according to Grevisse (1993: 606)). Demandre (1802: 263) notes that the use of est-ce and of its derivatives is disfavored by plural forms of the copula être, indicating that at the outset of the nineteenth century, the grammaticalization of est-ce que had reached a point where even the normative and prescriptive literature had to take it into account. Starting in the 1930s, a change in the grammatical evaluation of the variants was discernible. More grammars than before acknowledge the existence of a variable system of yes/no interrogatives in French and address the problem of the conditioning of the particular variants. Damourette & Pichon (1930:  329) and Gaiffe et al. (1936: 74–75) recognize that intonation can have the same interrogative function as Pronominal inversion. Although the variant -ti/-tu has been mentioned in a number of grammars since then (Arrivé et al. 1986: 349–350, Chevalier et al.  1978:  93, Damourette & Pichon 1930:  340, Dauzat 1958:  429, Gaiffe et al. 1936: 75, Grevisse 1993: 610), its use was widely (dis)qualified as being a feature of vulgar, popular, or rural style French. Dauzat (1958: 429) even considers this variant as ridiculous. Only Grevisse (1993: 597–599) offers a comprehensive discussion of the use of this particle. The grammars which postdate 1930 claim that Pronominal inversion is the most frequent variant among yes/no questions (Chevalier et al.  1978:  94) used with all subject pronouns including demonstrative ce (Riegel et al. 1994: 392–393), unless the subject is the first person singular pronoun je in which case est-ce que is preferred (Arrivé et al. 1986: 349, Chevalier et al. 1978: 94, Gougenheim 1962: 273, Grevisse 1993: 596). According to Riegel et al. (1994: 392–393), Pronominal inversion may even be used in this linguistic context if co-occurring with a high frequency verb or with a verb in the future or in the conditional. Grevisse (1993: 596) and Riegel et al. (1994: 392–393) concede that est-ce que has turned into a fixed formula and that other conjugated forms of the copula être are highly improbable in these contexts. Gaiffe et al. (1936: 75) assert that Pronominal inversion is the only licit variant when the question alludes to the truth of an event. It is only towards the end of the twentieth century that grammars admit that Pronominal inversion is a feature of cultivated, literary, or written styles of French (Grevisse 1993: 584, Riegel et al. 1994: 392) or that it appears in the French vernacular only in certain regions, as in Normandy or Wallony (Grevisse 1993: 596). With regard to the diachronic evolution of inversion questions, the general consensus is that Simple Inversion (i.e. the emplacement of the nominal subject in a position immediately to the right of the inflected verb and preceding non-finite verbal elements) was in use from the twelfth up to the sixteenth century when it disappeared (Chevalier et al.  1978:  90–91, Damourette & Pichon 1930:  332, Dauzat 1958:  430, Grevisse 1993:  604) and that it was replaced by Complex Inversion



Grammatical Variation across Space and Time

(i.e. the resumption of a preverbal subject noun by a coindexed subject clitic in a position attached to the right of the inflected verb) (Chevalier et al. 1978: 90–91, Dauzat 1958: 430, Grevisse 1993: 604). Several grammarians even note a tendency towards a general loss of all types of inversion (be it inversion of the nominal subject or of the subject clitic) (Arrivé et al. 1986: 348, Dauzat 1958: 428, Grevisse 1993). There is no unanimity among the grammarians as to the question of whether the inversion constructions are originally due to a Germanic influence (Dauzat 1958: 428, Gaiffe et al. 1936: 75) or not (Damourette & Pichon 1930: 332, Grevisse 1993: 604). Interrogatives by intonation alone are claimed to be less frequent than other variants (Gaiffe et al. 1936: 74–75) and (contrary to Pronominal inversion) most adequate for a spoken and not a written style (except in written dialogues and in theater plays) (Arrivé et al. 1986: 348, Chevalier et al. 1978: 96, Dauzat 1958: 432, Grevisse 1993: 610, Riegel et al. 1994: 392). Little has been said about the conditioning of this variant: it establishes a “[…] rapport plus étroit […]” than inversion, according to Arrivé et al. (1986: 355). It is the only licit variant in false interrogatives, or when the question aims at a deduction, when it expresses doubt or, alternatively, in wh-questions with an omitted wh-word, according to Grevisse (1993: 610). In Old and Middle French, it served to express surprise, according to the same author (1993: 613). Arrivé et al. (1986: 356) claim that a negated intonation question is neutral in so far as it presupposes neither an affirmative nor a negative answer. With regard to the diachrony of intonation questions, it was proposed that they emerged in the thirteenth century (Dauzat 1958: 432) or even in vulgar Latin texts (Kibbee et al.  2006:  239–240), that they were still rare in Middle and Old French (Grevisse 1993:  613), but that their use is currently on the increase together with est-ce que and at the expense of Pronominal inversion (Chevalier et al. 1978: 96). The interrogative particle -ti (or -tu) appears in two linguistic environments where it does not necessarily indicate a vulgar style: in ne voilà-t-il pas (Gougenheim 1962: 274) and in c’est-il (Gougenheim 1962: 274, Grevisse 1993: 598). These two contexts are proposed to be the source of the now grammaticalized particle. Furthermore, -ti was proposed to be restricted to yes/no questions (Arrivé et al. 1986: 350), to occur with all kinds of subjects and only rarely in inverted interrogatives (Grevisse 1993: 597), to be pronounced [ty] in colloquial Quebec French (Grevisse 1993: 599), to appear in the hypercorrection il y a ti (Grevisse 1993: 598), to bear an exclamatory value (Damourette & Pichon 1930: 343), and to be used in written documents only when imitating a popular speech style (Grevisse 1993:  597). The use of this variant is thought to be regionally limited to the vernaculars of Lower Maine, of the banks of the Loire, to Occitan and Provençal dialects (Damourette & Pichon



Chapter 2.  Overview of the literature

1930: 340), to the Normandy, and to Quebec (Grevisse 1993: 598), while it is supposedly absent from Belgian French (Grevisse 1993: 597). When considering the diachronic evolution of this variant, grammarians agree that it is a residue of inverted il and a ‘/t/ de liaison’ which grammaticalized and subsequently became licit with all sorts of subjects (Arrivé et al. 1986: 349–350, Chevalier et al.  1978:  93, Dauzat 1958:  429, Gougenheim 1962:  274, Grevisse 1993: 598, Riegel et al. 1994: 393). There is disagreement about the time when -ti emerged: most of the grammarians state that this happened in the sixteenth century. Grevisse (1993: 598) claims that -ti did not appear before the eighteenth century, while stating at the same time that c’est-il was already used in the fifteenth century. Dauzat (1958: 429) and Grevisse (1993: 598) both claim that the use of this variant is declining, among other things, due to schooling. The interrogative expression est-ce que grammaticalized in the fifteenth century (Gaiffe et al. 1936: 76). Due to this process, it has gradually lost its original meaning of ‘is it the case that’ (Damourette & Pichon 1930:  338–340, Dauzat 1958:  431). Some authors, however, claim that est-ce que may still carry this interpretation (Arrivé et al. 1986: 350, Damourette & Pichon 1930: 338–340). One of the results of this development is the fact that the copula est in est-ce que no longer shows person, number, and tense agreement (Grevisse 1993:  607). Radouant (1922:  232) notes that est-ce que and Complex Inversion are mutually incompatible. Much has been said about the stylistic evaluation of this variant: the attributes range from popular and vulgar (Dauzat 1958, Gaiffe et al. 1936: 76–77) over negligent in spoken style where est-ce que may be phonologically reduced to /skә/ (Grevisse 1993: 609) to heavy. Due to these reasons, it is characterized as a variant which should be avoided (Chevalier et al. 1978: 94, Dauzat 1958, Gaiffe et al. 1936: 77). According to Dauzat (1958), the already inelegant est-ce que variant turns into an unnecessary redundancy when introducing a predicative clause (est-ce que c’est…), a form which Grevisse (1993: 609) qualifies as indicative for a familiar (colloquial) speech style. In spoken French, est-ce que and intonation questions have ousted Pronominal inversion (Grevisse 1993: 608). While Chevalier et al. (1978: 91, 94) claim that est-ce que was originally not evaluated by the speakers of French as a variant of the standard variety and that by consequence it was avoided in written style, Damourette & Pichon (1930:  340), Grevisse (1993:  605), and Riegel et al. (1994: 393) assert that this variant was and still is used both in written and in oral styles of speech even though seventeenth century grammars denounced its use, according to Gaiffe et al.  (1936:  76). Grevisse (1993:  606) reports that the Académie Française approved the use of est-ce que in the 1930s; however, since 1987, the Académie has recommended that this variant be avoided. Gaiffe et al. (1936: 76) and Dauzat (1958) state that est-ce que is favored in emphatic interrogatives.





Grammatical Variation across Space and Time

With regard to the diachronic evolution of est-ce que, Gaiffe et al. (1936: 76) affirm that it had already emerged in the twelfth century (in colloquial French). According to Dauzat (1958: 431) and Grevisse (1993: 608), it has its origin in the sixteenth century. The copula verb est in est-ce que could show person, number, and tense agreement until the seventeenth century (Grevisse 1993: 608). At this time, est-ce que was a feature of a familiar speech style (Chevalier et al. 1978: 91, Riegel et al. 1994: 393). There is agreement among grammarians that the success of est-ce que in modern French is due to its ousting of Pronominal inversion (Chevalier et al.  1978:  93, Gaiffe et al.  1936:  76, Grevisse 1993:  608, Riegel et al. 1994: 393). Finally, with regard to polarity, almost all grammarians state that negated interrogatives presuppose an affirmative answer to the question (Arrivé et al.  1986:  355–356, Chevalier et al.  1978:  95, Demandre 1802:  226, Grevisse 1993: 589, Radouant 1922: 233, Riegel et al. 1994: 400–401). This brief survey of the grammars has shown that variants of subject-verb inversion (or more precisely Pronominal and Complex inversion in the case of yes/ no questions) represent the default forms from a prescriptive perspective. Although the existence of other variants has been recognized by many grammarians, they are most often relegated to a popular style and hence said to be avoided. Only some of the more recent grammars from the twentieth century have begun to acknowledge and cease from condemning their usage. I now turn to the presentation of the data and methods used in this study in order to contribute my own empirical view on this matter.

chapter 3

Data and methods 3.1 Methodological fundamentals of variation theory The present research makes use of the statistical tools known as variable rule analysis which were originally developed by Cedergren & Sankoff (1974) and elaborated by Rand & Sankoff (1990). It has become a standardized analytical method in the frameworks of sociolinguistics and variation theory. Its aim is to define the effects of the linguistic, social, and stylistic factors which condition the variable (and categorical) choice of one variant or another of a dependent variable in the context of spontaneous speech. In order to achieve this goal, the commonalities which link the lone occurrences or tokens in the database together or which set sub-groups of them apart have to be detected. Every single question is an individual interrogative token. Variable rule analysis helps to discover patterns which unite certain groups of tokens and set them apart from the rest (cf. Poplack & Tagliamonte 2001: 89). When a corpus with recorded and transcribed data is at hand, the first methodological step is the extraction of the tokens from the database. This implies a decision as to which tokens to consider and which tokens to discard from the analysis. An important axiom at this stage is the Principle of Accountability (cf. Labov 1972c). Poplack & Tagliamonte (2001) describe the principle as follows: The principle of accountability specifies that values must be reported for “every case where the variable element occurs in the relevant environments as we have defined them” (Labov [1972c]:72). This requires that an analysis account not only for the cases in which the process of interest applied, but also for all of the contexts in which it could have applied, even when it did not. (Poplack & Tagliamonte 2001: 89)

The variables under study here (i.e. the different ways of framing either a yes/no or a wh-question) do not so much concern the presence of a certain linguistic item compared to its absence – as is the case, for instance, with regard to the deletion of the complementizer que (cf. Dion 2003, Martineau 1988). The variables this study deals with rather encompass up to seven different variants from which the speaker can choose. In this case, the Principle of Accountability demands that all of these variants be considered and not only the ones which may be interesting from a structural



Grammatical Variation across Space and Time

or syntactic point of view. For example, if one wishes to gain insight into the syntax of subject-verb inversion in spontaneous discourse, it would be insufficient to analyze only those cases in which the subject inverts. Instead, one should also take into consideration all those contexts where the subject could have inverted but did not and where another variant occurs. Only through this procedure is it possible to define the rules and conditions which allow and block the inversion of the subject. Intimately connected with the Principle of Accountability is the so-called circumscription of the variable context. This relates to the fact that not every token which at first sight seems to be a valid participant of the phenomenon under scrutiny is indeed part of the variable context. The variable context defines those linguistic contexts where all variants may be equally chosen by the speaker (without yet taking into account the variable conditioning factors). If there is a certain context in which the use of one variant is categorical (and the use of the respective other variants is ruled out or simply never occurs), this context has to be excluded from the variable rule analysis (cf. Tagliamonte 2006: 13, 98). The reason for this is threefold, as Tagliamonte (2006:  87) explains: first, the inclusion of categorical contexts into the variable rule analysis would falsely underrate the actual strength and the extent of application of the variable effects on the preference of one variant over another. Second, it would skew the quantitative effect of the variable rule itself according to which one variant is preferred over another in an actual discourse context. Finally, it would not do justice to the linguistically relevant distinction between categorical and variable contexts. In the case at hand, the empirical evaluation of the data has revealed a virtually categorical restriction of negated yes/no questions to the intonation variant (cf. (22)). No matter what the linguistic or pragmatic reason for this phenomenon might be, it is not part of the variable context. (22) Bien c’est- tu as jamais couché dans une- dans une ca-- dans une cabane dede neige tant qu’on joue là? “Well it’s- you have never slept in a snow hut while we are playing there?” (OH.105.922) For the same reason (i.e. invariance), lexicalized chunks have to be discarded. If a certain construction involving one of the variants appears again and again without the slightest modification (be it a change of the interrogative marker or a change of the tense and mood of the verb), then this construction is most likely to be formulaic and hence not a participant of the variable context. In the nineteenth and twentieth century data, this was the case with c’est-tu (cf. (23)).1 1. Interestingly, this is exactly the context where the use of the interrogative particle is most accepted by normative grammarians (Gougenheim 1962: 274, Grevisse 1993: 598).



Chapter 3.  Data and methods 

(23) Fait que, c’est-tu du bon français ça? “Is this good French?” (OH.106.1414) In general, invariant forms such as these need to be excluded since they would impair the statistical analysis which relies on the precondition that each and every token allow for the use of the respective other variants. Another group of tokens which has to be eliminated from the variable rule analysis are those “[…] forms that do not have the relevant function” (Tagliamonte 2006: 98). This happens when one or the other of the interrogative variants occur in a context which is not interrogative (but e.g. exclamative), cf. (24). (24) […] il dit tout à net, il dit c’est-tu beau un peu! Il a conté ça tout à net. “He says frankly, he says, this is so beautiful! He has told this frankly.” (RFQ.005.42) Poplack & Tagliamonte (2001) describe the circumscription of the variable context in the following terms: Accounting for all the relevant data entails circumscription of “the largest homogeneous class in which all subclasses vary in the same way” (Labov [1972c]:72), excluding from that envelope invariant subclasses and irregular cases. In practical terms, this involves identifying the specific contexts in which the variants of a linguistic variable may alternate without change in representational meaning. (Poplack & Tagliamonte 2001: 90)

After extracting all the relevant tokens from the database and after excluding those which are not part of the variable context, the tokens are ready to be coded according to the factors which supposedly influence variable choice. Each factor should be based on a well-founded and checkable hypothesis. Some hypotheses can be verified directly in the token file; for example, the claim that an interrogative sentence with a verb in a periphrastic tense is less likely to show subject-verb inversion than an interrogative with a verb in a synthetic tense (cf. Ashby 1977: 40). In this case, each token is assigned a code as to whether its verb appears in a periphrastic or in a synthetic tense form. Other hypotheses are less straightforward and are based on more abstract phenomena. A widely-discussed example is the style of the conversation (cf. Bell 1984, Labov 1972a, Labov 2001a among others). A notion such as style lends itself well to subjective and hence arbitrary evaluations. The statistical variable rule analysis, however, requires that each token be assigned a code based on well-defined and objective criteria. The concept style thus has to be operationalized in a way that the tokens are classified into unambiguous and mutually-exclusive sub-classes. In my opinion, the classification provided by Labov (2001) complies with these requirements and provides clear-cut criteria for the analysis of this factor



Grammatical Variation across Space and Time

group. In Section 3.4.9, when presenting the factor groups analyzed in this present study, I provide more details into Labov’s approach to coding for style. After coding the data, each token is represented by a coding string. The number of digits of this string equals the number of factor groups tested. This string serves as the input into the variable rule analysis software.2 The program executes a multiple regression procedure (binomial step up/step down) using the coding strings of each of the tokens. It tests the influence of each independent variable (or factor group) on the value of the dependent variable (i.e. the choice of the variants). In doing so, all possible combinations of the independent variables are tested. As a result, the program specifies those factor groups which have a statistically significant influence on the choice of the variants and those whose effect is below the level of significance. A factor weight is obtained for each individual factor. It has a value between zero and one and refers to the likelihood with which the variant under consideration is chosen when this factor is realized in the interrogative sentence. A factor weight close to one favors the use of the respective variant and a value close to zero disfavors its use. The absolute value of one single factor weight is less important than the relative order of several factors in one group. The notions of range and constraint hierarchy or ranking play an important role in this respect (cf. Poplack & Tagliamonte 2001: 93–94). The range denotes the distance between the highest and the lowest factor weight in one factor group. It thus informs the researcher about the effect strength or magnitude of the factor group (cf. Poplack & Tagliamonte 2001: 93). The “[c]onstraint ranking is the hierarchy from more to less of the categories within a factor group” (Tagliamonte 2006: 237). In other words, it is the order of the individual factors in one factor group ranked from the one with the highest to the one with the lowest factor weight. Abstracting away from the categorical constraints, it captures in detail the interplay between all variable rules and effects. As Poplack & Tagliamonte state, [t]he constraint hierarchy subdivides the ‘sometimes’ class into a more refined set of categories, yielding the detailed structure of the relationship between variant and context, or the ‘grammar’ underlying the variable surface manifestations. (Poplack & Tagliamonte 2001: 94)

Most importantly, when comparing equivalent variants in different diatopic or diachronic varieties, the ranking of constraints may help to decide whether these variants are historically related, or, put differently, whether they stem from the 2. The current version of the VARBRUL software is GoldVarb (cf. Rand & Sankoff 1990). GoldVarb is available at – http://individual.utoronto.ca/tagliamonte/Goldvarb/GV_index.htm – http://www.crm.umontreal.ca/~sankoff/GoldVarb_Eng.html (As on: December 5, 2008)



Chapter 3.  Data and methods 

same root or not (cf. Poplack & Tagliamonte 2001: 94). In the empirical evaluation of the interrogative data, the hierarchy of the individual factors in each factor group serves as an important means to relate and compare the yes/no variants used across different diachronic varieties of Quebec and European French. In some particular cases, it may happen that certain independent variables interact. The variable rule analysis, however, is not designed to handle interactions. An interaction always manifests itself in the interplay of three variables: two independent variables and the dependent variable. In this present study, for instance, I have found that the length of the inflected verb in terms of its number of syllables (i.e. the first independent variable) and the second person subject pronouns tu and vous (i.e. the second independent variable) interact with regard to the choice of Pronominal inversion (i.e. the dependent variable). It has turned out that the rate of Pronominal inversion proportionally increases with the verb’s length but only when the question contains the subject pronoun vous. When it contains the pronoun tu, the rate of Pronominal inversion decreases instead (cf. Table 15 on page 92). This observation holds only for the OH data. In the RFQ corpus, the reverse effect can be observed (cf. Table 33 on page 120). In this particular case, I have resolved the interaction by removing the factor group distinguishing between second person singular and plural subject pronouns from the variable rule analysis of Pronominal inversion. In general, interactions may be detected by comparing the factor weights obtained in the successive levels of the binomial step up procedure of Goldvarb with the factor weights of the first level (where the factor groups are considered separately and one at a time). As soon as a larger difference in the value of one factor weight from one level to the next or even a cross-over in the constraint ranking appears (as opposed to the first level which always mirrors the hierarchy of the mere percentages in the marginals), the respective factor group is a good candidate for interaction with one of the other factor groups contained in the particular run where this change occurs. A cross-tabulation between the factor groups in question may reveal the interaction. There are several possible ways to resolve an interaction: a researcher can exclude one of the interacting factor groups from the variable rule analysis; certain factors in these factor groups can be merged; or one can create a cross-product of the two factor groups (in which each cell of the cross-tabulation constitutes a factor of the new (single) factor group), cf. Paolillo (2002: 65–69), Tagliamonte (2006: 151–153, 185–187). GoldVarb relies on a binomial analysis. Therefore, only two variants can be tested at one time. Since this research deals with a multitude of variants, several distinct analyses had to be carried out. For each single variant a separate Varbrul analysis was performed which compared this variant to the remainder of the variants. There are consequently as many Varbrul runs as there are variants.



Grammatical Variation across Space and Time

The present research constitutes a comparison of three diachronically different data corpora: fifteenth to seventeenth century popular plays and literature, the RFQ corpus with nineteenth century speech, and the twentieth century OH corpus. The same methodology was applied to all three data corpora. It is possible that independent variables which are selected as statistically significant in one corpus are not in the other. This happens when the effect strength of a factor group falls behind relative to other factor groups. In order to decide whether the factor group has lost only some of its strength or whether the individual factors of this factor group have changed in their effect, the results in this research display not only the statistically significant factor weights, but also the non-significant ones between square brackets. The absolute values of non-significant factor weights are not interpretable, but their relative order in one factor group (i.e. its hierarchy) is still informative. The factor weight values were taken from the first step-down run of the binomial step up/step down procedure conducted by GoldVarb. 3.2 The data sources Three different data sources have been evaluated in the course of this study. The first, the Ottawa-Hull French Corpus (OH corpus), is representative of twentieth century speech. The second, the Récits du français québécois d’autrefois (Réfqua/ RFQ corpus) represents nineteenth century speech. The third is a collection of texts approximating oral speech (e.g. theater plays) from the fifteenth to seventeenth centuries. The comparison of these three data sources with respect to the behavior of the interrogative variants allows me to conduct a trend study of language change in real time (cf. Labov 1994). The OH corpus contains audio recordings of the oral speech produced by a representative sample of 120 native speakers of Ottawa-Hull French, amounting to approximately 3.5 million words and 283 tapes from which transcriptions, word lists and concordances have been compiled (Poplack 1989). The informants were interviewed closely following the guidelines of the sociolinguistic interview technique outlined in Labov (1984). This methodological approach has the advantage of providing access to the speakers’ oral vernacular which is supposed to be the most regular language style as it receives the minimal amount of attention by the speaker. The interview technique comprises a number of standardized approaches which elicit different styles ranging from the casual vernacular to more careful speech styles. Since the aim of this study is to gain insight into the grammar of vernacular French (and not into the grammar of some standardized variety influenced by prescriptive pressure), this corpus suits this aim particularly well.



Chapter 3.  Data and methods 

Table 2.  Constitution of the OH sample by age, sex and neighborhood.

(Table 3 in Poplack 1989: 417)

Age

Vanier M F

15–24 25–34 35–44 45–54 55–64 65+

2 2 2 2 2 2

Totals 24 Grand Total: 120

2 2 2 2 2 2

Ottawa (Ontario) Basse-Ville M F 2 2 2 2 2 2

2 2 2 2 2 2 24

West End M F

Hull (Québec) Vieux Hull Mont Bleu M F M F

2 2 2 2 2 2

2 2 2 2 1 3

2 2 2 2 2 2 24

2 2 2 2 2 2 24

2 2 2 2 2 2

2 2 2 2 2 2 24

The interviews were conducted in the early 1980s in five neighborhoods of the National Capital Region: three were located in Ottawa (Vanier, Basse-Ville, and West End) and thus on the predominantly anglophone side of the Ottawa River and two were in Gatineau (Vieux-Hull and Mont-Bleu) which is situated on the francophone side of the river. The Ottawa River is hence a geographical and administrative boundary line between the provinces of Ontario and Quebec and at the same time a language divide between the anglophone majority in Ontario and the francophone majority in Quebec (cf. Poplack 1988). Each neighborhood is represented by the language data from 24 informants respectively, equally divided up into 12 males and 12 females and stratified by age, as is illustrated in Poplack’s (1989: 417) table 3, repeated in Table 2. The nineteenth century RFQ corpus and the twentieth century OH corpus share the property of containing highly vernacular oral speech recordings (as well as their transcriptions and concordances), cf. Poplack & St-Amand (2007). The audio recordings were conducted between 1942 and 1955 and contain folk tales, legends, and personal interviews with 44 informants born between 1846 and 1895, amounting to 511,596 words (collections by Roy (1955) and Lacourcière (1971)). The informants came from different regions in Quebec (Gaspésie, Baie des Chaleurs, Quebec, Charlevoix, Malbaie, Beauce, Saguenay-Lac-St-Jean, Côte-Nord). The similar constitution of both the twentieth and the nineteenth century corpora makes their comparison with regard to the use of interrogative variants particularly promising. For the purpose of better comparability with the RFQ corpus, I have only evaluated the data provided by the residents from the two francophone



Grammatical Variation across Space and Time

Author

Year

Full reference of the literary source

Cent nouvelles nouvelles, critical edition by Franklin P. Sweetser, Geneva: Droz, 1966. Anonymous 1465 Maistre Pierre Pathelin. Farce du XVe siècle, Richard T. Holbrook (ed.), Series: Roques, Mario (publ.), Les Classiques Français du Moyen Âge, Paris: Libraire Honoré Champion, 21986. François Rabelais 1532 – 1552 Œuvres de Rabelais. Seule édition conforme aux derniers (*1493, Chinon/ textes revues par l’auteur avec les variantes de toutes les Indre-et-Loire éditions originales, des notes et un glossaire, 2 tômes – †1553, Paris) (1858). Paris: P. Jannet (Gargantua et Pantagruel) Pierre Corneille 1629 – 1637 Théâtre complet de Corneille. Texte établi sur l’édition de (*1606, Rouen 1682, avec les principales variantes, une introduction, des – †1684, Paris) notices, des notes et un glossaire, par Maurice Rat, tôme premier (1960), Paris: Éditions Garnier Frères. (Mélite, 1629; La galérie du palais, 1634; L’illusion comique, 1635; La place royale, 1637) Anonymous 1649 – 1651 Agréables conferences de deux paysans de Saint-Ouen et de Montmorency sur les affaires du temps (1649–1651), reprint of the critical edition established by Frédéric Deloffre (1961), Paris: Les Belles Lettres, new edition enhanced by a complementary bibliography, Geneva: Slatkine Reprints, 1999. Molière 1645/50 – 1663 Molière [Poquelin, Jean-Baptiste]. Œuvres complètes, foreword by Pierre-Aimé Touchard, Paris: Éditions du (*1622, Paris – Seuil, 1962. †1673, Paris) (La jalousie du barbouillé, 1645/50; Le médecin volant, 1655; L’étourdi ou les contretemps, 1655; Dépit amoureux, 1656; Les précieuses ridicules, 1659; Sganarelle ou le cocu imaginaire, 1660; Dom Garcie de Navarre ou le prince jaloux, 1661; L’école des maris, 1661; Les fâcheux, 1661; L’école des femmes, 1662; La critique de l’école des femmes, 1663) Anonymous

1456 – 1461

neighborhoods in the OH corpus (Mont-Bleu and Vieux-Hull), leaving aside the data from West End, Basse-Ville, and Vanier. The administrative regions in the province of Quebec from which the informants in the RFQ corpus originated are known to have provided an important influx of residents into the Canadian National Capital Region. This justifies a real time trend study involving both the RFQ and the OH corpus. Since one of the criteria in compiling the RFQ corpus was to limit the sample of informants to only those who were born in the province of Quebec (Poplack & St-Amand 2007: 714), it makes sense (for the purpose of com-



Chapter 3.  Data and methods 

parability) to delimit the sample of informants in the OH data evaluated in this study to the residents on the francophone side of the Ottawa River (i.e. in the present-day city of Gatineau). In addition, this allows the potential bias of an influence of contact with English on the French language production of the informants to be kept at a minimum. This is important since the RFQ informants distinguish themselves by their relative insularity and rural background, reasons for which English plays no noteworthy role in this corpus (cf. Poplack & St-Amand 2007: 719, 728). It has to be acknowledged, though, that with regard to morphosyntactic variables, English as a majority language in the community has by and large turned out not to have a distinctive influence on variable choice in French (cf. Poplack 1997). As for the interrogative system in French, a quick survey of the influence of the speakers’ level of bilingualism has revealed no effect on variable choice. We are left with the language data from 48 informants in the OH corpus and from 40 informants in the RFQ corpus from whose speech interrogative tokens were extracted.3 The fifteenth to seventeenth century data consist of the literary sources presented in the table on page 40. These texts were chosen for different reasons: first, they cover a historical range of roughly 200 years from the middle of the fifteenth to the middle of the seventeenth centuries (and hence from the late Middle French to the early Modern French period). This is exactly the time when the settlement of New France in North America began. These materials serve to determine whether certain interrogative variants in Quebec French are innovations or retentions of earlier varieties of French. Second, they belong to different literary genres. If texts were compared which do not only distinguish themselves diachronically but also in their genre, it would be impossible to decide whether potential variable phenomena were either due to the former or to the latter. In order to keep constant one of these external variables respectively, I have selected texts belonging to different genres but stemming from the same time period (e.g. the prose text Cent nouvelles nouvelles and the farce of Maistre Pathelin both from the fifteenth century). Third, there is stylistic variation between the particular literary sources. It is known, for instance, that Corneille uses a more formal register than Molière whose plays often contain a rather vernacular style. The selected farce and the Agréables conférences range at the vernacular end of the stylistic continuum. It is undoubtedly true that there will always remain a shortfall in representativity compared to the other two corpora of oral speech used in this study. It is certainly a delicate question if and to what extent the written language of the authors accurately represents the oral and spontaneous speech production during the Middle and 3. The four remaining informants from the RFQ corpus did not produce any interrogative sentences.

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Grammatical Variation across Space and Time

Classical French period. Furthermore, the written language production of six isolated authors, three of whom are anonymous, certainly does not yield the same systematic and representative patterns as a corpus of oral speech created according to the guidelines of the sociolinguistic interview technique (cf. Labov 1984). The data provided by the above mentioned texts can thus be taken as only approximations of oral speech. The results may nevertheless pinpoint important trends and tendencies. This has been shown by Poplack & Malvar (2007: 155) who not only report similar rates with regard to the sociolinguistic variable they analyze (i.e. the variable expression of future temporal reference in Brazilian Portuguese), but also similar patterns of conditioning when comparing popular plays with actual spontaneous speech. 3.3 Circumscription of the variable context 3.3.1 Yes/no questions The interrogative tokens were extracted by reading through the transcriptions and the literary texts respectively. In the variable context of yes/no questions, every interrogative sentence was considered which was or could have been answered by oui or non. An additional method of extraction was an automatic search for all sentences ending with a question mark. A question mark was used in the transcription when the sentence clearly exhibited an interrogative intonation. The circumscription of the variable context of yes/no questions also calls for the exclusion of certain tokens as not all extracted tokens would allow the alternative use of the respective other variants. In this section, I present those tokens which are not part of the variable context and which hence have been excluded from the statistical analysis. For the purpose of reminder (cf. (1) on page 3), the variable context in Quebec French yes/no questions (as defined by the RFQ and the OH data) subsumes four distinct (and mutually incompatible) variants, illustrated in (25) through (28). (25)

est-ce que Est-ce que (ECQ) tu travaillerais toi dans un sewer de … Q (ECQ) you work.2SG.COND you in a sewer of … “Would you work in a sewer of …” (OH.114.2081)



Chapter 3.  Data and methods 

Pronominal inversion (26) Voyez-vous (P-INV) ça aujourd’hui? (rires) aller leur présenter un morceau de galette à l’anis? see-you.2PL (P-INV) that nowadays … “Can you imagine this nowadays? (laughing) to go and offer them a piece of anise pancake?” (RFQ.050.243) (27)

Intonation Ah, elle était (INT) dans sa classe en cinquième? ah she was (INT) in her class in fifth “Oh, she was in her fifth year of school?” (OH.101.1041)

(28)

-tu Il dit il faut-tu (TU) je garde ma- ma vieille il dit? he says it is.necessary-Q (TU) I keep my- my old.one he says “He says, is it necessary that I keep my old one?” (RFQ.021.2064)

Every extracted interrogative token must fulfill the requirement that it be part of this variable context. 3.3.1.1 The OH corpus.  The OH corpus provided 1,804 polar interrogative tokens from which 1,172 had to be excluded. 632 yes/no questions were thus left for the final analysis. Among the excluded questions were 88 negated interrogatives out of which 90.9 % (N=80) were intonation questions and the remaining 8 tokens were -tu questions (cf. (29) and (30)). (29) Puis c’est là, tu veux pas- vous voulez pas prendre ça- vous voulez pas prendre ça de même, vous allez pas prendre ça en écrit là? “Then it’s there, you don’t want to write it down?” (OH.105.49) (30) C’est-tu pas fou? “Isn’t it crazy?” (OH.101.1334) Negated interrogatives hence represent a practically invariable context and had to be excluded from the quantitative analysis. In 28 cases, the interrogative status of the tokens was not obvious (cf. (31)). These tokens were definitely not part of the variable context. This is illustrated by



Grammatical Variation across Space and Time

the pragmatically unfelicitous and hence not equivalent sentence in (32) in which the intonation variant is replaced by the est-ce que variant. (31) Monsieur Côté, je pense c’était ça le directeur? “Mister Côté, I think that was him the director?” (OH.086.61) (32)

?? Monsieur Côté, est-ce que je pense c’était ça le directeur? / … je pense est-ce

que c’était ça le directeur?

(31) is a positively-biased affirmative question (cf. Coveney 2002: 159–164) where the presence of the discourse item je pense indicates that the author of the question expects a positive answer. In the context of yes/no interrogatives, Coveney (2002: 184) found that all 37 instances of these types of questions belong to the intonation variant (which therefore constitutes another invariable context). A considerable number of 51 yes/no questions exhibiting the formula c’est‑tu were excluded (cf. (33)). In view of their high rate of occurrence, I suppose that they should rather be analyzed as lexicalized chunks than as a productive use of the interrogative particle -tu. (33) Il y a- c’est-tu mieux de vivre en concubinage, que de- de se marier puis se séparer s– un an après? “Is it better to live in a cohabitation than to marry and then to divorce one year later?” (OH.106.1543) Four echo questions and 348 instances of hein were excluded (cf. (34) and (35)). Echo questions repeat the word order of the sentence they are referring to (with a possible adaptation of the deictic elements). When uttering an echo question, the speaker is therefore not free in his or her choice of the interrogative variant. In other sentences with an interrogative intonation, the particle hein appears sentencefinally. In these cases it is not clear if the interrogative character relates to the sentence as a whole or only to this particle. The same is true for sentences ending with hé or je suppose. In view of this ambiguity, the respective tokens and all the single occurrences of hein were excluded: (34) (5) Oui, je le sais. (090) Tu le sais toi? Moi je m’en souviens pas. “(5) Yes, I know that. (090) You know that? I don’t remember it.” (OH.090.607) (35) Ça se trouve dans le Vieux-Hull, hein? “That’s located in Vieux-Hull, isn’t it?” (OH.117.7)



Chapter 3.  Data and methods 

There were 344 incomplete questions which included single word utterances as well as false starts (cf. (36) and (37)): (36) (1) Mais à Shawinigan c’est pas la même-...les gens du- du côté du Québec (inc)? (102) Quand j’étais à Shawinigan? (1) Mhm. “(1) But in Shawinigan it’s not the same-...the people from the side of Quebec (inc)? (102) When I was in Shawinigan? (1) Mhm.” (OH.102.912) (37) Puis je lui ai donné ça hier, puis je demande à sa mère, j’ ai dit... elle sait-tusait-tu qu– tu sais qu’est-ce qui arrive là maisque ça seye le temps hein? “Then I have given it to her yesterday, then I ask her mother, I’ve said... does she know- know- wh– you know what happens then when it is the time, don’t you?” (OH.085.1186) The words oui and non with an interrogative intonation occurred 89 times and had to be excluded due to their non-sentential status (cf. (38)): (38) Moi je viens de Hull aussi. (088) Oui? (2) Ah oui, dans le Mont-Bleu par exemple. “I come from Hull as well. (088) Yes? (2) Oh yes, in Mont-Bleu for example.” (OH.088.2246) Finally, 213 interrogative tags of the type tu sais and comprenez-vous were excluded. Although at first sight they might appear to count as acceptable interrogative tokens, their inclusion would have considerably biased the results. They occurred with a very high token frequency, but with a very low type frequency (only the verbs savoir and comprendre were used in this context). Furthermore, they were restricted to the variants of intonation questions and Pronominal inversion. These interrogatives are pure question tags whose function is not to ask the interlocutor something, but rather to keep up the conversation by provoking a short reaction in order to signal to the speaker that the interlocutor is still following the speaker’s conversational turn, as example (39) illustrates: (39) (096) Ça a faite bien de quoi aux paroissiens, tu sais? (1) Ouais, je comprends. “(096) That has done quite a bit to the parishioners, you know? (1) Yes, I understand.” (OH.096.047)



Grammatical Variation across Space and Time

The remaining 632 yes/no questions of the OH corpus are cases in which the respective other variants could have been used without dramatically changing the functional or pragmatic load of the question, i.e. they are all part of one and the same variable context. 3.3.1.2 The RFQ corpus.  From the language data provided by the 40 speakers of the RFQ corpus, 1,220 yes/no interrogative tokens were extracted. 674 interrogative sentences, more than half of the tokens, had to be excluded so that 546 tokens of yes/no questions were left for the final analysis. Among the excluded tokens were 170 negated questions. They had to be removed from the statistical analysis since they were not a context which featured variation: 97.6% (N=166) of them were intonation questions (cf. example (40)). There were only two negated instances of Pronominal inversion and two negated -tu questions (cf. examples (41)/(42) and (43)/(44) respectively). This unequal distribution across the interrogative variants has already been noted in the OH data and shows that negated questions represent a distinct linguistic context which has to be considered separately. (40) Le gars dit, écoute donc, il dit, toi, il dit, tu manges jamais le matin? “The guy says, listen, he says, you, he says, you never eat in the morning?” (RFQ.032.647) (41) Elle dit, sais-tu pas que ta fille se marie à soir, […] “She says, don’t you know that your daughter will marry tonight, […]” (RFQ.038.1168) (42) Il dit sire, il dit, avez-vous jamais entendu parler de deça? “He says, Sire, he says, have you never heard talking about that?” (RFQ.018.3000) (43) Il dit, il y a-tu pas de remèdes pour ça? 4 “He says, aren’t there any remedies for that?” (RFQ.021.773)

4. It should be noted that in the nineteenth century RFQ corpus the -tu particle usually appears as /ti/. In the twentieth century OH data, this pronunciation has largely been replaced by /tsy/. A similar observation was made by Morin (1985: 794, footnote 12). As the results in the next chapter show, the patterns of conditioning do not necessitate a different grammatical or syntactic treatment of the one as opposed to the other. When addressing this particle in the RFQ and OH data, I therefore use -tu as a cover term referring to the two possible phonological realizations.



Chapter 3.  Data and methods 

(44) C’est-tu pas une… une sorte de- de chaussures. “Isn’t it a sort of … a sort of- of shoes?” (RFQ.020.875) As in the OH corpus, question tags such as sais-tu (cf. (45)) and comprenez-vous (cf. (46)) were excluded: (45) Un coup que le prince et la princesse ont été partis, il y a un chartier qui dit à l’autre, sais-tu bien, il dit, qu’on est bêtes comme des- des salauds, qui sacreraient notre camp avec l’équipage qu’on a là, on ferait toujours bien notre fortune? “As the prince and the princess have left, there was a carter who says to the other guy, do you well know, he says, that we are dumb like bastards who run away with the company we have here, we would still make our fortune?” (RFQ.018.260) (46) Pour l’amour c’est bien- encore bien plus grand, c’est encore bien plus- il y a bien plus de logement là. Vous comprenez-vous là? “For the love it’s really bigger, it’s still more- there aren’t any accommodations over there. Do you understand?” (RFQ.040.154) Incomplete questions or non-sentential questions were not considered since they could not be attributed to any one of the variants (cf. (47)). Among these were also tokens which lacked a subject. 236 tokens were consequently excluded: (47) J’en ai- j’en ai vu cette semaine, un qui était... douze pouces à peu près. (043) Les pattes rondes ça? (i) Oui, oui. “I have seen one this week who was about twelve inches. (043) Round paws, that one? (i) Yes, yes.” (RFQ.043.2452) 55 instances of c’est-tu were excluded due to their supposedly formulaic status: (48) Il dit, c’est-tu vrai, il dit, ils vont- il dit, que tu as dit, Ti-Jean, que tu étais capable de passer dans le moulange, puis il dit, tu revenais en bonne santé? “He says, is it true, he says, they will- he says, that you have said, Ti-Jean, that you were able to go into the millstone, then he says, you came back in good health?” (RFQ.022.294)



Grammatical Variation across Space and Time

Five tokens were imperatives with an interrogative intonation (cf. (49)). They do not permit the alternative use of the other variants and are hence not part of the variable context: (49) Ça fait que quand ils arrivent au cap, ils ont vu les- la mer qui battait sur le plain. Ils ont dit, ah! des moutons! Allons aux moutons? Allons aux moutons. Les voilà partis pour les moutons. “So when they arrived at the cape, they saw the sea which was at high tide. They said oh! Whitecaps! Shall we go to the whitecaps? Let’s go to the whitecaps. So they went to the whitecaps.” (RFQ.054.1893) As in the OH corpus (cf. (31)), some extracted tokens were restricted to the intonation variant. 18 sentences with interrogative intonation were excluded (cf. (50)): (50) Seulement ce que il y avait, une chartière, tu as peut-être déjà vu ça ces chartières là ou entendu parler… dans les châssis là? “Only what was there, a wagon, you have perhaps already seen that, these wagons, or heard about them... in the car frame there?” (RFQ.018.820) In this example, the adverb peut-être turns the sentence into a positively-biased affirmative question (cf. Coveney 2002: 180–181). Due to the presence of the adverb, other variants (as exemplified in example (51)) would sound rather awkward in this context: (51)

?

[…] as-tu peut-être déjà vu ça ces chartières là ou entendu parler… dans les châssis là?

A few sentences contained the postverbal particle -tu. These sentences, however, lacked every other interrogative indicator such as rising intonation (cf. (52)). Since it is known that -tu appears not only in interrogative contexts but also in exclamatives for instance (cf. Foulet 1921: 315, Léard 1996: 118, Vinet 2000: 382), these sentences were excluded from the analysis: (52) Elle dit tu rentreras là, puis après toute la peine et la misère que j’ai eu pour trouver tant de monde, elle dit elle va-tu le faire avoir. “She says you will go in there, then after all the effort and the trouble which I have had in order to find so many people, she says he will have been had by her.” (RFQ.021.1527)



Chapter 3.  Data and methods 

Echo questions (cf. (53)) and 48 instances of sentence-final and isolated hein (and equivalent je suppose, cf. (54)-(56)) were excluded: (53) (INC) moi, il dit, j’ai trois filles. Il dit, tu as trois filles? Il dit, oui. “I have three daughters. He says, you have three daughters? He says, yes.” (RFQ.054.415) (54) Ils ont dit, toi, tu as faite rien hein? “They have said, you, you haven’t done anything, have you?” (RFQ.004.4132) (55) C’est ça que tu as vu hier, je suppose? “That’s what you have seen yesterday, I suppose?” (RFQ.044.569) (56) (i) Ils cherchaient rien qu’à s’aider? (020) Hein? (i) Ils cherchaient rien qu’à s’aider? “(i) They just tried to help each other? (020) What? (i) They just tried to help each other?” (RFQ.020.698) Four constructions with the verbal element voilà were excluded (cf. (57)) as they did not fit into the variable context (cf. Morin 1985, for an analysis of this construction): (57) Comment il dit, en voilà-tu encore un? “What, he says, is there another one of them?” (RFQ.013.870) Finally, 62 occurrences of questioning oui and non (cf. (58)) and one code-switch into English (cf. (59)) were removed from the token file: (58) Il y a rien que ça, il dit pour vous sauver! Il dit, oui? “There is only that, he says, to save you! He says, yes.” (RFQ.014.2484) (59) Il lui dit, appelle tes hommes puis (INC) tes hommes puis (INC). Ah! il dit oui, il y a Bill (INC). Ah! Bill, you- you there? Yes sir! Hey! Jack, you there too! Yes, sir! Pourtant, il utilise- ah il dit, c’est de l’anglais! “He says to him, call your men. Ah! He says, yes, there is Bill. Ah! Bill, you- you there? Yes sir! Hey! Jack, you there too! Yes, sir! However, he uses- ah he says, it’s English!” (RFQ.016.1006)



Grammatical Variation across Space and Time

The remaining 546 tokens were retained. These include all interrogative sentences where the use of every other variant would have yielded a grammatically and functionally equivalent result. These are mainly information questions, as in (60): (60) S’en revient à la voiture. Je lui demande, je dis, êtes vous malade? Ah, elle dit, non, pas le moins du monde. “She goes back to her car. I ask her, I say, are you ill? Ah, she says, no, not at all.” (RFQ.002.443) But some tokens fulfill other communicative functions such as requests for permission (cf. (61)) or pre-announcements (cf. (62)) among others. (61) Puis ils arrivent, ils demandent à- à la femme là, elle dit, je pourrais-tu voir votre mari? “Then they arrive, they ask the woman there, she says, could I see your husband?” (RFQ.004.742) (62) Il dit les sentinelles, où c’est qu’ils sont? Ils s’en vont à l’étable. Savez vous où ce que les sentinelles étaient? Vous connaissez ça, peut-être bien, les brilles qu’on se servait anciennement, puis qu’ils s’en servent encore pour briller du lin là. Il en avait mis une à l’appartement du cheval, puis il les avait mis à cheval tous les trois sur la brille, puis ils étaient encore endormis tous les trois là dessus. “He says, the sentries, where are they? They go to the cowshed. Do you know where the sentries were? Perhaps you know the polish they formerly used since they still use it to polish the linen there. He had put one of it into the apartment of the horse, then he put all three on the horse upon the polish, then all three were still asleep up on there.” (RFQ.014.1708) However, I presume that in all of these remaining tokens, the use of the respective other variants does not dramatically change the degree of grammaticality or the function of the interrogative sentence. In other words, the 546 tokens left in the token file are all members of the same variable context. 3.3.1.3 Fifteenth to seventeenth century French.  When extracting the interrogative tokens from the fifteenth to seventeenth century literature and plays, I applied the same criteria as in the OH and the RFQ corpus with regard to the question as to which tokens form part of the variable context and which tokens do not. 1,275 tokens qualified for the statistical and linguistic analysis. It is important to mention



Chapter 3.  Data and methods

that the variable context of the fifteenth to seventeenth century French literature and plays lacks instances of the -tu variant. Instead, two variants not observable in the nineteenth to twentieth century Quebec French data occur. These are the inversion of a subject DP (Free or Simple inversion, cf. (63)) and Complex inversion (i.e. the resumption of a preverbal subject DP by a postverbal coreferential subject pronoun) (cf. (64)). (63)

Subject DP inversion (Free/Simple inversion) Et chez vous iront les damoiseaux? “And will the young ladies go to your place?” (Molière.146.225)

Complex inversion (64) a. Le portrait de celui que je cherche en tous lieux pourrait-il, par sa vue, épouvanter mes yeux? “The portrait of the person I am looking for in all places could he, by his view, terrify my eyes?” (Corneille.510.154) b. quinze fran sonty pas bon à gagnié? “Fifteen francs aren’t they good to gain?” (AgrConf.131.15) In the case of yes/no questions, it is not possible to decide whether interrogatives as in (64) actually involve Complex inversion or topicalization of the subject DP. (64)b. could be an instance of the interrogative particle -ti: it is graphically attached to the finite verb and it lacks the final /l/. However, since the postverbal pronouns il and ils could both be pronounced as /i/, it is possible that (64)b. can be analyzed along the same lines as (64)a., namely as an instance of Complex inversion (or Clitic left dislocation). Only if the postverbal particle (‘y’ in this case) had occurred with a non-third person preverbal subject, unambiguous evidence for the involvement of the grammaticalized interrogative marker would have been found. The sentence in (63) represents an ambiguous case of DP inversion: there is no participle which would allow the structural position of the subject DP to be localized. If the subject is in a structural position immediately to the right of the inflected verb and to the left of participles and other non-finite verbs (e.g. in SpecTP with the verb in C°), then it is a case of Simple inversion. If the subject followed infinite parts of the verb (which are absent from the example above), then it would be localized further down in the structure (possibly in a νP-internal position). In this case, (63) would be an example of Free inversion. I provide a more detailed structural account of these variants in Chapter 5.





Grammatical Variation across Space and Time

3.3.2 Wh-questions The wh-questions and their variants were not tested in a variable rule analysis with regard to their conditioning patterns. The reason for this is the lack of a sufficient number of representative tokens for all of the variants occurring in the corpora. In other words, one of the variants has a very high number of occurrences, while the others range far behind. The following variants occur in the OH and in the RFQ data: est-ce que (65) C’est toujours, tu sais, (inc) toujours, faut tu leur dises hey, qu’est-ce que tu as dit là, tu sais là? “It’s always, you know, (inc) always, you have to tell them hey, what have you said there, you know?” (OH.111.1951) Wh-fronting (66) L’union c’est supposé de t’aider, comment ça se fait qu’il y en a qui travaillent jusqu’à neuf, dix heures puis toi tu es t icitte, assis? “The union is supposed to help you, how can it be that there are some who work until nine, ten o’clock, then you are here, sitting?” (OH.088.924) Wh-in situ (67) Puis ça marche comme ça depuis quoi, depuis vingt ans que ça marche de même la- la nouvelle éducation là? “Then it goes like that since when, since twenty years that it goes like this the new education?” (OH.078.71359) Stylistic inversion (68) Qu’est c’est qu’a la vieille, il dit, viens-tu folle, il dit, veux-tu me casser à soir? “What does the old lady have, he says, are you going crazy, he says, do you want to annoy me tonight?” (RFQ.021.1193) (69)

Pronominal inversion Quelle vocation prends-tu? “Which vocation do you take?” (RFQ.036.329)



Chapter 3.  Data and methods 

As the results show, only the variants listed in (65) through (67) in the OH data and (65) through (66) in the RFQ data respectively, occur with a number of tokens worth mentioning. Inversion does not play any role in wh-questions. In the fifteenth to seventeenth century literature and plays, the inventory of wh-variants contains three more types of inversion: Free inversion, Simple inversion, and Complex inversion. Free inversion (70) Comment doncques eussent peu entendre ces vieulx resveurs le texte des loix, qui jamais ne virent bon livre de langue latine, comme manifestement appert à leur stille, qui est stille de ramonneur de cheminée ou de cuysinier et marmiteux, non de jurisconsulte? “How then could these old dotards be able to understand aright the text of the laws who never in their time had looked upon a good Latin book, as doth evidently enough appear by the rudeness of their style, which is fitter for a chimney-sweeper, or for a cook or a scullion, than for a jurisconsult and doctor in the laws?” (Rabelais.226, translation: Urquhart & Motteux, see above) (71)

Simple inversion Par qui doit Marinette être ici possédée? “By whom must Marinette be possessed here?” (Molière.99.1771)

(72)

Complex inversion Oui; mais pourquoi chacun n’en fait-il pas de meme […] “Yes; but why doesn’t everybody do it the same way […]” (Molière.181.440)

Free inversion (cf. (70)) is structurally similar to Stylistic inversion. Contrary to the latter, however, it allows for the presence of direct objects (here: le texte des loix). Simple inversion (cf. (71)) is characterized by a postverbal subject DP which occurs in a position immediately following the inflected part of the verb (here: doit) and preceding infinite verbal components (here: être possédée). The interrogative token in (72) can be analyzed only as an instance of Complex inversion since left dislocation of a topicalized subject would yield a position still to the left of the wh-phrase (pourquoi). Besides, topicalization cannot apply to indefinite quantifiers such as chacun (cf. Roberts 1993: 169).



Grammatical Variation across Space and Time

3.4 Establishing the independent variables (factor groups) In Chapter 2., the claims from the literature with respect to interrogative structures in French were presented. Much has been said about the influence of diverse linguistic and extralinguistic conditioning factors. These claims, together with my own hypotheses about the conditioning of the variable use of interrogative variants, are operationalized into factor groups consisting of individual factors. It must be kept in mind that the principal aim of multivariate analysis is to uncover variable rules of language use and not categorical rules of the speakers’ i‑languages. The findings resulting from this analysis help to determine if the variants have undergone a change in use and how far this change has advanced. However, they also provide indirect evidence about the structure of the speakers’ i‑languages. From a purely statistical point of view, it is possible that every factor has an equal likelihood of combining with every other factor from any other factor group. All possible factor combinations would then be realized with an equal number of tokens. If this were in fact the case, then the French interrogative system would be completely unconstrained and subject to free variation. In a real world scenario, however, this never happens. As a matter of fact, only a very small proportion of all possible factor combinations are actually realized in a data set. The vast majority of cells remain empty. It is exactly these highly regular patterns of the vernacular which provide the most revealing insights into speakers’ e-language as well as, indirectly, into their i‑language. In what follows, I briefly describe the factor groups and factors tested in this analysis. Since the wh-questions have not lent themselves to a variable rule analysis which would allow a comparison with equivalent syntactic structures in yes/no questions (e.g. subject-verb inversion, cf. Section 4.2), the independent variables presented and discussed in the remainder of this section apply only to the variable context of yes/no questions. 3.4.1 Subject identity The identity of the subject is one of the most widely discussed linguistic factors which is supposed to influence the choice of the interrogative variants. However, there is widespread disagreement among authors as to what the exact effect of particular subjects (i.e. subjects of a certain person and number) is. The only common observation in the literature concerns the variety of Quebec French which is also at stake here: Pronominal inversion is limited to the second person pronouns tu and vous (e.g. Auger 1996, Fox 1989). Furthermore, Complex inversion is unexpected in the vernacular data since it is known to be highly formal. Every single personal subject pronoun and noun is an individual factor in this factor group (cf. (73) for first, (74) for second, (75) for third person singular pro-



Chapter 3.  Data and methods 

nouns, (76) for expletive pronouns, (77) for third person singular on referring to nous, (78) for ce, (79) for ça, (80) for second and (81) for third person plural pronouns, (82) for singular, and (83) for plural nominal subjects). (73) Une journée elle dit... je peux-ty aller mesurer la nappe, j’ai dit venez la mesurer? “One day she says … can I measure the tablecloth, I said come to measure it?” (OH.119.433) (74) Elle dit, l’as-tu pris? “She says, have you taken it?” (RFQ.003.177) (75) Qu’est-ce qu’il va faire maisqu’il ressorte, il va recommencer encore? “What will he do when he comes out, will he start again?” (OH.87.1294) (76) Il dit, il y a-ty un tel qui reste icitte? “He says, is there someone like that who is staying here?” (OH.088.1197) (77) Il dit, on pourrait-ty coucher icitte? “He says, could we sleep here?” (RFQ.009.1889) (78) Elle dit, c’est ici que vous avez des beaux lapins? “She says, is it here that you have beautiful rabbits?” (RFQ.38.876) (79) Maudasse! Elle dit, ça a-ty du bon sens? “Damn! She says, does that make sense?” (RFQ.036.2959) (80) Est-ce que vous venez de Hull vous-autres ou …? “Do you come from Hull, you guys or …?” (OH.078.1834) (81) Ils veulent le faire revenir? “Do they want to make him come back?” (OH.077.1366) (82) Comment, il dit, ma femme a-ty caché des galettes icitte? “What, he says, has my wife hidden some pancakes here?” (RFQ.038.2199)



Grammatical Variation across Space and Time

(83) Me poserais la question, est-ce que les enfants seraient heureux? “I would ask myself, would the children be happy?” (OH.101.2293) In conducting the variable rules analyses, some of these factors had to be merged since no linguistic or statistical reason justified their differentiation. In these cases, the non-clitic demonstratives (ça, cela, etc.) were treated together with nominal subjects because they share the same distributional properties; for instance, in contemporary varieties of French, both are excluded from appearing in a position immediately to the right of the inflected verb (compare the a. and b. examples in (84) and (85)). (84) a. Icitte, ça arrive une couple de fois? “Here, that happens a couple of times?” (OH.087.623) b. * Icitte, arrive ça une couple de fois? (85) a. Les gens sont pour la peine de mort? “The people are in favor of the death penalty?” (OH.115.1050) b. * Sont les gens pour la peine de mort? Which of the individual factors were merged and which were kept distinct is indicated in the results chapter. 3.4.2 Verb identity As the literature review shows, the identity of the verb seems to play an important role, above all with regard to subject-verb inversion and to -tu questions. It has often been stated that one of the most characteristic tendencies of spoken varieties of French is the gradual replacement of subject-verb inversion (e.g. Pronominal inver-



Chapter 3.  Data and methods 

sion, Complex inversion, etc.) by equivalent but non-inverted constructions (e.g. intonation and est-ce que questions) (cf. Foulet 19215). Residual subject-verb inversions are nowadays perceived as highly formal. The question particle -ti/-tu has reportedly also faded from spoken varieties (at least from European French) but for different reasons. It was apparently conceived as too rural and informal. These circumstances led to its stigmatization, according to the literature (cf. Behnstedt 1973: 21–32). We discover later that this account does not explain the Quebec French data. A commonality between subject-verb inversion and the particle -tu is then that they are supposedly no longer productive. One of the most important indicators of productivity is the co-occurrence of the respective construction with a wide range of inflected lexical verbs. If these constructions occur only with a quite limited set of lexical verbs, however, this could be taken as an indication that the respective construction is no longer a productive feature of the speakers’ grammar and that the occurrences are probably unanalyzed and lexicalized chunks. If this were indeed the case, one would expect subject-verb inversion to be restricted to formulaic expressions such as those mentioned by Coveney (2002: 190–191)6 (cf. also Behnstedt 1973: 51‑55, 148, Fromaigeat 1938: 20, Wandruszka 1970: 69). In this factor group, each lexical verb which occurred more than four times in the respective corpus was given an individual code. Singleton verbs and rare verbs occurring two to four times in the corpus were merged together respectively. For each token, only the inflected lexical verb was coded (pouvoir in (86)), except for the periphrastic tenses where a code was assigned for the participle or the infinitive (entendre in (87)).7 (86) Je peux-ty avoir, je sais pas moi, une tasse de lait? 5. “Nous nous bornerons à dire que de 1350 à 1650 l’effort de la langue a consisté principalement à faire triompher l’ordre sujet-verbe-complément, en d’autres termes à se débarrasser tant bien que mal des nombreuses inversions dont elle avait hérité et qui étaient désormais contraires à son génie. Toute l’histoire de la langue pendant cette longue période est dominée par cet effort parfois pénible. L’évolution des formes interrogatives nous montre un aspect de cette lutte.” (We will content ourselves with saying that from 1350 to 1650, the effort of the language consisted mainly of making the order subject-verb-object triumphant, in other words in getting more or less rid of the numerous inversions which it inherited and which henceforth conflicted with its spirit. All of the history of the language during this long period is dominated by this sometimes painful effort. The evolution of the interrogative forms shows us an aspect of this struggle. Foulet 1921: 262, my translation.) 6. The author discusses lexical restrictions in cases of inversion of the first person singular subject pronoun je, such as suis-je, ai-je, puis-je, dis-je among others. 7. The fact that in these cases the inflected verb is either one of the auxiliaries avoir, être, and aller is acknowledged by means of the factor group tense and mood of the verb.



Grammatical Variation across Space and Time

“Can I have, I don’t know, a cup of milk?” (OH.088.46) (87) Sire, il dit avez-vous déjà entendu parler de deça? “Sire, he says have you already heard talking about that?” (RFQ.018.2261) Modal and auxiliary verbs Closely related to the verb identity is the presence or absence of a modal or auxiliary verb in the interrogative token (e.g. the modal pouvoir in (86) and the auxiliary avoir in (87)). Modals and auxiliaries were proposed by some authors to favor Pronominal inversion (e.g. Behnstedt 1973: 149–151, Coveney 2002: 210). Again, it is important to keep in mind that a possible favoring effect might not be due so much to the modal or auxiliary nature of the verb, but rather to its identity and thus to its frequency. The establishment of a separate factor group containing the codes for the different modal and auxiliary verbs would therefore cause considerable interdependence and interaction with other factor groups; many modal verbs also occur with a high frequency in the data hence causing interaction with verb frequency (cf. Section 3.4.3). Furthermore, whenever the interrogative sentence contains an auxiliary verb, it necessarily also features a verb in a periphrastic tense, making the inclusion of this factor group in a variable rule analysis together with a factor group coding for verbal tense and mood impossible (cf. Section 3.4.4). In spite of these reservations, I have tried to verify whether the modal verbs vouloir, savoir, pouvoir, and devoir exert an independent effect on the variation. For this purpose, a different code has been attributed to these verbs depending on whether they were used as modals (cf. the use of the modals in (88) through (91)) or as main verbs (cf. (92)). (88) Voulez-vous avoir quelque chose d’autre pour boire? Avec de la glace dedans? “Do you want something else to drink? With ice cubes in it?” (OH.078.1511) (89) Tu dois manger du pain, toi? “Do you have to eat bread?” (RFQ.009.717) (90) Il dit, pourriez-vous faire la charité pour l’amour du bon Dieu? “He says, could you give a handout, for God’s sake?” (RFQ.017.12) (91) Ah coudonc, sais-tu parler français toi? “Ah frankly, can you speak French?” (OH.120.2026)



Chapter 3.  Data and methods 

(92) Je me prends peut-être un peu trop tard, voudriez-vous quelque chose à boire? “Perhaps, I find myself thinking of it a little late, would you like to have something to drink?” (OH.110.1988) The distribution of the interrogative variants across the particular verbs reveals whether modals behave uniformly or not. The potential influence of auxiliary verbs is already taken into account by the factor group which codes for the mood and tense of the verb (cf. Section 3.4.4). 3.4.3 Verb frequency If it is true that subject-verb inversion and the particle -tu have become increasingly unproductive in usage and if this loss of productivity manifests itself in lexically restricted applications of these constructions, it should in principle be possible to identify this evolutionary tendency by means of a verb frequency effect. The underlying hypothesis is that high frequency verbs represent a context where a structure in the process of disappearing continues to be used and, so to speak, adheres to these verbs, yielding unanalyzed lexical chunks. Concerning the other interrogative variants, one could expect that verb frequency has no effect. The frequency of the verb was determined based on the number of occurrences obtained through the factor group coding for verb identity. It seemed important to me that the corpora themselves be used as a benchmark for the verb frequency and not some independently obtained frequency lists. The reasoning behind this decision was that the language use in the corpora can always and for many reasons differ from what is held to be true in general for the varieties of spoken French. The following frequency classes (and thus factors) were established: singleton verbs occurring only once among the extracted interrogative tokens and verbs occurring two to five times, six to nine times, ten to nineteen times, and twenty or more times. 3.4.4 Tense and mood of the verb Some authors found an effect of the mood and tense of the verb on the choice of the interrogative variants (e.g. Behnstedt 1973: 153). Ashby (1977) could not find such an effect, although he hypothesized that periphrastic tenses were syntactically more complex than synthetic tenses in consisting of two verbal parts (an auxiliary and a participle) and should hence disfavor the equally complex syntactic operation of subject-verb inversion. I do not see what exactly is meant by complex. Sentences

 Grammatical Variation across Space and Time

with verbs in periphrastic tenses and those with verbs in synthetic tenses are syntactically quite similar; in both cases, the finite (part of the) verb situates itself in T0 and the participle is in a structurally lower position from where it should not interfere in the derivational steps necessary to obtain the inverted word order (at least with regard to Pronominal inversion). In my view, the only reason why this factor group could have an effect on the variation is a hidden verb frequency effect. Pronominal inversion with a verb in a periphrastic tense is nothing other than the suffixation of the subject pronoun to one of the auxiliaries avoir, être, or aller. These auxiliaries are high frequency verbs and could therefore exert a different influence on Pronominal inversion from other verbs which are not as frequent. In the case of subject DP inversion, the distinction between synthetic and periphrastic tenses becomes decisive; the presence of a participle provides the only means to unambiguously distinguish between Simple and Free inversion. Yet in both the RFQ corpus and the OH data subject-verb inversion in yes/no questions is confined to Pronominal inversion (postverbal subject DPs being absent), and Ashby’s (1977) discussion about this variable context relates only to Pronominal inversion as well. The question as to what exactly is meant by syntactic complexity of periphrastic tenses hence remains unanswered. One could think of a potential difference in the syntactic position of auxiliary verbs in French as opposed to main verbs, as is known from English (cf. Roberts 1993). However, it is generally assumed that all inflected verbs in French (auxiliaries and main verbs) move to T° (cf. Iatridou 1990, Pollock 1989). From this perspective, it should not make a difference whether Pronominal inversion takes place in a sentence exhibiting a periphrastic or a synthetic form of the verb. Nevertheless, the effect of the verb’s tense and mood on the choice of the interrogative variants shall be tested. Every single tense and mood occurring among the extracted interrogative tokens was distinguished as a separate factor: the present tense (cf. (93)), the past tenses (present perfect (cf. (94)), imperfect (cf. (95)) and past perfect (cf. (96)), the future tenses (synthetic (cf. (97)) and periphrastic future (cf. (98)), as well as the present conditional (cf. (99)). (93) Alors je me pose la question voir là à ce moment-là on pourrait dire bien est-ce que ça vaut la peine de s’essayer avant? “So I ask myself at this moment, one could say well is it worth it to try one’s hand before?” (OH.101.1615) (94) Il dit, as-tu soupé? “He says, have you had dinner?” (RFQ.038.2191) (95) Ah, elle était dans sa classe en cinquième?



Chapter 3.  Data and methods 

“Oh, she was in her fifth year of school?” (OH.101.1041, cf. (27)) (96) Il dit, j’ai vu un petit ruban bleu, vous m’aviez dit d’aller le reporter? “He says, I have seen a little blue ribbon, you had told me to carry it forward?” (RFQ.004.2350) (97) Ça fait que, il dit, oui, mais si je suis mal pris, il dit, si je t’appelle, il dit, tu viendras-ty? “It happens that he says, yes, but if I am in a tough situation, he says, if I call you, he says, are you going to come?” (RFQ.038.1088) (98) On va-ty le faire nous-autres? “Will we make it?” (OH.087.1538) (99) Puis là elle a dit maman, si tu voulais, tu garderais mes petites? “So then she said, mum, if you wished, would you look after my babies?” (OH.119.2178) 3.4.5 Grammatical class of the verb This factor group distinguishes between the following categories: transitive verbs, intransitive verbs (unaccusatives and unergatives), predicatives, reflexives, and passives, as the following examples show. (100)

Transitives Elle dit, les as-tu écartés? “She says, have you moved them further apart?” (RFQ.009.39)

(101)

Unaccusatives Comment, il dit, Antoine, il dit, tu vas mourir à soir, toi? “What, he says, Antoine, he says, you will die tonight?” (RFQ.016.584)

(102)

Unergatives (098) Ça marche toujours? (2) Oui, oui. “(098) That still works? (2) Yes, yes.” (OH.098.90)

Predicatives (103) Elle dit, ta mère est-tu belle?



Grammatical Variation across Space and Time

“She says, your mother is she beautiful?” (RFQ.023.3847) Reflexives (104) Ah! Oui, il dit, t’en rappelles-tu quand tu as passé par icitte, tu as dit que le diable t’emporte, si tu passais par icitte davantage? “Ah! Yes, he says, do you remember when you passed by here, you said that the devil takes you away, if you passed by here more often?” (RFQ.042.143) (105)

Passives Ton frère est-ce que ton- son rhume est guéri? “Your brother, is your- his cold healed?” (OH.078.1252)

With regard to the unaccusative-unergative antagonism, one could expect unaccusative verbs to favor subject DP inversions (Free inversion, Stylistic inversion, and Simple inversion) since the only argument which unaccusative verbs select is an internal one (contrary to unergative verbs whose only argument is an external one) (cf. Marandin (2001) concerning the notion of unaccusative inversion). Transitive verbs, on the other hand, are expected to be absent from Stylistic inversion constructions unless the internal argument of the verb is a clitic object pronoun or the wh-word itself (cf. de Wind 1995: 153–154). As was mentioned earlier, the possibility that both an object DP and a subject DP may co-occur in a postverbal position is a property which differentiates the diachronically earlier Free inversion from the later Stylistic inversion. Neither the RFQ nor the OH data contain any postverbal subject DPs in yes/ no questions. The only kind of subject-verb inversion here is Pronominal inversion. In view of the absence of subject DP inversion from nineteenth and twentieth century Quebec French yes/no questions, this factor group becomes particularly interesting when considering the earlier (fifteenth to seventeenth century French) data. These variants might already show signs of grammatical restrictions foreshadowing their later disappearance. 3.4.6 Cognitive verbs The manipulation of the data revealed an effect which was not related to any one of the hypotheses at the outset of the study, namely the relatively frequent occurrence of Pronominal inversion with verbs denoting cognitive states or activities (such as penser, trouver, comprendre, cf. (106)). These were treated as a separate factor and compared with the remainder of the verbs.



Chapter 3.  Data and methods 

(106) Il dit, quiens, bonjour les princesses, il dit, souhaiterez-vous une rose? “He says, hey, hello princesses, he says, would you like to have a rose?” (RFQ.038.1665) 3.4.7 Verb syllables Several authors claimed that the choice of subject-verb inversion as an interrogative variant is less likely the longer the inflected verb is in terms of its number of syllables (Behnstedt 1973: 152, Coveney 2002: 210). Length as a measure for syntactic complexity has widely been discussed in the literature (cf. Szmrecsanyi 2004, for an overview). According to the principle of end weight (cf. Behaghel 1909, Wasow 2002), long and heavy constituents and elements tend to be placed at the end of a clause. One could speculate that a similar or comparable constraint makes the attachment of an inverted pronoun to a long verb less likely than to a short verb. This claim shall therefore be tested with the aid of this factor group. It can be divided into three factors: verbs consisting of one syllable (cf. (107)), of two syllables (cf. (108)), and of three or more syllables (cf. (109)). (107) Moi, casser mon épée dans ta cuisse, es-tu fou? “Me and break my sword in your thigh, are you crazy?” (RFQ.23.2133) (108) L’électricité, elle manque dans cuisine, puis on regarde la télévision dans le salon? “Electricity is missing in the kitchen, so we watch the television in the sitting-room?” (OH.87.623) (109) Il dit, à matin, il dit, souhaiterez-vous un chou? “He says, in the morning, he says, would you like to have a cabbage?” (RFQ.38.1694) 3.4.8 Parallel processing This factor group refers to the phenomenon by which the same variant is used several times in a relatively short segment of discourse. In her study on plural use in Puerto Rican Spanish, Poplack (1980a, 1980b) found the elision of /s/ to be favored by the elision of the preceding /s/ in the same NP. According to Weiner & Labov (1983), the parallel processing effect is not restricted to phonology but also extends to syntactic phenomena (cf. also Aaron 2003). This factor group consists of four different factors: the interrogative token may either be the first question uttered by the informant or the first question within the



Grammatical Variation across Space and Time

twenty preceding lines of the transcription. As an alternative, the interrogative token may be preceded by another interrogative token of another variant or of the same variant within the twenty preceding lines of the transcription. 3.4.9 Style The contextual style in which the interrogative token is embedded is an important extralinguistic factor group in the evaluation of spontaneous speech data (RFQ and OH corpus) since it helps to verify whether the stylistic assessments of the different interrogative variants mentioned in the literature are confirmed in the present database or whether the Quebec French interrogative system is subject to different stylistic rules from the European French one. This especially concerns the inversion variants which are widely considered to be indicators of a formal or even literary language style whereas intonation questions range among the rather informal variants. This factor group is also useful in detecting possible register changes. If one hypothesizes, for instance, that subject-verb inversion is a feature of a more formal (prescriptive) variety of français standard and does not belong to the grammar of the vernacular (français populaire), one would expect a style effect to mirror this separation of varieties. Stylistic categories are not as easy to be attributed to the particular interrogative tokens as the other factor groups and factors mentioned so far. The decision as to whether a token is formal or informal could result in an arbitrary and inconsistent coding if one was led by intuition. However, style has also been the focus of extensive linguistic discussions (e.g. Bell 1984, Labov 1972a). It has often turned out to be a decisive factor in linguistic variation. The whole concept of the sociolinguistic interview (cf. Labov 1984) is built upon the idea of eliciting the speaker’s vernacular, which is the style to which the speaker pays the least amount of attention and which is hence the most regular speech style. In an interview situation, however, the speaker pays more than the minimal amount of attention to his or her speech. There is only a small and restricted set of situations in which the vernacular emerges during interaction. Based on this fact, Labov (2001) has proposed a decision tree which helps to attribute the respective tokens either to a careful style or to a casual style. This decision tree is shown in Figure 1. Each of the interrogative tokens in the database has been assigned either to the casual or to the careful speech style, depending on the respective categories of the decision tree. Non-classifiable tokens have been coded as careful by default.



Chapter 3.  Data and methods  Careful speech

Casual speech

–

+ Response

–

+ Language

+ –

Narrative

–

+ –

+

Group

–

Soapbox – Careful [Residual]

+ Kids + Tangent

Figure 1.  Decision Tree for stylistic analysis of spontaneous speech in the sociolinguistic interview (Labov 2001a:94, Figure 5.1)

As Figure 1 shows, higher categories outrank lower ones. In order to make sure that each token is attributed to one and only one of the stylistic categories shown in Figure 1 (which is a basic prerequisite for each variable rule analysis), each and every token has to be evaluated following a top-down procedure with regard to the decision tree, moving from one decision to the next. The first decision to be made is whether the respective token in question is a response to the interviewer’s question or not. An interrogative token is coded as response every time it constitutes “[…] the first sentence that follows speech of the interviewer […]” (Labov 2001a: 89). Responses fall on the careful side of the decision tree. When the token is not a response, one has to decide whether it is a narrative, “[…] the single most important basis for a division of spontaneous speech.”8 (Labov 2001a:89) Narratives are located on the casual side of the tree. When the token is neither a response nor a narrative, one moves to the next decision: comments and remarks about language and language use in the speech community as well as attitudes towards dialectal features of the local language variety always qualify as careful. The next decision category group designates “[…] any speech addressed to third persons 8. In order to identify narrative tokens, I used Labov’s (2004) recursive rule of narrative construction (“Given an event ri, that is unaccounted for, locate an event ri-1 for which the statement “rn happened because ri-1” is true.”, Labov 2004: 38). When this rule applies, the token is embedded in a narrative chain of causal relations. Narratives are known to produce a highly vernacular speech style.



Grammatical Variation across Space and Time

other than the interviewer.” (Labov 2001a: 90) This includes telephone calls and verbal interactions with other family members. Since in these cases the informant’s interlocutors are more familiar with her or him than the interviewer, the speech uttered by the informant may be characterized as casual. A careful speech style is the soapbox style, which is “[…] an extended expression of generalized opinions, not spoken directly to the interviewer, but enunciated as if for a more general audience.” (Labov 2001a: 91) Indicators of this style are, according to the author, an elevated volume level and a repetitive rhetoric. Soapbox speech occurs mostly when talking about politics, crime, and other topics of general interest. When the informant talks about games he played when he was a child, this speech may be casual, provided it is produced from the child’s perspective and not from an adult’s point of view. Finally, tangential shifts signalize a casual style. They are “[…] an extended body of speech that deviates plainly from the last topic introduced by the interviewer, and [represent] the strong interest of the speaker.” (Labov 2001a: 92). If the token cannot be attributed to any one of the stylistic categories while performing this top-down decision procedure, it falls into the residual class by default: all non-classifiable interrogative tokens are taken to be careful. Although there is still room for discussion with regard to the question as to whether this system of stylistic categories is exhaustive or whether other more fine tuned categories should be subsumed under the class of residual tokens (cf. e.g. Mazzaro 2005), I decided to apply the decision tree to the data as is mainly because it represents an accountable and verifiable means of operationalizing an otherwise cloudy notion such as style. The following questions exemplify the different stylistic categories of the decision tree. Response (110) (i) Ça fait quinze ans? (047) Vingt-huit, avec quinze, ça fait bien quarantetrois? “(i) That is fifteen years ago? (047) Twenty-eight, plus fifteen, that’s fourtythree, after all?” (RFQ.047.197) Narrative (111) Il dit bonsoir mademoiselle. Elle dit bonsoir monsieur. Je pourrais-tu loger icitte? Bien elle dit, je le sais pas. Elle dit c’est pas moi qui es la maîtresse. “He says good evening miss. She says good evening, Sir. Could I stay here? Well she says, I don’t know. She says it’s not me the mistress.” (RFQ.044.1443)



Chapter 3.  Data and methods 

(112)

Language Bon vous- vous parlez l’anglais couramment? “Well do you speak English fluently?” (OH.106.1361)

(113)

Group Es-tu d’accord avec ça Pierre? (5) Oui. “Do you agree with that, Pierre? (5) Yes.” (OH.078.2138) 9

(114)

Soapbox As-tu déjà remarqué qu’est-ce qui se trouve à être logique aujourd’hui? “Have you already noticed what turns out to be logical nowadays?” (OH.078.1478)

Kids (115) Là tu disais tu brûles, tu brûles, tu brûles puis tout d’un coup, on trouvait la guenille, des affaires de même. (2) Ouais, okay. (112) À kick-can, tu sais qu’est-ce que c’est? (2) Ouais, ça on a joué. “There you said you burn, you burn, you burn then suddenly we found the rag, or something similar. (2) Yes, okay. (112) Kick-can, you know what it is? (2) Yes, we played that.” (OH.112.1289) Tangential shift (116) Maman va aller tantôt. Sais-tu quelles histoires qu’il aime, les histoires du petit ourson là, tu sais Winnie the Pooh. “Mum will leave soon. Do you know which stories he likes, the stories of that little bear, you know Winnie the Pooh.” (OH.113.1451) Residual (117) Puis, mon autre maison, mon autre chez-nous, vous avez remarqué une grosse maison blanche en laissant les- le pied de la côte là? (i) Oui. “Then the other house, my other home, have you noticed a big white house when you left the end of the slope? (i) Yes.” (RFQ.049.730)

9. Pierre was not the interviewer.



Grammatical Variation across Space and Time

3.4.10 Localization of the token Ashby (1977: 40) asserts that the localization of the interrogative sentence in the interview could play a role. As the author states, “[it] is generally to be expected that as a subject gradually becomes accustomed to talking with the interviewer, his speech becomes more casual.” If it is true that inversion is the more formal variant, one would expect it to prevail in the beginning of an interview and to be surpassed by the -tu variant later in the interview. Ashby’s (1977) hypothesis, however, was not confirmed in his own data. The factor group contains three factors: questions which occur in the first third (the beginning), in the second third (the middle), and in the last third (the end) of the interview. 3.4.11 Social factor groups The extralinguistic social factor groups provide information about where in the social hierarchy the use of certain variants prevails and in which socio-economic class the innovators of a possible change in time may be found. While my basic assumption is that all speakers share the same knowledge in having access to the same set of interrogative variants, it may be a possible outcome of the verification of the social factors that some of the variants predominantly cluster in one particular group of speakers. Such a finding could then be interpreted as an indicator of the existence of competing grammars (cf. Kroch 1989), whereby for instance one of the variants under consideration manifests a different grammatical system from the others. On the other hand, the verification of the social factors may also prove helpful in teasing apart a change from above and a change from below (cf. Labov 1966: 128, Sankoff 2006). The former relates either to the introduction of a prestige feature into the variable system or, alternatively, to the suppression of a stigmatized variant. Changes from above hence may be the consequences of normative and prescriptive pressures most often exerted by institutionalized authorities such as the educational system. Changes from below are not (yet) subject to such normative rectifications since they proceed below the level of linguistic awareness (contrary to changes from above). They start out in one of the central groups of the social hierarchy and show a gradual dispersion into the language use of the other social groups, usually in the form of an S-shaped curve (indicating an initially rather slow rate of diffusion, which then accelerates and slows down again towards the completion of the change). At an initial stage, innovative variants are indicators of the change in being socially but not stylistically stratified. They develop into markers as soon as their use shows patterns of stylistic variation. At some point of the change, people in the speech community become aware of the change and of



Chapter 3.  Data and methods 

the respective variant. They comment on it and consciously evaluate its use. At this point, the variant is not far from turning into a stereotype, becoming (overtly) associated with a particular social group and its values (cf. Hollmann & Siewierska 2006, Labov 2001b:196–197). Considering first the speakers’ sex, the speech of women is generally known to be rather oriented toward the standard while men’s speech contains more vernacular features. This phenomenon is closely related to the concepts of overt and covert prestige (cf. Trudgill 1972). Overt prestige refers to the tendency of using standard variants in more formal speech, while covert prestige designates the social pressure to use vernacular variants in certain relaxed discourse settings. If subject-verb inversion is indeed a feature of the standard variety of French, then one should expect to find it predominantly in women’s speech, whereas the supposedly less formal intonation questions should be used with a higher proportion by men. The extralinguistic variable of the age of the speakers helps to uncover potential cases of language change, both from an apparent and from a real time perspective (cf. Labov 1994). The study of change in apparent time implies a synchronic study of the language production of informants belonging to different age cohorts. Under the assumption that the language use of the informants remains rather stable after their adolescence, changes in variable use from one age cohort to the next may indicate a true generational change. Both the RFQ and the OH corpus allow analyses of change in apparent time since the birth years of the informants cover a time frame of 49 years in the former and of more than fifty years in the latter (cf. Table 3). Furthermore, there is a nearly gapless connection between the youngest speaker of the RFQ corpus (born in 1895) and the oldest speaker of the OH corpus (born before 1918), so that both corpora taken together may serve as a reference for the language use of a continuous 120 years. Table 3.  Constitution of the RFQ and OH sample (Vieux-Hull & Mont-Bleu) by age RFQ: year of birth

number of informants

OH: age at interview (year of birth)

1846 – 1865 1866 – 1875 1876 – 1885 1886 – 1895

6 11 12 11

65 and older (≤ 1918) 55 – 64 (1919–1928) 45 – 54 (1929–1938) 35 – 44 (1939–1948) 25 – 34 (1949–1958) 15 – 24 (1959–1968)

Total N

40

Total N

number of informants 9 7 8 8 8 8 48



Grammatical Variation across Space and Time

Besides the possibility of a generational change, divergences in language use between different age cohorts may also be the result of age grading, i.e. a change in the language use of the individual which is repeated in every generation and which hence does not lead to a language change in the community (cf. Labov 1994: 83, Sankoff & Blondeau 2007). Therefore, a purely synchronic view on the data (or in other words a limitation to an apparent time study) does not yield certainty as to which of these processes actually is at play (cf. Sankoff 2006). A possible way out is the addition of a real time perspective on the change, i.e. the comparison of the results of two or more diachronically distinct corpora of language use. Table 3 shows that the comparison of the RFQ with the OH data allows such a real time perspective: not only can one compare the speech of the informants representing different age groups from one corpus, but it is also possible to do a comparison between both the nineteenth century RFQ and the twentieth century OH corpus. If the different age groups from both corpora display the same kind of variation (which is hence repeated from one century to the next), then age grading is at play. If the speakers from the OH corpus show a linguistic behavior which goes further into the direction already discernible in the RFQ data, however, then a real time change has to be stated (cf. Sankoff 2006). Two further patterns may emerge from the analysis: very frequent use of a certain variant by representatives from all age cohorts (and, conversely, a low rate of use of the other variants) indicates the (near) completion of a change. Finally, metalinguistic comments about one or the other of the variants would point to its stigmatization and to its being subject to a (subsequent) change from above. However, in anticipation of the results presented in Chapter 4., no such comments could be found with regard to the variants analyzed here. In the particular case of the present study, subject-verb inversion is widely taken to be gradually disappearing from spoken French for the benefit of the other non-inverted variants. The expectation would therefore be that older speakers still make more use of it than younger speakers. The information about the social class of the informants from the RFQ corpus is rather fragmentary. Day-laborers received the lowest index of socio-economic class. Most of the informants, however, had an occupation in which they worked manually but not under their own authority (e.g. construction workers and woodworkers), contrary to others such as farmers. The highest socioeconomic rank was given to teachers and secretaries. It is not clear to what extent the results of this factor group are insightful since most of the interrogative sentences cluster in the second mentioned group (manual employees). Moreover, for a large number of informants in the RFQ corpus, information about social class was not available. Out of a total of 617 questions, 328 interrogative sentences could thus not be coded according to this extralinguistic variable. That means that the influence of social class can be analyzed for only less than half of the tokens from the RFQ corpus.



Chapter 3.  Data and methods 

In the OH corpus, the information about the social and educational background of the speakers is considerably more complete; the educational level is known for every speaker. The informants are classified into three educational classes: those who received primary, secondary, and post-secondary education respectively. The speakers are all assigned a code with reference to their socio-economic status: at the lower level are unskilled workers or chronically unemployed informants, followed by skilled workers, by employees in the sales and service sector, and finally by those in the professional and managerial sector. If one of the interrogative variants undergoes a change from below (i.e. a change which proceeds below the level of linguistic awareness and which is hence not subject to metalinguistic comments and hypercorrection), then this should be mirrored in a characteristic way by the social factors. One of the generalizations from studies of language change is the Curvilinear Principle: Linguistic change from below originates in a central social group, located in the interior of the socioeconomic hierarchy. (Labov 2001b: 188)

This principle entails that an innovative interrogative form which is gaining ground due to a change from below should predominate among those speakers who come from the center of the social hierarchy (i.e. informants from the sales and service sector with secondary education in the OH corpus, and farmers (cultivateurs, fermiers) in the RFQ corpus). If, on the other hand, one of the variants is subject to a change from above (i.e. a change of a prestige variant of which the speakers are well aware), then women are expected to be the leaders of this change. This could concern a stigmatized variant which is on the decline (as the -tu variant in European French) or a prestige variant which is on the increase. The second highest status group most often shows the highest degree of stylistic variation, even surpassing the higher social groups in formal situations with regard to the use of the prestige variants (cf. Labov 2001b: 272–275). An additional social variable is the neighborhood in the OH corpus. The data from two neighborhoods were analyzed: Vieux-Hull and Mont-Bleu. The former is a working class neighborhood whose residents have by and large a low income, while the latter is a relatively recent middle class neighborhood whose residents have a higher income. One can expect the neighborhoods to mirror the occupational effects on variable choice.

chapter 4

Results In this chapter, the results of the empirical analyses are presented and summarized. Parts of this section have also been presented in Elsig & Poplack (2006). I focus first on yes/no questions before turning to wh-questions. A diachronic perspective on the topic is obtained by looking first at contemporary spontaneous speech in Gatineau (i.e. the data stemming from a subsample of the OH corpus), then at the corpus of nineteenth century spontaneous speech in Quebec (the RFQ corpus) and finally at the language data from a time when the settling of French North America began (the fifteenth to seventeenth century plays and literature). An apparent time perspective is added to this real-time view on language change through a comparison of different age groups in the oral speech corpora (RFQ and OH).1 4.1 Yes/no questions The first variable context which is considered is yes/no questions. There are seven different variants, as examples (1)a. to (1)g. show. These variants are repeated in (118) below: Pronominal inversion (Subject-clitic inversion) (118) a. Bien qu’il dit, le détruireriez-vous? J’ai dit, bien non. “So he says, would you destroy it?” (OH.091.384) Simple inversion b. Doit estre mon œil gary par ce moien? “Does my eye need to be healed by this means?” (CNN.505.104–105)

1. As Labov (1994: 28) points out, a study of apparent time looks at “[…] the distribution of linguistic forms across age groups in the speech community.”



Grammatical Variation across Space and Time

Free inversion c. en luy est renouvellée l’antique palintocie des Megariens, et la palingenesie de Democritus? Erreur! “In him is renewed and begun again the palintocy of the Megarians and the palingenesy of Democritus. Fie upon such errors!” (Rabelais.416, translation: Urquhart & Motteux, see above) Complex inversion d. Tes feux n’iront-ils point plus avant que la rime? “Your fires don’t they go further than your rhyme?” (Corneille.19.229) Intonation e. Hé! Monsieur, il dit, vous vous levez bien matin? “Hey, Sir, he says, do you get up early in the morning?” (RFQ.037.728) -tu f. Il dit, tu es-tu après tomber sur la tête? “He says, are you just talking nonsense?” (OH.088.426) est-ce que g. Est-ce que vous fumez? (2) Non, merci. “Do you smoke? (2) No, thank you.” (OH.095.1313) The variants Simple, Free, and Complex inversion are only available with a subject DP. In the case of Complex inversion, this subject is followed by a co-referential and inverted subject pronoun. As a matter of course, subject-clitic inversion is restricted to subject pronouns. The other variants are possible with both nominal and pronominal subjects. Based on the claims in the literature and on the initially mentioned hypotheses concerning the French interrogative system and its structure, the following expectations with respect to the data can be stated: previous empirical studies of French interrogatives have shown that colloquial varieties in Europe are virtually exempt from cases of Pronominal inversion (cf. Table 1 on page 43, cf. also Bonnesen & Meisel (2005)). As I argue in Chapter 5., this is because this variant is no longer a grammatically productive option in the French vernacular. In Quebec French, this variant reportedly still occurs (cf. Barbarie 1982, Fox 1989, 1991), but its receding productivity expresses itself by being confined to the context of second person subject pronouns. In other words, Pronominal inversion as the reflex of a productive



Chapter 4.  Results 

structural and derivational mechanism is expected to be absent from contemporary spontaneous speech (the OH corpus). It may marginally occur in the speech of the older speakers of nineteenth century speech (the RFQ corpus). In the fifteenth to seventeenth century literature and plays, it is still expected to be the most important variant. Subject-verb inversion was most probably still in usage even in spontaneous speech at that time although it may already have shown the first signs of its subsequent decline. It might certainly appear to be a bold venture to draw a direct (diachronic) link between the two nineteenth and twentieth century corpora of oral Quebec French and the fifteenth to seventeenth century literature and plays from France, above all with regard to the genre difference between written and spoken language. But if it turns out that in both written and spoken data sources the interrogative variants under consideration are conditioned not only by a number of common independent variables but also in the same way, then this is a particularly strong indication that the phenomena which are being compared are actually the same across all data sets involved and that their comparison is indeed justified. This has been shown to be the case in the different data sources used for the analysis of the evolution of future temporal reference in Brazilian Portuguese by Poplack & Malvar (2007). In order to compensate as far as possible for the evident deficit in representativeness of the Middle and Classical French data sources for the spontaneous speech at that time, the author of the respective literary source was taken as a separate factor group. This allows me to differentiate between several idiosyncratic styles ranging from less formal to more formal while keeping, at the same time, the independent variable of written language constant. If it is true that the first symptoms of loss of productivity show up in the late Middle and Classical French data, one would expect the rate of Pronominal inversion to be lower in the literary sources closer to the vernacular and higher in the rather formal ones. At the same time, signs of lexicalization, i.e. restriction of Pronominal inversion to frequent lexical contexts, might appear. A high token and a low type frequency have generally proven to be good indicators of decreasing productivity. Simple inversion should be absent from both the twentieth century and the nineteenth century corpora of spontaneous speech. In the Middle French data, its use is expected to be marginal. This variant was one of the earliest to disappear from language use, according to Roberts (1993: 190). Free inversion also vanished from yes/no questions quite early, as Roberts (1993) states, although somewhat later than Simple inversion (i.e. late in the sixteenth, or early in the seventeenth century, cf. Roberts (1993: 219)). In wh-questions, Free inversion turned into Stylistic inversion. Free inversion should therefore also be missing from the two spontaneous speech corpora and it should only marginally occur in the Middle French data (especially in yes/no questions).



Grammatical Variation across Space and Time

Complex inversion was proposed to have emerged before Simple and Free inversion had disappeared (which was already between 1400 and 1450, according to Roberts 1993:  170). Nowadays, it is conceived as highly formal (even more formal than Pronominal inversion). The OH and the RFQ corpus should thus lack this variant, but it might be detectable in the later sources of the Middle and Classical French data. The intonation variant has often been characterized as the popular newcomer in spoken varieties of French although its existence may even be traced back to early vulgar Latin texts.2 It is thought to have replaced the inversion variants and to be the unmarked and prevalent variant in contemporary spontaneous speech. In the literary sources, however, it can possibly be found only rarely since this variant relies heavily on a certain intonation pattern in order to express the interrogative character of the clause, a means which of course is not available in written language. As Behnstedt (1973) points out, the question particle -ti is scarcely found in the spontaneous speech production of European French. It is restricted to rural speech and occurs only in the speech of informants from lower ranks of the socio-economic hierarchy. Reports on the use of interrogatives in Canadian French, however, indicate that in this variety the particle seems to be productively used by a larger group of speakers (Fox 1989, Vecchiato 2000, Vinet 2000). It was interesting to see if the particle -tu actually competes in usage with the intonation variant. The est-ce que particle is a minor variant in European varieties of French, but it has not disappeared from usage and is still well entrenched. The analysis of the conditioning factors reveals the contexts where est-ce que is preferred over intonation and -tu questions. 4.1.1 The OH corpus In this section, I describe the usage patterns of the interrogative variants in contemporary Quebec French. The data which were used for this purpose are a subsample of the OH corpus. Only the speech of those speakers who live on the francophone side of the Ottawa River was evaluated. This was done in order to achieve comparability with the earlier RFQ corpus which is the focus of attention in Section 4.1.2. In what follows, I present the results simultaneously for all interrogative variants, but factor group after factor group. At first, only the marginals are discussed, i.e. the distribution of the factors across the variants in percentages and total numbers.3 At 2. I thank Chris Pountain (Queen Mary, University of London) for pointing this out to me. 3. “When overall percentages are shown in conjunction with tables, the information is sometimes called marginal distribution.” (Harris 1999: 236) In the context of variable rule analysis, the expression marginals is more common.



Chapter 4.  Results 

the end of this section, the factor weights obtained by the variable rule analyses are displayed. They show which of the effects are statistically significant. Furthermore, they provide information of greater depth than the marginals in so far as they simultaneously consider the conditioning effects of all factor groups taken together. Factor weights and their ranges may therefore be compared across different factor groups. For this reason, the factor weights are not included in the presentation of the marginals, but rather displayed at the end of this section. Subject identity Table 4 shows the distribution of individual subject types across the different variants of yes/no questions in the OH corpus. The most important pattern emerging from this table concerns Pronominal inversion. Despite its high number of occurrences (32.4 %, N=205/632), this interrogative variant virtually never occurs in questions displaying a non-second person subject. The only exception is an inverted third person plural subject pronoun, illustrated in (119): (119) D’après vous là, ils connaissent t-- ils connaissent-ils la religion? “According to you, do they know the religion?” (OH.103.1072) There are several indicators that the postverbal use of the clitic subject pronoun ils in (119) is non-productive: first, the interrogative sentence is preceded by a false start. Second, it contains a preverbal subject pronoun ils in addition to the postverbal one. An analysis in terms of Complex inversion cannot be the correct interpretation of this sentence because it is known to be excluded from cases where the preverbal subject is also a clitic (cf. Pollock 2006). Therefore, (119) is not a typical case of subject-verb inversion. One may conclude that in Quebec French from Gatineau, Pronominal inversion in yes/no questions is categorically excluded from all non-second person contexts. Table 4.  Subject identity – Distribution of factors across yes/no variants (OH corpus)   Subject identity

INV

INT

TU

ECQ

%

N

%

N

%

N

%

N

TOTAL N

vous tu ils, elles il, elle subject DP on je

62.3 46.2 7.1

71 133 1

29.8 22.6 28.6 55.4 27.7 20.8 9.1

34 65 4 62 13 5 3

0.0 29.2 21.4 32.1 57.4 70.8 72.7

0 84 3 36 27 17 24

7.9 2.1 42.9 12.5 14.9 8.3 18.2

9 6 6 14 7 2 6

114 288 14 112 47 24 33

TOTAL N

32.4

205

29.4

186

30.2

191

7.9

50

632



Grammatical Variation across Space and Time

A further interesting finding is the non-occurrence of the subject pronoun vous in -tu questions. Besides its usage as a second person plural pronoun, vous is also used as a polite form of addressing the interlocutor. It is later shown that, on independent grounds, -tu questions are associated with a rather informal discourse setting. It is thus not astonishing that this variant is incompatible with formality markers. In the next chapter, which deals with the theoretical implications of the results, I also provide an account according to which the co-occurrence of the subject pronoun vous with the interrogative particle -tu is ruled out due to a feature mismatch between both items. Verb identity Table 5 displays the frequency of occurrence of particular lexical verbs with the respective interrogative variants. Only those verbs are listed which occur with a frequency of five or more times in the extracted tokens. The existential il y a, despite not being a verb, was coded separately due to its formulaic character. It must be emphasized that the data do not contain any lexicalized chunks. Certain frequently reoccurring combinations of a particular verb with only one of the interrogative variants could be taken as indicators of formulaic expressions. These were identified and excluded when circumscribing the variable context. Table 5 therefore contains only those verbs that still indicate a productive use of the respective variants. Nonetheless, the rationale for testing the influence of particular verbs was to discover incipient indicators of a potential lexicalization. The table shows that such effects cannot be observed in the OH data. There is no verb which occurs with an outstandingly high frequency and which is reserved for the use with one certain variant. Yet the table reveals an interesting tendency: nearly all those verbs which relate to a cognitive state or activity feature relatively high rates of Pronominal inversion. These verbs (and the related rates of inversion) are highlighted in bold letters and appear in the upper half of Table 5. The lower half shows those verbs which have low rates of Pronominal inversion. Activity verbs such as aller, rester, faire, marcher, etc. predominate. In the later variable rule analysis, this tendency is tested for its significance. Both intonation and -tu questions show an oppositional distribution in response to Pronominal inversion, i.e. those verbs which seem to favor the latter accordingly disfavor the former two and vice versa. It should be noted that this pattern is particularly obvious in est-ce que questions: none of the cognitive verbs selects a single est-ce que question. The upper right part of the table is almost empty.



Chapter 4.  Results 

Table 5.  Verb identity – Distribution of factors across yes/no variants (OH corpus)   Verb penser voir affecter vouloir (modal) comprendre avoir savoir (modal) parler trouver donner entendre prendre aimer connaître other verbs venir pouvoir (modal) être aller travailler rester faire marcher il y a TOTAL N

INV

INT

TU

ECQ

%

N

%

N

%

N

76.9 67.5 66.7 63.9 (65.1) 62.5 48.9 47.3 (100.0) 44.4 40.0 40.0 37.5 37.5 33.3 23.1 22.1 16.7 12.9 (13.3) 15.4 14.3 14.3 7.7 4.3

10 27 4 39 (28) 5 22 26 (2) 4 2 2 3 3 4 3 23 2 4 (4) 16 3 1 1 1

7.7 15.0 16.7 21.3 (27.9) 25.0 4.4 40.0

1 6 1 13 (12) 2 2 22

15.4 17.5 16.7 14.8 (7.0) 12.5 33.3 12.7

2 7 1 9 (3) 1 15 7

44.4 40.0

4 2

37.5 12.5 8.3 61.5 26.9 33.3 3.2

3 1 1 8 28 4 1

51.0 47.6 42.9 53.8 30.4 40.0 20.8

53 10 3 7 7 2 5

11.1 20.0 60.0 25.0 37.5 58.3 15.4 38.5 41.7 67.7 (70.0) 21.2 38.1 14.3 30.8 47.8 60.0 62.5

1 1 3 2 3 7 2 40 5 21 (21) 22 8 1 4 11 3 15

29.4

186

30.2

191

32.4

205

%

N

  TOTAL N

13.3

6

12.5

1

12.5 8.3 16.1 (16.7) 12.5

13 1 5 (5) 13

28.6 7.7 17.4

2 1 4

16.7

4

13 40 6 61 (43) 8 45 55 (2) 9 5 5 8 8 12 13 104 12 31 (30) 104 21 7 13 23 5 24

7.9

50

632

Finally, the use of modal verbs does not turn out to have an independent influence on variable choice: vouloir triggers a high rate of inversion questions, whereas pouvoir represents a favorable context for -tu questions.



Grammatical Variation across Space and Time

Table 6.  Verb frequency – Distribution of factors across yes/no variants (OH corpus)   Verb frequency

INV

INT

TU

%

N

%

N

%

N

frequent ( ≥ 20 times) fairly frequent (10–19 times) average frequency (6–9 times) fairly rare (2–5 times)

34.1 32.6 54.5 25.3

138 30 12 19

29.6 33.7 27.3 25.3

120 31 6 19

28.4 28.3 18.2 40.0

115 26 4 30

rare (singleton)

15.8

6 26.3

10 42.1

TOTAL

32.4

205 29.4

186 30.2

ECQ   % N TOTAL N 7.9 5.4

32 5

9.3

7

405 92 22 75

16 15.8

6

38

50

632

191

7.9

Verb frequency Table 6 displays the distribution of interrogative variants across verb frequency classes. Under the (hypothetical) premise that the gradual loss of this variant is associated with a lexicalization effect, one might have expected that the rate of Pronominal inversion rises with an increase in the frequency of the verb. This is however not the case. Instead, -tu questions appear to be favored in contexts with singleton and rare lexical verbs. I interpret this finding by attributing the status of a default interrogative marker to the -tu variant. Lexical verbs occurring relatively rarely in spontaneous speech represent contexts in which the loss of productivity due to lexicalization effects is the least likely. The frequent use of -tu in these contexts hence indicates that it is highly productive. High frequency verbs Although Table 6 showing the distribution of verb frequency classes across yes/no variants has not revealed many insightful tendencies, it is important to mention that nearly half of all interrogative utterances contain one of the five most frequent verbs (cf. Figure 2): être, vouloir, savoir, avoir and voir. As Table 7 shows, the distribution of these verbs across the interrogative variants does not mirror the distribution of the remaining verbs. Vouloir, savoir, voir, and avoir trigger a highly frequent use of Pronominal inversion. However, être shows a low frequency. Savoir and être represent contexts with highly frequent rates of intonation questions, whereas avoir and voir have few of them. -tu questions appear to be an unfavorable context for all of the high frequency verbs (except avoir). Finally, est-ce que questions represent a context where three out of five high frequency verbs do not occur at all (vouloir, savoir, and voir), but which is particularly favored by avoir and être (confirming Terry 1970: 92).



Chapter 4.  Results 

être

vouloir others

savoir

avoir voir Verb

%

N

être vouloir savoir avoir voir others

16 10 9 7 6 52

104 61 55 45 40 327

TOTAL N

632

Figure 2.  The distribution of vouloir, savoir, voir, avoir, and être in the OH corpus (only yes/no questions) Table 7.  The distribution of vouloir, savoir, voir, avoir, and être across yes/no variants in the OH corpus (INV = Pronominal inversion; INT = intonation; TU = -tu particle, ECQ = est-ce que particle) Verb

INV

INT

TU

ECQ

%

N

%

N

%

N

%

N

TOTAL N

voir vouloir avoir savoir être others

68 64 49 47 15 23

27 39 22 26 16 75

15 21 4 40 51 28

6 13 2 22 53 90

18 15 33 13 21 40

7 9 15 7 22 131

13

6

13 9

13 31

40 61 45 55 104 327

TOTAL N

32

205

29

186

30

191

8

50

632



Grammatical Variation across Space and Time

One of the initial hypotheses was that a possible decline in productivity of subjectverb inversion can be detected by means of lexicalization effects. Indeed, the four verbs vouloir, savoir, avoir, and voir account for more than half of all yes/no questions displaying an inverted verb-subject word order (55.6 %, N=114/205). Figure 3 shows the distribution of yes/no variants in both groups: one of the five verbs vouloir, savoir, voir, avoir, and être (the bars to the left) and one of the remainder of the verbs (the bars to the right). 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0%

INV

INT

TU

vouloir, savoir, voir, avoir, être

Variants INV INT TU ECQ TOTAL N

other verbs

vouloir, savoir, voir, avoir, être % N 43 31 20  6

ECQ

130   96   60   19 305

other verbs % 23 28 40  9

N   75   90 131   31 327

Figure 3.  The distribution of yes/no variants in the OH corpus in the group defined by the five verbs vouloir, savoir, voir, avoir, and être, and in the group defined by the remainder of the verbs respectively (INV = Pronominal inversion; INT = intonation; TU = -tu particle, ECQ = est-ce que particle)



Chapter 4.  Results 

Pronominal inversion and -tu questions show the opposite behavior: in the context defined by the verbs vouloir, savoir, voir, avoir, and être, inversion questions are the predominant variant, while -tu questions are represented with only an average percentage. The reverse is true for the remainder of the verbs (hence confirming the favoring effect of singleton and rare verbs on ‑tu questions in Table 6). This indicates that Pronominal inversion and -tu questions are closely related in their usage patterns, while intonation and est-ce que questions show a behavior actually independent of these lexical contexts. This should not come as a surprise if one recalls the evolutionary relationship between the particle -tu and Pronominal inversion. The postverbal interrogative marker is generally considered to be a reanalyzed former third person singular masculine subject pronoun (cf. Roberts 1993: 220–224); in other words, it is a former instance of Pronominal inversion. The other empirical results confirm that Pronominal inversion and -tu questions show opposite patterns of distribution in more than this context. The observation from Table 7 that the contexts defined by the verbs vouloir, savoir, voir, and avoir correlate with a high rate of usage of postverbal pronouns (tu and vous) and, conversely, that all other lexical contexts correlate with a high rate of usage of the postverbal interrogative particle (‑tu), suggests that speakers are sensitive to certain lexical contexts when uttering an inversion question. In other words, it is possible that native speakers of Quebec French increasingly perceive ø veux-tu / ø voulez-vous, ø sais-tu / ø savez-vous, ø vois-tu / ø voyez-vous, and ø as-tu / ø avez-vous as lexicalized constructions which are no longer the result of a productive application of an inversion rule (whatever this rule might be, cf. Chapter 5. for discussion, and cf. the examples below for the purpose of illustration)4. The possibility of omitting the preverbal subject hence becomes more and more restricted to certain lexical constructions such as these. The default case is its presence which explains why the -tu variant intrudes into the relevant contexts formerly reserved for Pronominal inversion. (120) a. Bertrand veux-tu venir à messe? “Bertrand, do you want to come to the Mass?” (OH.101.963) b. Voulez-vous avoir quelque chose d’autre pour boire? Avec de la glace dedans? “Do you want something else to drink? With ice cubes in it?” (OH.078.1511)

4. The symbol ‘ø’ indicates the absence of an overt preverbal subject (pronoun).



Grammatical Variation across Space and Time

(121) a. Sais-tu qu’est-ce que je veux dire? “Do you know what I want to say?” (OH.114.1531) b. Saviez-vous je prenais la pilule? “Did you know that I am on the pill?” (OH.114.569) (122) a. Vois-tu là, comment ce qu’ils parlent? “Do you see how they talk?” (OH.081.1591) b. Voyez-vous la différence? “Do you see the difference?” (OH.120.1020) (123) a. Il dit as-tu une réponse? “He says, does he have an answer?” (OH.120.1626) b. Avez-vous du papier à rouler? “Do you have cigarette paper?” (OH.088.1171) This process appears to be a gradual one and has not yet achieved its end: Figure 3 shows that among the remainder of the verbs, Pronominal inversion still represents almost a quarter of all yes/no questions. Important evidence that this seeming lexicalization has not yet progressed very far is provided by the fact that the verbs shown in Table 7, when being used in inversion questions, may in general occur in all types of (synthetic and periphrastic) tenses. While two-thirds of the interrogatives involving one of the verbs vouloir, and voir are inversion questions, these cannot be dismissed as fixed expressions, as the following two examples illustrate: (124) L’as-tu vu c’te film-là? “Have you seen this film?” (OH.107.2146) (125) Verrais-tu toi deux- deux chinois parler en français? “Could you imagine two Chinese speaking French?” (OH.078.2086)



Chapter 4.  Results 

The situation is slightly different when it comes to vouloir: among 39 inversion questions, only one features the verb vouloir not in the present tense indicative: (126) Je me prends peut-être un peu trop tard, voudriez-vous quelque chose à boire? “Perhaps, I find myself thinking of it a little late, would you like to have something to drink?” (OH.110.1988) In spite of this, the observation that a third of these tokens occur with the inverted subject pronoun vous and two thirds with tu is a further indication that one cannot consider them as fixed expressions. As a final remark, the absence of a verb frequency effect with regard to Pronominal inversion in Table 6 on page 143 indicates that the favoring effect of vouloir, savoir, voir and avoir on this variant is not first and foremost a frequency effect, but rather a lexically conditioned one. Tense and mood Table 8 shows that there is no consistent effect as to the periphrastic or synthetic properties of verbal tense. While the present perfect selects a high proportion of Pronominal inversion, the periphrastic future seems to constitute a favorable context for -tu questions. This finding as well as the distribution of the other factors disconfirm (at least for the data under study) previous statements made by Ashby (1977) and Terry (1970). In fact, the rather scattered distribution of interrogative variants across the factors in this group turns verbal mood and tense into an unreliable predictor of variable choice. Table 8.  Tense and mood – Distribution of factors across yes/no variants (OH corpus)   Tense, mood

INV

INT

TU

ECQ

  TOTAL N

%

N

%

N

%

N

%

N

present perfect present tense conditional periphrastic future imperfect

47.1 33.8 29.6 12.0 5.3

32 158 8 6 1

29.4 30.8 11.1 22.0 42.1

20 144 3 11 8

22.1 27.8 37.0 62.0 26.3

15 130 10 31 5

1.5 7.7 22.2 4.0 26.3

1 36 6 2 5

68 468 27 50 19

TOTAL

32.4

205

29.4

186

30.2

191

7.9

50

632



Grammatical Variation across Space and Time

Table 9.  Grammatical verb type – Distribution of factors across yes/no variants (OH corpus) INV Grammatical verb type

INT

TU

ECQ

%

N

%

N

%

N

%

N

TOTAL N

transitives unergatives reflexives predicatives unaccusatives

38.6 31.1 28.0 14.0 5.0

168 14 7 15 1

22.8 31.1 20.0 53.3 55.0

99 14 5 57 11

31.5 24.4 52.0 20.6 40.0

137 11 13 22 8

7.1 13.3

31 6

12.1

13

435 45 25 107 20

TOTAL N

32.4

205

29.4

186

30.2

191

7.9

50

632

Grammatical verb type The same reservations made for the potential influence of verbal mood and tense may be repeated with regard to the grammatical class of the verb. Table 9 shows the distribution of interrogative variants across different verb classes. Unergatives and unaccusatives are both intransitive verbs, the former selecting an external argument and the latter an internal one. Yet the two do not show any commonalities in the patterns of conditioning. Furthermore, reflexives resemble unaccusatives in lacking an external argument that has been absorbed by the reflexive pronoun (according to the analyses put forward by Bouchard 1984, Grimshaw 1990 and Marantz 1984). This (supposed) structural relatedness is not mirrored by the marginals displayed in Table 9 either. In fact, the variants show a distribution across the factors which is as difficult to account for as in the mood and tense classes of the verb. In view of the lack of a consistent behavior of structurally related variants, I refrain from trying to provide a linguistic explanation for the factors in this factor group and the preceding one. Cognitive verbs A regular pattern related to verbal semantics emerges from the distribution of the interrogative tokens. Verbs which designate some mental or cognitive activity or state trigger the use of Pronominal inversion quite often. This lexical group contains verbs of propositional attitude (cf. (127)), internal experience (cf. (128)), cognition (cf. (129)), desire (cf. (130)) and perception (cf. (131)), as well as directed perception (cf. (132)), following the semantic verb classification in van Valin (1993). (127) Il y a le Cégep mais c’est ça, trouves-tu que c’est utilisé cette salle-là? “There is the Cégep, but that’s it, do you find that this room is made use of?” (OH.073.1184)



Chapter 4.  Results 

Table 10.  Semantic verb type – Distribution of factors across yes/no variants (OH corpus) INV

INT

TU

ECQ

Cognitive verbs

%

N

%

N

%

N

%

N

TOTAL N

cognitive verbs other verbs

50.6 20.8

125 80

24.3 32.7

60 126

23.9 34.3

59 132

1.2 12.2

3 47

247 385

TOTAL N

32.4

205

29.4

186

30.2

191

7.9

50

632

(128) ouais ça te tente-tu d’aller au raftsmen prendre une bière? “yes, does it appeal to you to go to the raftsmen to have a beer?” (OH.100.1905) (129) Je t’avais- tu as-tu pensé ça tout à l’heure là? “Have you just thought that?” (OH.075.356) (130) Elle aime-tu le beurre puis toi tu aimes-tu le beurre? “Does she like butter, then do you like butter?” (OH.099.1037) (131) Madame Sauve, vous en avez entendu parler? “Mrs. Sauve, have you heard talking about that?” (OH.081.720) (132) Voyez-vous le- la différence? “Do you see the difference?” (OH.120.1110) Voir is also part of this group when used as a synonym for understand, realize. Verb syllables The length of the inflected part of the verb in terms of its number of syllables was tested as a factor group because earlier research on this matter reported a disfavoring effect of tri- and polysyllabic verbs on the choice of Pronominal inversion (cf. Behnstedt 1973: 291–292). Coveney (2002: 211) suggests that lengthening of the verbal group (e.g. by using a long verb or by attaching non-subject proclitics) “[delays] the crucially important information of the subject itself.” He further speculates that the evolution of French towards a more and more analytic language has made these instances of Pronominal inversion increasingly difficult for children to master, a circumstance which ultimately led to their disappearance. In other words, the loss of productivity of Pronominal inversion is supposed to have come along with an increasing restriction to as short inflected verbs as possible. Therefore, (133) should be more likely than (134).



Grammatical Variation across Space and Time

Table 11.  Number of verb syllables – Distribution of factors across yes/no variants (OH corpus)   Verb syllables

INV

INT

TU

ECQ

%

N

%

N

%

N

%

N

  TOTAL N

1 syllable 2 syllables ≥ 3 syllables

27.9 42.9 46.7

125 66 14

29.2 31.8 20.0

131 49 6

36.2 16.9 10.0

162 26 3

6.7 8.4 23.3

30 13 7

448 154 30

TOTAL N

32.4

205

29.4

186

30.2

191

7.9

50

632

(133) Puis je leur demande, êtes-vous pour- pour l’amour libre? “Then I ask them, are you in favor of free love?” (OH.078.907) (134) Travaillez-vous vous-autres? Non, vous êtes étudiantes. “Do you work? No, you are students.” (OH.105.2372) Table 11 shows that exactly the contrary is the case: the longer the inflected verb, the higher the proportion of interrogatives featuring Pronominal inversion and est-ce que. Conversely, the shorter the verb, the higher the proportion of -tu questions. This finding is interesting in so far as it apparently provides counter-evidence against the hypothesis that Pronominal inversion is on its way to being extinct. Furthermore, the -tu variant mirrors the inversion variant in an antagonistic way, an observation which was already made with regard to verb frequency classes (cf. Figure 3 on page 82). It further shows that whatever reasons Behnstedt (1973: 152) might have had to consider long verbs as syntactically more complex than short verbs (e.g.  the principle of end weight or similar constraints) and therefore to disfavor Pronominal inversion, these expectations are not realized in the data at hand. Parallel processing Parallel processing (cf. Poplack 1980b) does not seem to exert a strong influence on the choice of interrogative variants in view of the small deviations from the overall distribution of variants. There is only a slightly higher rate of Pronominal inversion and of est-ce que questions when occurring in a sequence of several inversion (or est-ce que ) questions. The rate of -tu questions is accordingly low. Again, the -tu variant shows a mirror effect to Pronominal inversion, an observation made repeatedly in the verification of factor groups.



Chapter 4.  Results 

Table 12.  Parallel processing – Distribution of factors across yes/no variants (OH corpus)   Parallel processing

INV % N

INT % N

TU %

N

ECQ   % N TOTAL N

preceding token (20 lines): same 40.0 42 26.7 28 20.0 21 13.3 14 preceding token (20 lines): different 30.4 28 31.5 29 28.3 26 9.8 9 no preceding token 31.0 135 29.7 129 33.1 144 6.2 27

105 92 435

TOTAL N

632

32.4 205 29.4 186 30.2 191

7.9 50

In fact, this pattern is expected if it is true that Pronominal inversion is on the decline; a form which gradually loses its productivity might be more likely when occurring in a sequence of several of these forms (cf. example (135)). On the other hand, a fully productive variant would be expected to occur regardless of whether or not it is preceded by another instance of the same variant. (135) As-tu encore des questions là, as-tu fini là? “Do you still have any questions, have you finished?” (OH.112.560) Style Table 13 shows the distribution of the different stylistic categories from Labov’s (2001a) decision tree across the yes/no variants. Intonation and -tu questions show a rather heterogeneous behavior: while some categories of casual style favor their use, others exert a disfavoring effect. The same is true for the categories of careful style. Yet there is an overall tendency of intonation questions to show higher rates in a careful style setting and of -tu questions to be more likely in a casual style conversation. The most important stylistic effects occur with regard to Pronominal inversion and est-ce que: the former is clearly preferred in a casual style, mostly in narratives and tangential shifts; the latter seems to be particularly suitable for soapbox speech. The careful soapbox speech triggers a relatively high rate of est-ce que and a correspondingly low rate of Pronominal inversion. In summary then, the results suggest that yes/no questions featuring Pronominal inversion and the particle -tu indicate a more informal style, while intonation and est-ce que questions are reserved for a rather formal style. Especially with regard to Pronominal inversion and intonation questions, these results are unexpected and contradict the observations from European French.

 Grammatical Variation across Space and Time

Table 13.  Conversational style – Distribution of factors across yes/no variants (OH corpus)   Style

INV

INT

TU

%

N

%

N

%

N

Casual tangential shift narratives childrens’ games group discussions Careful residual language soapbox response

43.8 37.6 33.3 33.3

7 53 1 22

31.2 12.8 66.7 42.4

5 18 2 28

12.5 48.2

2 68

24.2

16

36.3 30.8 23.0 11.5

78 12 29 3

37.2 41.0 15.9 65.4

80 16 20 17

17.7 23.1 41.3 23.1

TOTAL N

32.4

205

29.4

186

30.2

ECQ % N

  TOTAL N

12.5 1.4

2 2

16 141 3 66

38 9 52 6

8.8 5.1 19.8

19 2 25

215 39 126 26

191

7.9

50

632

Localization of the token At the beginning of the sociolinguistic interview, the interviewer is still perceived as a stranger by the informant. He or she therefore tends to use the more formal variants. Towards the end of the interview, the conversational situation generally becomes more relaxed and the less formal variants emerge more often. This was my hypothesis at the outset. When one looks at the results in Table 14 and recalls the findings of the variants’ stylistic evaluation, however, the patterns turn out to be rather unexpected. Intonation questions which indicate careful speech become more and more frequent the further the interview progresses. Conversely, -tu questions start out with a high rate and gradually decrease during the course of the interview. A possible explanation for this pattern might be found in the status of -tu which infiltrates into the domains of usage of Pronominal inversion (as many other factor groups show) and which hence shows signs of developing into a default variant. It would not be surprising if speakers tend to prefer a variant which they perceive as the default form at the beginning of a conversation with a stranger. The question as to why it is intonation questions and not Pronominal inversion whose use increases during the interview, however, remains unanswered. Summarizing the distribution of the variants across factor groups and factors, the following tendencies have been observed. Pronominal inversion is restricted to second person (singular and plural) subject pronouns. It ranges high in usage among cognitive verbs. It seems to be preferred with a verb in the present perfect although no consistent periphrastic versus synthetic tense effect could be noticed. It is also quite likely to be used with a polysyllabic verb when preceded by another inversion question and in a casual style context.



Chapter 4.  Results 

Table 14.  Localization of the token – Distribution of factors across yes/no variants (OH corpus)   Localization

INV

INT

TU

ECQ % N

  TOTAL N

%

N

%

N

%

N

beginning middle end

34.7 36.4 28.3

50 76 79

22.2 26.8 35.1

32 56 98

35.4 32.5 25.8

51 68 72

7.6 4.3 10.8

11 9 30

144 209 279

TOTAL N

32.4

205

29.4

186

30.2

191

7.9

50

632

-tu questions have turned out to be absent from second person plural contexts. They are frequently used with rare and monosyllabic verbs in the periphrastic future and at the beginning of an interview (in contrast to intonation questions). They are rarely used when preceded by another -tu question. Est-ce que questions preferentially appear with non-cognitive and polysyllabic verbs, and in a sequence of several est-ce que questions. They are the preferred variant when talking in a soapbox style. Intonation questions seem to be least constrained by the independent variables. They tend to occur in a rather formal discourse toward the end of the interview. Variable rule analysis The presentation of the results has so far been limited to the marginals, i.e. the distribution of the factors across the variants. Although some important patterns and observations have already emerged therefrom, their consideration alone does not suffice in drawing a complete picture of the conditioning of yes/no variants in discourse. The main reason for this is that the factor groups and the factors were considered separately and one after the other. In a spontaneous speech setting, however, the choice of one interrogative variant over the other is constrained not just by one of these factors, but by a multitude of different factors which exert their influence simultaneously. A variable rule analysis allows one to test the influence of each factor and factor group on the variation when all other respective factors and factor groups are taken into account. Although a factor may show an interesting pattern in the marginals, it could still be the case that it does not significantly contribute to the variation. The variable rule analysis shows which factor groups have a statistically significant influence and which of the factors favor or disfavor a certain variant. Finally, it shows the relative effect strength of the different factor groups tested. All of this cannot be achieved by looking at the marginals alone. Table 16 on page 93 displays the factor groups and factors which were introduced into the variable rule analysis. It shows the absolute number of tokens in each variable context and the corrected mean, which is the general probability that



Grammatical Variation across Space and Time

this variant is chosen in a spontaneous discourse. The four yes/no variants are listed. Statistically significant factor weights are displayed in bold. Factor weights below the level of statistical significance are displayed between square brackets. The higher a factor weight, the more the factor favors the respective variant and, conversely, the lower a factor weight, the more this factor disfavors the respective variant. The range is the effect strength of the factor group tested. It is the difference between the highest and the lowest factor weight in one factor group. For each variant in Table 16, the first column indicating the factor weights is followed by a second column showing the corresponding percentages and a third column with the total number of realizations of the respective variant-factor combinations. The fourth column provides the total number of realizations of a factor. The percentages (in the second column) are hence derived from the proportion of the number of realizations of a variant in a certain factor compared to the overall number of occurrences of this factor in the data. In consideration of the lack of revealing tendencies provided by the marginals in the two factor groups tense and mood of the verb (cf. Table 8 on page 85) and grammatical verb class (cf. Table 9 on page 86), these two factor groups were removed from the variable rule analysis. Furthermore, certain factors would have caused considerable interactions between each other: for instance, verbs in the imperfect or in the conditional are necessarily polysyllabic. Another factor group which does not appear in Table 16 is the identity of the lexical verb. Due to its high number of factors – every single verb representing an individual factor – it is unsuitable for the statistical analysis. Its consideration in the marginals was however useful in detecting the effect exerted by the group of cognitive verbs. Table 15.  Cross Tabulation – subject identity and verb syllables (yes/no questions, OH corpus) Syllables Subject pronoun tu TOTAL N vous

monosyllabic % N

INV others

49 51

INV others

40 60

INV others

48 52

TOTAL N

TOTAL N

121 127 248 4 6 10 125 133 258

disyllabic % N 32 68 63 37 54 46

11 23 34 54 32 86 65 55 120

polysyllabic % N 17 83 72 28 58 42

1 5 6 13 5 18 14 10 24

TOTAL N % N 46 54 62 38 51 49

133 155 288 71 43 114 204 198 402

N Input value Subject identity vous tu others range Verb frequency singleton rare average frequency frequent very frequent range Cognitive verbs cognitive verbs others range

Variants

  71 133 1

  62.3 46.2 0.4

  15.8 25.3 54.5 32.6 34.1

50.6 20.8

  [.30] [.46] [.60] [.48] [.53]

  .68 .38 30 125 80

  6 19 12 30 138

205

32.4

P-INV % N

  .32   / 

FW

  247 385

  38 75 22 92 405

632     114 288 230

Total N

  [.46] [.53]

  .29   .52 .43 .58 15   [.44] [.44] [.53] [.57] [.50]

FW

24.3 32.7

  26.3 25.3 27.3 33.7 29.6

  29.8 22.6 37.8

N

60 126

  10 19 6 31 120

  34 65 87

186

INT

29.4

%

  247 385

  38 75 22 92 405

632     114 288 230

Total N   .30     .44 .55 11   .70 .63 .48 .55 .45 25   [.47] [.52]

FW

Table 16.  Conditioning of yes/no variants in the OH corpus (linguistic and stylistic factors) Factor weights obtained by GoldVarb X (a variable rule application) TU

23.9 34.3

  42.1 40.0 18.2 28.3 28.4

  0.0 29.2 31.1

30.2

%

59 132

  16 30 4 26 115

  0 84 107

191

N

  247 385

  38 75 22 92 405

632     114 288 344

Total N

.22 .70 48

[.41] [.53]

.08   .52 .34 .68 34   [.47] [.44]

FW

1.2 12.2

  15.8 9.3 0.0 5.4 7.9

  7.9 2.1 15.2

N

3 47

  6 7 0 5 32

  9 6 35

50

ECQ

7.9

%

247 385

  38 75 22 92 405

  114 288 230

632

Total N

Chapter 4.  Results 

Verb: number of syllables monosyllabic disyllabic polysyllabic range Parallel processing no prec.tok. prec.tok.: same prec.tok.: different range Style casual careful range Localization beginning middle end range

Variants

  .57 .46 11   [.52] [.53] [.47]

  .45 .59 .74 29   [.48] [.61] [.48]

FW

83 122

50 76 79

34.7 36.4 28.3

135 42 28

31.0 40.0 30.4

58.0 30.0

125 66 14

27.9 42.9 46.7

P-INV % N

  [.44] [.53]   .42 .48 .56 14

  144 209 279

  [.51] [.46] [.53]

  435 105 92   143 406

  [.50] [.52] [.35]

FW

  448 154 30

Total N

22.2 26.8 35.1

23.5 32.8

29.7 26.7 31.5

N

32 56 98

53 133

129 28 29

131 49 6

INT

29.2 31.8 20.0

%

  144 209 279

  226 406

  435 105 92

  448 154 30

Total N   .60 .31 .15 45   .54 .38 .45 16   .58 .46 12   [.55] [.53] [.45]

FW

TU

35.4 32.5 25.8

38.1 25.9

33.1 20.0 28.3

36.2 16.9 10.0

%

51 68 72

86 105

144 21 26

162 26 3

N

  144 209 279

  226 406

  435 105 92

  448 154 30

Total N

[.55] [.41] [.54]

.24 .65 41

.44 .67 .60 23

.44 .60 .83 39

FW

7.6 4.3 10.8

1.8 11.3

6.2 13.3 9.8

N

11 9 30

4 46

27 14 9

30 13 7

ECQ

6.7 8.4 23.3

%

144 209 279

226 406

435 105 92

448 154 30

Total N

 Grammatical Variation across Space and Time



Chapter 4.  Results 

As for Pronominal inversion, the distinction between the subject pronouns tu and vous could not be maintained in the variable rule analysis. These factors interact with the length of the inflected verb as Table 15 shows: the longer the inflected verb, the higher the rate of Pronominal inversion in interrogatives involving the subject vous, but the lower its rate in questions with the subject tu. Finally, the different stylistic categories were merged so that only casual and careful style were distinguished in the variable rule analysis. The first factor group (subject identity, cf. Table 16, second row) confirms what the marginals suggested: since Pronominal inversion occurs only with second person subjects (except for one case), the other variants are favored by non-second person subjects. Second person plural vous (which is also used as a politeness marker) is absent from -tu questions. This might be a formality effect: tu as an informal pronoun of address represents an inadequate context for est-ce que questions (which have turned out to correlate with formality), and conversely, vous as a politeness form disallows the use of the casual -tu variant. However, in Chapter 5., I argue that the incompatibility of the subject pronoun vous with -tu questions might also be due to a feature mismatch between the pronoun and the interrogative particle. The frequency of the verb (i.e. the second factor group, cf. Table 16, third row) shows that the favoring influence of rare lexical contexts on the use of -tu questions (cf. Table 6) operates above the level of statistical significance. In the discussion of the marginals, I ascribed this tendency to the status of -tu questions as an upcoming default variant. This argument was strongly supported by its very high rate of usage after removing from consideration the five most frequent lexical verbs (vouloir, savoir, voir, avoir, être). The two observations (i.e. the interpretation of -tu questions as the default variant and its incompatibility with vous) are not contradictory: the OH corpus is a database of spoken colloquial French. Therefore it does not come as a surprise that it represents a favorable context for the use of colloquial variants by itself. Yet, this does not mean that the data may not be divided up into different stylistic categories which may be classified as either casual or careful. The verification of the factor group style indeed shows that -tu questions are more adequate in a casual style, whereas est-ce que questions strongly correlate with a careful style (cf. Table 16, seventh row). Interestingly, Pronominal inversion is also favored by a casual style, contrary to what many researchers have reported for European French (e.g.  Behnstedt 1973:  175–180). In Chapter 5., I provide a unified structural account for both Pronominal inversion and the -tu particle. If they are indeed syntactically closely related, as I propose, then it is expected that they occur in the same diaphasic variety (i.e. in casual speech). The remainder of the factor groups confirm the tendencies observed in the marginals: cognitive verbs favor Pronominal inversion at the expense of est-ce que



Grammatical Variation across Space and Time

questions. The more syllables the verb has the more likely is the use of Pronominal inversion and of est-ce que questions and the less likely is the use of the -tu variant. -tu questions are preferred as the initial variant when no other question precedes them (as would be expected for an unmarked default variant). Est-ce que questions, on the other hand, are favored when occurring in a sequence of several instances of this variant. This finding is also expected since the formula est-ce que obviously represents a more marked variant than the other three. Finally, intonation questions are significantly favored towards the end of an interview (an observation I would have expected with regard to informal variants such as -tu questions and for which I therefore lack an interpretation). The four examples below represent prototypical cases for each of the yes/no variants combining all or most of the favoring effects which turned out to be statistically significant. (136) Maintenant, comprenez-vous [INV] que pour le minéral je peux le localiser maintenant? “Now, do you understand that as for the mineral, I can locate it now?” (OH.082.2979) (137) Nous-autres on parle [INT] le québécois? “Do we speak Quebec French?” (OH.079.2143) (138) Ça mène-tu [TU] trop de train? “Does it make too much noise?” (OH.105.2809) (139) Remarquez bien que j’ai rien contre les- ils ont le droit de vivre, le soleil reluit pour tout le monde, autant pour eux comme pour nous-autres, mais est-ce qu’ils nous recevraient [ECQ] eux-autres dans leur pays, nous traiter de la façon qu’on les traite au pays? Ah, là ça serait un gros point d’interrogation à prouver ça. “Note that I have nothing against the- they have the right to live, the sun shines for everyone, as much for them as for us, but would they welcome us in their country, treat us the same way as we treat them in our country? Ah, that would be a big question mark to prove that.” (OH.078.2251) Sentence (136) is an inversion question featuring the subject pronoun vous and a cognitive trisyllabic verb. (137) is an instance of an intonation question occurring with a subject other than tu and vous (on in this case) and towards the end of the interview. The interrogative token in (138) contains a monosyllabic form of a singleton verb (mener) and a non-second person subject. The token is not preceded



Chapter 4.  Results 

by any other yes/no question in the twenty preceding lines of the transcription. (139), finally, represents a typical est-ce que question: it is clearly embedded in the soapbox style which qualifies it as careful. The verb is trisyllabic and non-cognitive. The subject is neither tu nor vous. So far, the empirical evaluation of the linguistic and stylistic factor groups has shown that the most striking pattern is the restriction of Pronominal inversion to second person contexts. -tu questions exhibit the behavior of an unmarked default variant. Est-ce que questions are rare in their overall use. However, if they are used, they are particularly well suited in contexts of soapbox style (hence indicating their markedness). Intonation questions, finally, have turned out to be least influenced by the factor groups tested. Although representing almost a third of all questions, they do not seem to take part in the overall patterns of conditioning of variable choice. This might have to do with their special status of not featuring any syntactic mechanisms of expressing interrogation. Social factor groups So far, only linguistic factors have been analyzed as independent variables. The use of the diverse variants of yes/no questions was also examined with regard to social factor groups, such as the age, sex, education, and occupation, as well as the informant’s neighborhood of residence (Mont-Bleu or Vieux-Hull). Table 17 summarizes the percentages of distribution of the extralinguistic variables. The distribution of the social factors across yes/no variants in the OH corpus provides some indicators for a change in progress: Pronominal inversion decreases in usage; -tu questions are gaining ground; the est-ce que marker disappears among speakers younger than thirty-five-years old. As could already be observed among the linguistic and stylistic factor groups, intonation questions are only marginally affected by these patterns of conditioning. As Table 17 shows, there is a tendency of speakers from Vieux-Hull to prefer Pronominal inversion and intonation questions over speakers from Mont-Bleu who tend to use -tu and est-ce que questions. It should be pointed out that both neighborhoods are located on the francophone side of the Canadian National Capital Region, i.e. in what is now called the City of Gatineau. Mont-Bleu is an upper middle class neighborhood and Vieux-Hull is a working class neighborhood (cf. Poplack 1989: 414). This suggests that Pronominal inversion and intonation questions are indicative of a working class speech, whereas -tu and est-ce que questions represent rather middle class variants. Adding this to the observations made in Table 16 with regard to style, the use of intonation questions is appropriate in the careful speech of working class speakers and the use of est-ce que questions represents the variant expressing careful style in middle class speech. The converse is true for the casual variants, Pronominal inversion, and -tu questions.



Grammatical Variation across Space and Time

Table 17.  Social (extralinguistic) factor groups – Distribution of factors across yes/no variants (OH corpus)   Neighborhood Mont-Bleu Vieux-Hull Sex female male Age 15–24 25–34 35–44 45–54 55–64 ≥ 65 Education primary secondary post-secondary Occupation unskilled and unemployed skilled sales and service professional and managerial TOTAL N

INV % N

INT %

TU N

%

N

ECQ % N

  TOTAL N

30.2 34.5

104 25.9 101 33.1

89 35.2 97 25.6

121 75

8.7 6.8

30 20

344 293

31.7 32.7

102 27.3 103 31.1

88 35.1 98 26.3

113 83

5.9 9.8

19 31

322 315

51.4 50.4 23.4 26.1 15.9 23.5

37 0.0 61 0.0 34 18.6 23 4.5 18 15.0 23 2.0

0 0 27 4 17 2

72 121 145 88 113 98

72 24.2 87 32.7 27 40.6

50 3.9 118 11.6 28

8 42

207 361 69

72 0.9 29 8.3 46 49 19.7

2 10 38

221 120 103 193

50

637

16.7 25.6 33.1 37.5 37.2 39.8 37.2 31.6 20.3 35.3 35.0 25.2 30.6 32.2

12 31 48 33 42 39

31.9 24.0 24.8 31.8 31.9 34.7

77 34.8 114 24.1 14 39.1 78 42 26 59

31.2 32.5 30.1 24.4

205 29.2

23 29 36 28 36 34

69 39 31 47

32.6 24.2 44.7 25.4

186 30.8

196

7.8

The differences in variable use according to the speakers’ sex show only minor effects: female speakers appear to slightly prefer -tu questions whereas male speakers show a preference for est-ce que questions. There is a vast range of literature in the variationist tradition considering and discussing the effects of gender and sex on variable use (e.g.  Cheshire 2002, Labov 1972c: 243, Trudgill 1972, Wolfram 1969: 78, Wolfram & Fasold 1974: 93, just to provide a very incomplete list of references). Labov (1990: 210–215) introduces three generalized principles with regard to gender: Principle I. In stable sociolinguistic stratification, men use a higher frequency of nonstandard forms than women.



Chapter 4.  Results 

Principle Ia. In change from above, women favour the incoming prestige forms more than men. Principle II. In change from below, women are most often the innovators. Cheshire (2002) asserts that based on the observations from a number of sociolinguistic studies these principles should not be understood as absolute, but rather as embedded in a complex network of social categories such as group membership. With due consideration of this, one may cautiously state that the sex effect observed in Table 17 complies with Labov’s Principle II.: the -tu particle shows characteristics of a variant subject to a change from below in being favored by a casual speech style and by speakers from the central social class (Mont-Bleu). The fact that female speakers favor this variant complies with these other results. Yet the percentages in distribution do not provide a clear cut and discriminate picture of these socio-stylistic categories: female speakers use the particle -tu only nine percent more often than male speakers, which is not significant. The social patterns of conditioning revealed in Table 17, therefore, at best provide tendencies of a linguistic change whereby the -tu variant is changing into a default marker. The fact that this variant shows stylistic variation (cf. Table 13 on page 90, and Table 16 on page 93) proves that it has already developed from an indicator (being socially stratified) into a marker (being both socially and stylistically stratified). This trend is further corroborated by the distribution of different age groups. The younger speakers (up to thirty-four years of age) prefer the use of -tu questions while simultaneously making less use of subject-verb inversion and no use at all of est-ce que questions. Older speakers (over thirty-four years of age) show the contrary behavior: they use more inversion and est-ce que questions, but fewer -tu questions. The intonation variant remains unaffected. This shows that the use of the -tu particle is gaining considerable importance among younger speakers. The question as to whether this pattern indicates a true change or whether it represents a usage pattern typical for younger speakers repeated in each generation cannot be answered based on a synchronic apparent time study alone. As Turell (2003: 7) states: The distribution and occurrence of a given variable by age groups (involving research into linguistic change in apparent time) does not indicate definitively that such a linguistic change really is under way in the speech community in question. Instead it may represent a characteristic age grading pattern, a pattern which develops during the lifetime of individuals and which repeats itself generation after generation. Thus, beginning with a distribution across age groups in apparent time, the research question would be: do these results really show the existence of linguistic change in progress? According to Labov (1994), the only way to solve the prob-

 Grammatical Variation across Space and Time

lems posed by studies in apparent time is by providing support for the research findings based on linguistic observation in real time, that is, observing a speech community at two discrete points in time.

Such a real time perspective on the use of the interrogative variants is provided by comparing the OH results with the results from the RFQ corpus and from the fifteenth to seventeenth century data. Turning our attention to the effect of the informant’s education, one can observe that -tu questions are particularly frequent in the vernacular of speakers with a high level of education and rare in the vernacular of less educated speakers. This effect is at the expense of inversion questions which show the opposite distribution. Intonation and est-ce que questions do not exhibit any consistent patterns. One might speculate that this finding is related to social circumstances whereby the older informants did not have the same privileges to enjoy schooling as the younger ones had. The correlation between age and education would then be expected. A look at the speaker’s occupation reveals further supporting evidence for the assumption that the -tu particle is gaining ground due to a change from below (cf. Labov 1994: 78, 300): employees from the sales and service sector prefer the usage of the particle -tu at the expense of inversion questions. The professional and managerial group uses est-ce que questions with an above average rate and this at the expense of intonation and -tu questions. This correlation of the particle -tu with the middle occupational class and of the est-ce que marker with the highest class shows that the latter appears to be a prestige feature contrary to the former. There is an abundant amount of sociolinguistic research which has demonstrated that the innovative variants undergoing a change from below are particularly numerous in young and middle class (or, more precisely, upper working class) speakers’ speech (e.g. Cedergren 1973; Haeri 1996; Labov 1966; Labov 2001b, Chapter 5; Trudgill 1974). The leaders of a linguistic change are most often women from the highest status local group (cf. Labov 2001b, 2002). The results obtained so far indicate that the -tu particle might indeed be subject to such a change. Having so far based the argumentation on the marginals of distribution alone, it is now time to consider the interplay of all factor groups and factors. Education was removed from the variable rule analysis because of interaction and interdependence with other factor groups. This begs for some closer examination. Table 18 cross-tabulates education with the speaker’s occupation. One can observe an empty cell in the combination of unskilled and chronically unemployed speakers with post-secondary education. Such a correlation (interdependence) was to be expected. There is yet another more interesting pattern in Table 18: informants from the sales and service sector (who are supposedly the leaders of the change) show the greatest discrepancy in variant usage between



Chapter 4.  Results 

Table 18.  Cross Tabulation – Speakers’ occupations and education (yes/no questions, OH corpus) Education Occupation unskilled and unemployed

TOTAL N skilled workers

TOTAL N sales and service

TOTAL N professional and managerial

primary % N

INV INT TU ECQ

37 36 26 1

INV INT TU ECQ

44 30 26

39 38 27 1 105 12 8 7

INV INT TU ECQ

39 39 23

27 17 17 10

INV INT TU ECQ

29 29 19 23

INV INT TU ECQ

37 35 24 4

TOTAL N

TOTAL N

44 9 9 6 7 31 77 72 50 8 207

secondary % N 34 27 39 1 33 30 24 13 21 21 57

32 19 24 25 32 24 33 12

39 31 45 1 116 26 24 19 10 79 9 9 24 42 40 23 30 31 124 114 87 118 42 361

post-sec. % N

TOTAL N % N 35 31 33 1

29 50 21

4 7 3

35 33 24 8

14 0 29 71

5 12

26 39 34

17 10 15 13

20 39 41

38 14 27 28 69

25 30 45

31 24 25 20 32 29 31 8

78 69 72 2 221 42 39 29 10 120 26 31 46 103 59 47 49 38 193 205 186 196 50 637

those who have a low educational degree and those with a high one. While -tu questions are only a minor variant among speakers with primary education (23%, N=10/44), their usage considerably rises to 71% (N=12/17) among speakers with post-secondary education. In contrast, the usage of Pronominal inversion drops from 39% (N=17/44) down to zero. The increasing rate of -tu questions with rising education also appears in the occupational classes of unskilled and chronically unemployed speakers and in the professional and managerial group, but here at a lower rate. This observation could be interpreted in favor of the argument that the change is initiated by the upper working class (i.e. the sales and service occupational group) and that it subsequently diffuses through the other social classes who slightly lag behind.

 Grammatical Variation across Space and Time

Table 19. shows interaction between the factor groups education and age. Table 19.  Cross Tabulation – Speakers’ age and education (yes/no questions, OH corpus) Education Age 15–24

TOTAL N 25–34

TOTAL N 35–44

TOTAL N 45–54

TOTAL N 55–64

TOTAL N ≥ 65

primary % N

INV INT TU ECQ INV INT TU ECQ 38 38 24

INV INT TU ECQ

38 29 31 2

INV INT TU ECQ

35 37 18 10

INV INT TU ECQ

38 36 26

21 20 15 16 1 52 24 25 12 7 68 25 24 17

37 35 24 4

66 77 72 50 8

TOTAL N INV INT TU ECQ TOTAL N

8 8 5

INV INT TU ECQ

207

secondary % N 20 27 54

8 11 22

27 22 51

41 28 22 52

33 21 23 23 36 36 19 8 40 24 13 22 41 29 18 12 32 24 33 12

102 40 25 28 27 120 13 13 7 3 36 18 11 6 10 45 7 5 3 2 17 114 87 118 42 361

post-sec. % N 13 39 48

4 12 15

16 37 47

31 3 7 9

TOTAL N % 17 32 51

12 23 37

26 24 50

72 31 29 61

19 75 25

3 1

33 25 23 19

4 38 32 26 5 37 32 16 15 47 33 20

7 5 3

20 39 41

15 14 27 28 69

N

40 35 23 2 32 29 31 8

121 48 36 34 27 145 33 28 23 4 88 42 36 18 17 113 39 34 23 2 98 205 186 196 50 637



Chapter 4.  Results 

The first striking observation is an interdependence between education and the speakers’ age: there are no interrogative tokens provided by speakers between fifteen and thirty-four years of age with only primary education. This is also true for speakers between forty-five and sixty-four years of age with post-secondary education. Again, one could speculate that the younger speakers had more access to the educational system than the older ones. Abstracting away from the interdependences in Table 19, the rate of inversion questions systematically decreases the more educated the speakers are. This holds for all age groups up to fifty-four years. Then the trend reverses: speakers older than fifty-four years show a slight tendency of using more inversion questions the more educated they are. The observed reversal is in accord with the hypothesis that inversion questions once received a more prestigious social evaluation by the speakers than they do in contemporary Quebec French. It is not an unusual phenomenon that features which once were widespread in usage and which had a prestige to a certain degree, later become associated with the vernacular of older and less educated speakers before eventually becoming stigmatized and turning into stereotypes. When considering the distribution of the -tu variant across the age groups, no age group shows an actual rise in the rate of -tu with an increasing educational level. The favoring effect of a high educational level on the -tu variant (cf. Table 17) has completely vanished after the breakdown into the individual age groups. The educational effect observed by looking at the marginals has thus turned out to be an apparent effect due only to the empty cells in four out of six age groups. It is an artifact of the factor group age. This illustrates the fact that restricting oneself to the evaluation of percentages of distribution alone is not only insufficient from a methodological perspective, but often also leads to wrong conclusions and misinterpretations of the data since one would fail to take notice of such interactions and interdependencies (cf. Guy 1993: 237–238). Table 20. shows the factor weights obtained by a variable rule analysis conducted with GoldVarb X. In Table 20, only the factor weights displayed in bold yielded results above the level of statistical significance. The most salient effect is the conditioning of the est-ce que variant: this variant is preferentially used by male Mont-Bleu speakers over thirty-four years of age who come from the highest occupational group (the professional and managerial sector). Age and occupation have the strongest effect as can be seen by the range (with age even showing a categorical distribution). This pattern of conditioning gives rise to the assumption that the est-ce que formula is indeed a prestige variant used by the highest social group. It has to be noted that no tokens were obtained from women from the highest educational group suggesting that in the corpus it was the men who enjoyed a more privileged access to the higher educational and occupational institutions.

N Input value Neighborhood Mont-Bleu Vieux-Hull range: Sex Male Female range: Age 15–34 ≥ 35 range: Occupation unskilled and unemployed, skilled sales and service professional and managerial range:

Variants

43 162

32.7 31.7

  22.3 36.5

[.49] [.51]

35.2

25.2 30.6

[.54]

[.45] [.46]

.37 .56 19

103 102

30.2 34.5

[.48] [.52]

26 59

120

104 101

32.2

205

INV % N

  .32

FW

103 193

341

193 444

315 322

344 293

637  

[.55] [.44]

[.52]

[.46] [.52]

[.52] [.48]

30.1 24.4

31.7

  26.9 30.2

31.1 27.3

31 47

108

52 134

98 88

103 193

341

193 444

315 322

344 293

[.57] [.49]

[.49]

.71 .41 30

[.47] [.53]

.55 .44 11

89 97

.46 .54 8

637

Total N FW .31

25.9 33.1

N 186

INT 29.2

%

.29

Total N FW

44.7 25.4

29.6

  50.8 22.1

26.3 35.1

35.2 25.6

N

46 49

101

98 98

83 113

121 75

196

TU 30.8

%

103 193

341

193 444

315 322

344 293

637  

  0.0 11.3

3.5 0.0 19.7

.34 .77 43

9.8 5.9

.58 .43 15 -

8.7 6.8

7.8

0 38

12

0 50

31 19

30 20

50

103 193

341

193 444

315 322

344 293

637

ECQ % N Total N

.53 .46 7

.08

Total N FW

Table 20.  Conditioning of yes/no variants in the OH corpus (social factors) – Factor weights obtained by GoldVarb X (a variable rule application). The factor group education was excluded from the variable rule analysis.

 Grammatical Variation across Space and Time



Chapter 4.  Results 

In the other variants, it is again the age which contributes most to variant choice: -tu questions are favored by young speakers under thirty-five years, while Pronominal inversion is disfavored by this age group. At the same time, -tu questions are favored by Mont-Bleu speakers, while intonation questions are disfavored in the vernacular of informants from this residential area. Interestingly, apart from the est-ce que variant, the factor groups sex and occupation do not provide significant results. In the marginals, everything pointed to a change led by women and employees from the sales and service sector. Even though these tendencies are confirmed by the variable rule analysis below the level of statistical significance, the neighborhood and age effects are clearly stronger. Since the tendencies point in a developmental direction that one would expect when observing a change from below (applying to the -tu variant), I conclude that these effects have been masked by the strong effect age exerts on the variation. However, this also means that the arguments cited in favor of a change from below are at best tendencies whose statistical significance cannot be confirmed. In this section, I have drawn a picture of usage of yes/no questions in contemporary Quebec French as instantiated by the vernacular spoken in Gatineau. The corpus data stemmed from the OH corpus (Poplack 1989) which was composed in the early 1980s. The extralinguistic factor group age has already provided an apparent time view on language change by comparing the speech of informants representative of different age groups. Now I complete this synchronic study by adding a real time perspective to it with the analysis of the Récits du français québécois d’autrefois, representing the Quebec French vernacular from the nineteenth century. The informants were almost all born in the second half of the nineteenth century. This allows for the investigation of whether the conditioning of the variants has stayed the same or whether a diachronic change has taken place as already proposed by the social factor groups in the OH corpus. It further allows us to disambiguate whether the effect of change in apparent time observable in the OH corpus is due to age grading or to a true generational change. So far, the results suggest that the OH data represent a developmental stage where Pronominal inversion is gradually decreasing in usage and is being superseded by the interrogative particle -tu. This particle seems to be subject to a change from below progressively turning it into a new default marker. The variable rule analysis of the social factor groups has however shown that some of the effects (sex and occupation) operate below the level of statistical significance. This is a finding which admittedly weakens the empirical evidence in favor of such a progressing change. I nevertheless interpret the strong effect exerted by the age of the informants as an indicator for a change in progress. The est-ce que variant (as opposed to -tu interrogatives) is unquestionably a prestige marker: its use prevails in the formal soapbox speech by male middle class

 Grammatical Variation across Space and Time

speakers with a high level of occupation. It is absent from younger speakers’ speech. Its relatively small number of occurrences in spontaneous speech confirms that its use is restricted to a very specialized discourse context. As was the case in the linguistic and stylistic factor groups, interrogative intonation is a separate variant that does not participate in the variable conditioning patterns. 4.1.2 The RFQ corpus The first question to be answered when comparing two diachronically different corpora is whether any change in the distribution of the variants has taken place. The figure below shows the relative and total numbers of occurrences of each of the variants in the RFQ corpus and OH corpus respectively. 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0%

INV

INT Réfqua

TU OH

ECQ

RFQ INV INT TU ECQ TOTAL

OH

%

N

%

50,9% 31,3% 17,2%   0,5%

278 171 94  3

32,4% 29,4% 30,2%   7,9%

546

Figure 4.  Distribution of yes/no variants in the RFQ and OH corpus

N 205 186 191   50 632



Chapter 4.  Results 

As Figure 4 shows, there is a considerable difference between the rate of Pronominal inversion and of -tu questions in the nineteenth (RFQ) and in the twentieth (OH) century data respectively. In the nineteenth century, Pronominal inversion was the majority variant and represented half of all (non-negated) yes/no questions. In the twentieth century, its use has dropped down to a third of all yes/no questions. Simultaneously, the rate of -tu questions has almost doubled in usage. This finding corroborates the assumption made in the previous section that the -tu variant is subject to a change from below whereby it has emerged as the new default variant, gradually displacing Pronominal inversion. I now turn to the individual factor groups already discussed with regard to the OH data in order to uncover potential diachronic changes. Subject identity Table 21 essentially confirms the results of Table 4 (page 77), i.e. no changes have taken place in the conditioning of the interrogative variants with regard to subject identity: already in the nineteenth century, inversion questions nearly categorically occur with second person subject pronouns. There are only five instances of inverted il. Vous is particularly unlikely in -tu questions. All of these results are consistent across both corpora, i.e. across both centuries. Table 21.  Subject identity – Distribution of factors across yes/no variants (RFQ corpus)   Subject

INV

INT

%

N

%

vous tu il, elle je on NP

67.3 63.0 6.7

101 172 5

29.3 24.5 57.3 54.5 27.3 34.8

TOTAL N

51.2

278

31.5

%

TU N

  TOTAL N

44 67 43 6 3 8

3.3 12.5 36.0 45.5 72.7 65.2

5 34 27 5 8 15

150 273 75 11 11 23

171

17.3

94

543

N

Verb identity Table 22 shows a very similar pattern to the one which could already be observed in the OH data (cf. Table 5, page 79): cognitive verbs (highlighted in bold letters) cluster in the upper part of the table where Pronominal inversion occurs with particularly high rates, while the higher rates of intonation and -tu questions are to be found in the lower part of the table where activity verbs prevail. As is the case in the OH data, modals and auxiliaries do not show uniform patterns of conditioning. Three verbs categorically occur in inversion questions: prendre, engager, and souvenir. Due to their low number of tokens, I decided not to exclude them as lexicalized chunks.

 Grammatical Variation across Space and Time

Table 22.  Verb identity – Distribution of factors across yes/no variants (RFQ corpus)   Verb identity prendre engager souvenir penser donner aimer rappeler vouloir (modal) savoir (modal) voir avoir (auxiliary) pouvoir (all modals) être (auxiliary) passer others trouver parler aller connaître faire il y a venir TOTAL N

INV

INT

%

N

100.0 100.0 100.0 90.9 83.3 83.3 81.8 81.8 (82.4) 79.5 (83.3) 54.8 51.5 (45.0) 50.0 41.6 (11.1) 40.0 39.8 33.3 30.0 27.3 25.0 14.3 8.3

6 8 5 10 5 5 9 45 (42) 31 (5) 17 17 (36) 4 64 (1) 2 37 2 3 3 2 2 1

51.2

278

%

TU N

%

9.1

1

16.7 9.1 12.7 (11.8) 12.8 (16.7) 32.3 30.3 (40.0) 12.5 38.3 (55.6) 40.0 40.9 50.0 50.0 27.3 62.5 57.1 33.3 72.7

1 1 7 (6) 5 (1) 10 10 (32) 1 59 (5) 2 38 3 5 3 5 8 4 8

31.5

171

N

  TOTAL N

16.7

1

9.1 5.5 (5.9) 7.7

1 3 (3) 3

12.9 18.2 (15.0) 37.5 20.1 (33.3) 20.0 19.4 16.7 20.0 45.5 12.5 28.6 58.3 27.3

4 6 (12) 3 31 (3) 1 18 1 2 5 1 4 7 3

6 8 5 11 6 6 11 55 (51) 39 (6) 31 33 (80) 8 154 (9) 5 93 6 10 11 8 14 12 11

17.3

94

543

Verb frequency Table 23 shows that verb frequency most obviously has no effect on variant choice. Neither of the interrogative variants shows a consistent increase or decrease when considering the verb frequency classes one after the other. This suggests that the favoring effect of rare verbs on -tu questions observed in Table 6 (on page 80) was not yet operative in the nineteenth century. In other words, the particle -tu did not yet show the expected characteristics of an evolving default variant.



Chapter 4.  Results 

Table 23.  Verb frequency – Distribution of factors across yes/no variants (RFQ corpus)   Verb frequency

%

INV N

%

INT N

%

TU N

  TOTAL N

frequent fairly frequent average frequency fairly rare rare

55.8 36.2 76.5 46.0 37.5

174 34 26 29 15

29.2 36.2 17.6 33.3 47.5

91 34 6 21 19

15.1 27.7 5.9 20.6 15.0

47 26 2 13 6

312 94 34 63 40

TOTAL

51.2

278

31.5

171

17.3

94

543

High frequency verbs In the OH data, the results revealed an interesting difference in the behavior of the five most frequent lexical verbs (vouloir, savoir, voir, avoir, and être) compared to the remainder of the verbs (cf. Figure 3 on page 82): the use of Pronominal inversion is clearly preferred in the former context, whereas the particle -tu gains ground in the latter one. Since I interpreted this pattern in terms of an indicator of diachronic change, I expect it to be less distinct in the earlier RFQ corpus. Figure 5 shows that in the RFQ corpus, the group of the five lexical verbs vouloir, savoir, avoir, voir, and être accounts for more than half of the yes/no tokens (very similar to the OH corpus). As in the OH corpus (cf. Figure 2 on page 81), questions with the verb être constitute the largest group among the most frequent verbs. There is hence not a big difference between the distribution of lexical verbs in the two corpora. If there is a diachronic change, it is not the usage of lexical verbs which has changed, but rather the usage of the interrogative variants.

 Grammatical Variation across Space and Time

être

others

vouloir

voir

savoir

avoir

Verb

%

N

être vouloir savoir avoir voir others

28 10  7  6  6 43

154   55   39   33   31 231

TOTAL N

543

Figure 5.  The distribution of avoir, être, voir, savoir, and vouloir in the RFQ corpus (only yes/no questions)

The two figures below show the relative numbers of occurrences of each of the variants in the RFQ corpus and in the OH corpus respectively.



Chapter 4.  Results  60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0%

INV

INT

TU Ottawa-Hull

Réfqua

frequent verbs INV INT TU ECQ TOTAL

ECQ

RFQ %

N

55 29 15  1

174   91   47    3 315

OH % N 43 31 20  6

130   96   60   19 305

Figure 6.  Distribution of yes/no variants in the RFQ and OH corpus (vouloir, savoir, voir, avoir, être)

When taking into consideration only those interrogative sentences containing one of the verbs vouloir, savoir, voir, avoir, and être, Figure 6 shows that there is not a large difference between the nineteenth and the twentieth century (i.e. between the RFQ and the OH corpus) with regard to the distribution of yes/no variants. There is a slight decline of Pronominal inversion accompanied by a slight increase of -tu and est-ce que questions, but the hierarchy of the variants remains the same. A different picture emerges when looking at the other verbs (cf. Figure 7).

 Grammatical Variation across Space and Time 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0%

INV

INT

TU

Réfqua

Ottawa-Hull

other verbs INV INT TU ECQ TOTAL

ECQ

RFQ %

N

45 35 20

104   80   47 231

OH % N 23 28 40  9

  75   90 131   31 327

Figure 7.  Distribution of yes/no variants in the RFQ and OH corpus (other verbs)

When abstracting away from interrogatives featuring either one of the verbs vouloir, savoir, voir, avoir, and être, the decline of inversion questions and the simultaneous increase of -tu questions (and est-ce que questions to a minor extent) result in a reversal of the distribution. While inversion questions were still the majority variant in the nineteenth century, their use considerably dropped in the twentieth century so that they have become the second rarest variant after est-ce que questions. The use of -tu questions accordingly gained momentum so that they have developed into the new majority variant. Remarkably, there is no difference between the most frequent and the other verbs in the RFQ corpus (compare Figure 6 with Figure 7). This difference must have therefore evolved in the course of the twentieth century indicating that the change resides in the progressive restriction of the lexical contexts where Pronominal inversion may take place. The -tu variant fills the gap and intonation questions do not participate in the change.



Chapter 4.  Results 

Table 24.  The distribution of high frequency verbs across yes/no variants in the RFQ corpus (INV = Pronominal inversion; INT = intonation; TU = -tu particle, ECQ = est-ce que particle) Verb

INV

INT

TU

ECQ %

N

TOTAL N

%

N

%

N

%

N

vouloir savoir voir avoir être others

82 79 55 52 42 44

45 31 17 17 64 104

13 13 32 30 38 34

7 5 10 10 59 80

5 8 13 18 20 20

3 3 4 6 31 47

1

3

55 39 31 33 154 234

TOTAL N

51

278

31

171

17

94

1

3

546

Table 7 on page 81 displayed the distribution of the five most frequent verbs as opposed to the other verbs across the four interrogative variants in the OH corpus. Table 24 provides the same information for the RFQ corpus. The table shows that already in the nineteenth century, there was a tendency of inversion questions to preferentially occur in contexts with highly frequent lexical verbs. The percentages of Pronominal inversion with the verbs vouloir, savoir, voir, and avoir are all above the average percentage of the other verbs. In the other variants, the rates of these verbs are accordingly low. This tendency is by far not as distinct as in the OH corpus, but the evolution already appears to be predetermined. The relatively low frequency of the verb être in inversion questions is observable in both corpora. In the RFQ data, the verbs vouloir, savoir, voir, and avoir account for 39.6% (N=110/278) of all inversion questions. This is 16% less than in the OH corpus. The augmenting lexicalization of Pronominal inversion is hence on its way, but is not yet as entrenched as in the twentieth century data. Tense and mood In the twentieth century data (cf. Table 8 on page 85), verbal mood and tense did not turn out to yield meaningful effects with regard to the variation. Table 25 shows that the RFQ data display a quite different picture from the OH data: the conditional appears to favor Pronominal inversion (instead of est-ce que in the OH corpus) as does the simple future. Both favoring effects are at the expense of intonation questions. The contrary is true for the periphrastic tenses (i.e. the present perfect and the periphrastic future) which trigger high rates of intonation questions and low rates of Pronominal inversion. In the nineteenth century data, therefore, there is indeed a synthetic versus periphrastic tense effect, confirming the work of Ashby (1977: 40).

 Grammatical Variation across Space and Time

Table 25.  Tense and mood – Distribution of factors across yes/no variants (RFQ corpus) INV Tense, mood

INT

TU

%

N

%

N

%

N

TOTAL N

conditional simple future present tense present perfect periphrastic future pluperfect imperfect

73.7 72.7 53.5 42.0 20.0

28 8 201 37 4

5.3 9.1 30.6 40.9 50.0 100.0 66.7

2 1 115 36 10 1 6

21.1 18.2 16.0 17.0 30.0

8 2 60 15 6

33.3

3

38 11 376 88 20 1 9

TOTAL N

51.2

31.5

171

17.3

94

543

278

Grammatical verb type As with the previous factor group, the grammatical verb type does not reveal any consistent patterns of conditioning across the two corpora: reflexives are a favorable context for -tu questions in the OH corpus (cf. Table 9 on page 86), but for Pronominal inversion in the RFQ data. Questions involving unergative verbs trigger a low rate of -tu questions in the OH corpus, but high rates in the RFQ corpus. This incongruity of effects makes an interpretation rather difficult and probably even pointless. One may conclude that the grammatical class of the verb is not a decisive factor in the choice of the variants. Table 26.  Grammatical verb type – Distribution of factors across yes/no variants (RFQ corpus) INV Grammatical verb type

INT

%

N

%

reflexives transitives predicatives unergatives unaccusatives

70.6 58.4 41.4 40.0 19.2

24 170 63 16 5

26.5 25.8 38.2 32.5 61.5

TOTAL N

51.2

278

31.5

TU N

%

N

TOTAL N

9 75 58 13 16

2.9 15.8 20.4 27.5 19.2

1 46 31 11 5

34 291 152 40 26

171

17.3

94

543



Chapter 4.  Results 

Table 27.  Semantic verb type – Distribution of factors across yes/no variants (RFQ corpus)   Cognitive verbs

INV

INT

TU

  TOTAL N

%

N

%

N

%

N

cognitive verbs other verbs

72.7 39.9

136 142

19.3 37.9

36 135

8.0 22.2

15 79

187 356

TOTAL N

51.2

278

31.5

171

17.3

94

543

Cognitive verbs The twentieth century data showed a semantic verb effect (cf. Table 10 on page 87): cognitive verbs favor the use of inversion questions. As Table 27 shows, this effect is already at work in the nineteenth century. Verb syllables The number of syllables of the inflected verb is another effect applying to both centuries (cf. Table 11 on page 88): the longer the verb the more likely the use of Pronominal inversion and the less likely the use of the other variants, most notably of -tu questions. If it is true that Pronominal inversion exhibits a decline of productivity, as indicated by its restriction to second person contexts and by its increasing clustering in the group of the most frequent lexical verbs, then the length of the verb in terms of its number of syllables does not serve as a good indicator of this development. Table 28.  Number of verb syllables – Distribution of factors across yes/no variants (RFQ corpus)   Verb syllables

INV

INT

TU

  TOTAL N

%

N

%

N

%

N

1 syllable 2 syllables ≥ 3 syllables

44.4 61.7 75.0

159 92 27

35.2 24.2 25.0

126 36 9

20.4 14.1

73 21

358 149 36

TOTAL N

51.2

278

31.5

171

17.3

94

543

 Grammatical Variation across Space and Time

Table 29.  Parallel processing – Distribution of factors across yes/no variants (RFQ corpus)   Parallel processing

INV

INT

TU

%

N

%

N

%

N

  TOTAL N

preceding token (20 lines): same preceding token (20 lines): different no preceding token

62.4 50.9 48.9

53 27 198

21.2 34.0 33.3

18 18 135

16.5 15.1 17.8

14 8 72

85 53 405

TOTAL N

51.2

278

31.5

171

17.3

94

543

Parallel processing The parallel processing effect confirms the results obtained in the OH data (cf. Table 12 on page 89): Pronominal inversion appears to be favored in a sequence of several inversion questions (i.e. when another inversion question precedes it), a context where intonation questions are rather unlikely. Style Table 30 shows that the tokens extracted from the RFQ corpus are stylistically not as diverse as those stemming from the OH corpus (cf. Table 13 on page 90). More than 90% (N=492/540) of all tokens are narratives. Only 9% (N=47/540) belong to the residual category. This disproportion is due to the genre of the corpus: it mainly consists of legends and folk tales, a fact limiting the range of styles being used. Nevertheless, a tendency is observable: intonation questions are preferred in the residual style category where -tu questions are non-existent. A very similar effect has been observed in the OH data. Table 30.  Conversational style – Distribution of factors across yes/no variants (RFQ corpus)   Style Casual narratives Careful residual response TOTAL N

%

INV N

%

INT N

%

TU N

  TOTAL N

51.8

255

29.3

144

18.9

93

492

46.8

22

53.2 100.0

25 1

51.3

277

31.5

170

47 1 17.2

93

540



Chapter 4.  Results 

Localization of the token Recall that in the OH corpus, intonation questions become more likely towards the end of the interview while -tu questions decline at the same time (cf. Table 14 on page 91). This is not the case in the RFQ corpus. Here intonation questions show neither a progressing increase nor a decrease towards the end. Instead, -tu questions exhibit a slight increase in frequency the further the interview advances. Since the use of the particle -tu correlates with a rather casual speech style, one would expect it to prevail in the latter parts of an interview where the interlocutors have gotten accustomed to each other. However, due to the contradictory results from the OH data, this interpretation remains speculative and unsupported. The distributional patterns of yes/no variants in the RFQ corpus corroborate and confirm the findings from the OH corpus: Pronominal inversion is virtually restricted to second person pronouns. The interrogative particle -tu is incompatible with the second person plural subject pronoun vous (except for five cases). Cognitive verbs represent a favorable context for Pronominal inversion. The rate of Pronominal inversion is slightly higher when preceded by another inversion question than when preceded by a different or by no interrogative variant. The use of the -tu variant is restricted to a casual style. Intonation questions, on the other hand, are found in the residual stylistic category which was attributed to a careful style. Yet there is one difference between the two corpora: in the nineteenth century data, -tu questions become more likely the further the interview advances; in the twentieth century data, the contrary is the case. However, this effect yielded statistical significance only with regard to intonation questions. The similarities in the conditioning show that most, if not all, of the effects observable in the twentieth century were already present a century before. So even though important changes in rate could be observed (i.e. the rise of -tu questions and the simultaneous decline of Pronominal inversion), the patterns of usage in terms of the conditioning of the variants by linguistic and stylistic factors by and large remains the same. Table 31.  Localization of the token – Distribution of factors across yes/no variants (OH corpus)   Localization

%

INV N

%

INT N

%

TU N

  TOTAL N

beginning middle end

50.6 53.0 49.7

89 97 90

33.0 32.2 29.3

58 59 53

16.5 14.8 21.0

29 27 38

176 183 181

TOTAL N

51.1

276

31.5

170

17.4

94

540

N Input value Subject identity vous tu others range Verb frequency singleton rare average frequency frequent very frequent range Cognitive verbs cognitive verbs others range

Variants

% 51.2

67.3 63.0 4.2

37.5 46.0 76.5 36.2 55.8

72.7 39.9

FW   .51

/ 3

.37 .47 .66 .33 .56 33

.70 .39 31

P-INV

136 142

15 29 26 34 174

101 172 5

N 278

187 356

40 63 34 94 312

150 273 120

Total N 543  

.38 .57 19

19.3 37.9

47.5 33.3 17.6 36.2 29.2

29.3 24.5 50.0

.55 .42 .63 21 [.68] [.53] [.39] [.57] [.46]

% 31.5

FW   .32

INT

36 135

19 21 6 34 91

44 67 60

N 171

Table 32.  Conditioning of yes/no variants in the RFQ corpus (linguistic and stylistic factors) Factor weights obtained by GoldVarb X (a variable rule application)

187 356

40 63 34 94 312

150 273 120

Total N 543  

[.42] [.54]

[.47] [.60] [.33] [.63] [.46]

.18 .52 .85 67

FW   .17

TU

8.0 22.2

15.0 20.6 5.9 27.7 15.1

3.3 12.5 45.8

% 17.3

15 79

6 13 2 26 47

5 34 55

N 94

187 356

40 63 34 94 312

150 273 120

Total N 543

 Grammatical Variation across Space and Time

Verb: number of syllables monosyllabic disyllabic polysyllabic range Parallel processing no prec.tok. prec.tok.: same prec.tok.: different range Style casual careful range Localization beginning middle end range

Variants

44.4 61.7 75.0

48.9 62.4 50.9

51.8 45.8

50.6 53.0 49.7

.44 .60 .72 28

[.49] [.57] [.49]

.53 .26 27

[.50] [.50] [.51]

P-INV

89 97 90

255 22

198 53 27

159 92 27

176 183 181

492 48

405 85 53

358 149 36

[.52] [.54] [.44]

.46 .83 37

[.51] [.44] [.54]

.57 .35 .42 22

INT

33.0 32.2 29.3

29.3 54.2

33.3 21.2 34.0

35.2 24.2 25.0

58 59 53

144 26

135 18 18

126 36 9

176 183 181

492 48

405 85 53

358 149 36

[.48] [.47] [.55]

-

[.50] [.55] [.41]

[.47] [.56]

TU

16.5 14.8 21.0

18.9 0.0

17.8 16.5 15.1

20.4 14.1 0.0

29 27 38

93 0

72 14 8

73 21 0

176 183 181

492 48

405 85 53

358 149 36

Chapter 4.  Results 

 Grammatical Variation across Space and Time

Variable rule analysis The factor groups were used to run a variable rule analysis along the same lines as the OH data. Table 32 shows the results of the logistic regression analysis in the form of factor weights. It is noteworthy that the number of factors whose effects do not indicate a change from the nineteenth to the twentieth century outranks the number of factors which indicate an actual change in usage. This means that the linguistic conditioning of yes/no interrogatives in Quebec French is quite stable, at least across the period of time considered here. The observation that Pronominal inversion in yes/no questions is almost categorically restricted to second person subject pronouns (tu and vous) holds for both corpora. In the above table, percentages are given instead of factor weights because including this factor group into the run would have resulted in heavy interactions with other factor groups. Most notably, the identity of the subject again interacts with the number of syllables of the inflected verb (cf. Table 33). This time, however, the effect is reversed when compared to the OH data (cf. Table 15 on page 92): the longer the inflected verb, the higher the rate of Pronominal inversion in questions exhibiting the subject pronoun tu. Questions featuring the pronoun vous pattern independently with regard to syllable length. In other words, the favoring effect of polysyllabic inflected verbs on Pronominal inversion applies only to questions with the subject pronoun vous in the OH corpus (below the level of significance) and tu in the RFQ corpus respectively. Due to the lack of consistency, I do not attempt to provide an explanation for this interaction. In any case, the verb syllable effect in the two variable rule analyses is not truly independent. Table 33.  Cross Tabulation – subject identity and verb syllables (yes/no questions, RFQ corpus) Subject pronoun tu TOTAL N vous

Syllables monosyllabic % N INV others

61 39

INV others

61 39

INV others

61 39

TOTAL N

TOTAL N

139 90 229 17 11 28 156 101 257

disyllabic % N 67 33 70 30 69 31

20 10 30 70 30 100 90 40 130

polysyllabic % N 93 7 64 36 75 25

13 1 14 14 8 22 27 9 36

TOTAL N % N 63 37 67 33 65 35

172 101 273 101 49 150 273 150 423



Chapter 4.  Results 

The disfavoring effect of second person pronouns on other variants may be interpreted as a mirror effect of the inversion variant. Hence, no change has taken place with regard to the second person subject effect. The frequency classes of the lexical verb show a favoring effect on Pronominal inversion when the verb occurs with an average frequency among the extracted tokens. The same could be observed in the OH corpus, where the effect is below the level of significance. In the OH data, -tu questions are significantly disfavored in this context (cf. Table 16 on page 93). This demonstrates that Pronominal inversion does not show any tendencies of being progressively restricted to the most frequent lexical verbs. However, as Figure 6 and Figure 7 (pages 111 and 112) have shown, there seems to be a tendency of Pronominal inversion to increasingly cluster in the context of the verbs vouloir, savoir, voir, and avoir. Even though these are the most frequent lexical verbs, the effect is not due to their frequency but rather to their lexical identity. Another very uniform influence is exerted by the group of cognitive verbs which refer to some mental state or activity: every time the interrogative sentence contains one of these verbs, the use of inversion questions becomes particularly likely. This observation is valid both for the RFQ and for the OH data. In the two corpora, Pronominal inversion is favored by polysyllabic verbs (at the expense of the -tu variant in the OH data and at the expense of intonation questions in the RFQ data). In addition, Pronominal inversion shares this effect with est-ce que questions in the OH corpus. No parallel processing effect can be observed in the RFQ data. The style of the conversational setting in which the respective interrogative token is embedded shows a characteristic pattern: just as is the case in the OH data (cf. Table 16 on page 94), Pronominal inversion and -tu questions are preferred in a casual style. The latter variant even occurs exclusively in this context. Intonation questions, on the other hand, are favored by a careful style (an effect which is statistically non-significant in the OH data). The statistical analysis hence confirms that the use of both the inverted pronoun (tu or vous) and the postverbal interrogative particle (-tu) form a part of the same diaphasic variety of casual speech, as has already been suggested in the discussion of the marginals. Finally, the localization of the interrogative token in the interview does not significantly contribute to variable choice in the RFQ corpus. Summarizing this section, I briefly illustrate the most favorable contexts for each of the variants in the nineteenth century in the examples (140) to (142) below.

 Grammatical Variation across Space and Time

(140) Il sort de l’écurie. (INC) Bonjour, m-- jeune homme! Bonjour prince. Jeune homme, il dit, me reconnais-tu? (INV) Beau prince, il dit, je te reconnais quasiment un peu. “He comes out of the stable. (INC) Hello, young man! Hello, prince. Young man, he says, do you recognize me? Beautiful prince, he says, I recognize you practically a little.” (RFQ.036.3683) (141) Que le vent frappe d’un côté, puis qu’il frappe un tout petit peu de l’autre côté-là, puis la voile fait ça. (040) Ah. Ah, bien ça c’est... Dans le vent? (INT) Dans le vent. Oui bien des fois là c’est curieux. “That the wind strikes from one side, then it strikes a little bit from the other side, then the sail makes that. (040) Ah. Ah, so that’s... in the wind? In the wind. Yes, sometimes it’s strange.” (RFQ.040.1215) (142) Il dit, ça vous ferait-tu plaisir (TU) de venir avec nous-autres? “He says, would it please you to come with us?” (RFQ.032.379) (140) is an inversion question featuring a cognitive, polysyllabic verb. The token occurs in a narrative and is hence classified as casual. (141) is an intonation question with a subject other than tu or vous and a monosyllabic non-cognitive verb. Stylistically, it falls into the residual category and was therefore qualified as careful. (142) is a -tu question with a non-second person subject, the only conditioning effect which has turned out to be statistically significant. Returning now to the initial question of what has changed in the conditioning of the yes/no interrogative variants from the nineteenth to the twentieth century, it turns out to be relatively little: /εsk/ has entered the variable context of yes/no questions, but remains a minor contender. The virtual absence of est-ce que in the RFQ corpus and its presence in the OH data might be due to the difference in genre between the two corpora, as I have argued above. Since the RFQ corpus mainly consists of narratives, it simply does not provide the appropriate stylistic contexts for est-ce que questions. Across the two centuries considered so far, Pronominal inversion is restricted to second person contexts. The favoring effect of the other subject pronouns and nouns on intonation, -tu and est-ce que questions is a natural consequence of this (nearly) categorical effect. Yet, there is an independent second person effect observable in the two corpora: the subject pronoun vous favors intonation and est-ce que questions over the pronoun tu, and the subject pronoun tu clearly favors -tu questions over the pronoun vous (which is almost inexistent in this context). This could be a combination of a formality effect with vous representing a formal



Chapter 4.  Results 

pronoun of address and a clash between a [number] feature on the particle -tu and the pronoun vous, as I argue in Chapter 5. The effects exerted by the different frequency classes of the lexical verbs are more or less the same in the two corpora. However, the statistical significance changes: in the nineteenth century, verbs with an average frequency significantly favor Pronominal inversion. In the twentieth century rare verbs significantly favor -tu questions. I took the latter observation as an indicator that -tu questions have evolved as the new default interrogative marker. The hypothesis that a decline of productivity of Pronominal inversion is mirrored by an increasing restriction to highly frequent lexical contexts could not be confirmed however. Although the analysis of the data has revealed a favorable influence of the high frequency verbs vouloir, savoir, voir, and avoir on the use of this variant in the OH data, the comparison with other highly frequent verbs has shown that this is less a frequency effect than a matter of the lexical identity of exactly these four verbs. The empirical evaluation of the data still supports the statement that Pronominal inversion has undergone a loss of productivity. This loss of productivity is based on a linguistic rather than on a lexical or frequency based restriction. It is defined by the context of second person singular and plural subject pronouns. The RFQ and the OH data have shown that Pronominal inversion virtually never occurs with any other pronoun. The semantic effect of cognitive verbs favoring Pronominal inversion is consistent across the two corpora, at the expense of intonation questions in the RFQ corpus and of est-ce que questions in the OH corpus. The same consistency can be observed with regard to the length of the inflected verb in terms of its number of syllables: long verbs favor Pronominal inversion. In the OH corpus, they also favor est-ce que questions. The rationale for verifying this factor group was the same as the one justifying the examination of the frequency of the verb: gradually declining in usage, Pronominal inversion is expected to not only exhibit a restriction to the most frequent lexical contexts but also to as short inflected verbs as possible. A finding in this line was reported by Behnstedt (1973: 152–153). Neither of them has actually turned out to be true in the Quebec French data. The stylistic evaluation of the interrogative variants has clearly demonstrated that both Pronominal inversion and the interrogative marker ‑tu are indicative for a casual style while intonation questions and the est-ce que marker have to be attributed to a careful style. In Chapter 5. where I propose a structural model of the syntactic system underlying question formation in Quebec vernacular French, I use this observation as an opportunity to distinguish between a grammar of vernacular French, roughly corresponding to the casual style invoked here, and a distinct grammar of a more formal diaphasic variety, corresponding to the careful style exhibiting est-ce que questions. In a way, this is analogous to de Wind’s

 Grammatical Variation across Space and Time

(1995: 144)5 saying that “Standard French and Popular French make use of different grammars”. However, the empirical analysis carried out in this chapter shows that it is not Pronominal inversion which sets the standard variety apart, but rather the est-ce que variant. The claim that two different grammars are involved in Quebec French question formation is furthermore corroborated by the empirical evidence provided by the socio-stylistic factor groups tested here (est-ce que questions being more or less confined to the formal soapbox speech and to the language production of older informants from the highest professional class). Finally, neither parallel processing nor the localization of the interrogative token in the interview has turned out to significantly contribute to variable choice in the nineteenth century data. The observations made so far indicate that -tu questions have progressively spread across a larger variety of lexical contexts indicating that they are becoming a new default variant, while inversion questions display a considerable decrease of their rate of usage. At the same time, however, their linguistic and stylistic conditioning have not really changed. The -tu variant has evolved from a virtually unconditioned interrogative form into a variant closely mirroring the effects on Pronominal inversion. In Chapter 5., I take this observation as an opportunity to ascribe the same structural account to the two variants. Social factor groups Contrary to the OH data, much of the socio-biographical data of the informants from the RFQ corpus are unknown. The following table summarizes the distribution of variants and the results obtained from the variable rule analysis with regard to the few social factors which were available. As Table 34 shows, the use of the interrogative variants in the nineteenth century data does not depend on the age of the informants. The clear stratification of age groups as observed in the OH data is not yet at work (cf. Table 17 on page 98). However, there is a significant effect of the speaker’s sex on the variation: women favor the use of -tu questions while men use Pronominal inversion. With regard to the -tu particle, the OH data revealed a similar tendency although below the level of statistical significance. With regard to the sociolinguistic principle according to which women tend to be the innovators in a language change from below, one could hypothesize from the results in Table 34 that the nineteenth century data display a stage of the change where gender was still the most important social driving force. In the twentieth century data, the change has further advanced. Gender has lost its importance. Yet, the tendency of women to favor -tu questions is still observable (below the level of significance, cf. Table 20, 5.

(Cited on page 14.)

N Input value Sex male female range Year of birth 1846–1865 1866–1875 1876–1885 1886–1895 range Occupation day laborer lumberjack, construction sites, cook, raftsmen, shaper, fisherman, healer, railway grower, farmer trader, teacher/secretary range

Variants

73,1% 40,7%

  .77 .48

46,3% 40,0%

  56 94 83 56

  50,0% 54,3% 47,7% 54,4%

.49 .41 36

  230 59

  54,0% 43,4%

25 18

19 59

289

N

51,4%

%

  .51   .53 .41 12   [.52] [.51] [.50] [.48]

FW

INV

54 45

  26 145

  112 173 174 103

562     426 136

Total N

[.53] [.48]

  [.38] [.52]

  [.57] [.49] [.45] [.53]

  .30   [.50] [.51]

FW

37,0% 40,0%

26,9% 35,2%

  35,7% 28,9% 27,0% 33,0%

  30,8% 29,4%

30,4%

%

INT

20 18

7 51

  40 50 47 34

  131 40

171

N

54 45

  26 145

  112 173 174 103

562     426 136

Total N

[.44] [.65]

    [.48]

  .18   .46 .62 16   [.37] [.54] [.58] [.44]

FW

Table 34.  Social (extralinguistic) factor groups – Distribution of factors across yes/no variants (RFQ corpus)

16,7% 20,0%

0,0% 24,1%

  14,3% 16,8% 25,3% 12,6%

  15,3% 27,2%

18,1%

%

TU

9 9

0 35

  16 29 44 13

  65 37

102

N

54 45

26 145

  112 173 174 103

  426 136

562

Total N

Chapter 4.  Results 

 Grammatical Variation across Space and Time

page 104). Instead, age has emerged as the most important factor group reflecting the still ongoing change. Table 34 shows another interesting fact: Pronominal inversion is favored by male speakers from a low occupational background (the day laborers). Being associated with the speech of this social group, it is not surprising that this variant gradually decreases during the language change. In summary then, no major changes have affected the yes/no interrogative system in the course of one century. Yet, a totally different pattern might emerge when looking at the stage of the French language spoken in France shortly before the time la Nouvelle France began to be colonized. For this purpose, the data presented in Section 3.2 were evaluated along the same lines as the OH and the RFQ corpora. 4.1.3 Fifteenth to seventeenth century literature and plays The reason for analyzing literary sources from a time before the French colonization of North America began lies in the assumption that patterns of conditioning and tendencies observable in contemporary Quebec French speech had already begun to emerge in earlier varieties of the language. This expectation of course only holds if the usage patterns of Quebec French interrogatives are not an innovation of this geographically separated variety, but a retention of earlier European French language usage (cf. Elsig & Poplack 2006). In addition to the yes/no variants observed in the RFQ and in the OH data, the corpus of fifteenth to seventeenth century French literature and plays contains two further interrogative forms: the inversion of a subject DP (cf. (143)) and Complex inversion (cf. (144)). The latter is supposed to be the precursor of the interrogative particle -tu (cf. Picard 1992, Picoche & Marchello-Nizia 1991, Roberts 1993: 222). Therefore, it is not surprising that this interrogative particle could not be found in the late Middle French data. (143) Et ne m’a le médecin point ordonné de régime? dit madame. “And hasn’t the doctor put you on a diet? says Madam.” (CNN.140.47–48) (144) Et votre cœur est-il tout sincère pour moi? “And your heart, is it entirely honest to me?” (Molière.165.250) Complex inversion has to be distinguished from Clitic left dislocation structures where a topicalized DP is followed by a co-referential clitic subject pronoun. As Roberts (1993: 103–110) mentions, this distinction cannot be made easily in yes/ no questions since there is no independent clue (such as a fronted wh-constituent) which would permit one to structurally localize the initial subject DP. This entails



Chapter 4.  Results 

Table 35.  Distribution of affirmative and negated interrogative tokens across yes/no variants (15th to 17th century French; P-INV = Pronominal inversion, DP-INV = DP inversion (i.e. Free and Simple inversion), C-INV = Complex inversion, INT = Intonation questions, ECQ = est-ce que questions).   Polarity

P-INV % N

DP-INV % N

C-INV % N

INT %

N

ECQ % N

  TOTAL N

affirmative negated

72.8 72.0

928 314

0.9 1.1

11 5

6.7 8.7

85 38

18.9 17.0

241 74

0.8 1.1

10 5

1275 436

TOTAL N

72.6 1242

0.9

16

7.2

123

18.4

315

0.9

15

1711

that every time the following discussion of the yes/no data alludes to Complex inversion, Clitic left dislocation might alternatively be involved (except in cases where the initial non-pronominal subject is an indefinite quantifier). In order to ensure full comparability between the different data sources, the same criteria have been applied to the Middle French data as to the RFQ and the OH tokens. This entails the exclusion of negated interrogative sentences from consideration. As Table 35 shows, however, it turns out that negation does not influence variable choice in the fifteenth to seventeenth century data. Affirmative and negated sentences exhibit an almost identical distribution across the variants considered here. The nearly categorical restriction of negated tokens to intonation questions in the RFQ and in the OH data thus appears to be an innovation of Quebec French. In the following presentation and discussion of the late Middle French data, the negated tokens were removed so that the total number of yes/no questions amounts to 1,275 tokens. Subject identity As Table 36 shows, Pronominal inversion in the fifteenth to seventeenth century was still likely to occur with all subject pronouns, be it first or second person. Only third person pronouns have a low percentage in this variant. This is not unexpected because they are the only candidates for Complex inversion. Subject DPs tend to be used in intonation questions. There are only 11 inverted subject DPs compared to 34 instances of preverbal subject DPs. DP inversion is used here as a cover term for both Simple and Free inversion (cf. (1)b. and (1)c. on page 3 respectively). In six out of 11 interrogative tokens with DP inversion, a decision cannot be made as to whether Simple or Free inversion is at work. As example (145) illustrates, there is no independent clue (such as a past participle, an infinitive, an object, or an attribute) which would indicate whether the subject DP is structurally located in a position typical for Free inversion (and hence following

 Grammatical Variation across Space and Time

Table 36.  Subject identity – Distribution of factors across yes/no variants (15th to 17th century French)   Subject

P-INV % N

je on nous ce vous tu il. elle ils. elles NP

87.0 85.4 80.6 79.6 79.1 76.0 65.0 37.2

TOTAL N

72.8

DP-INV % N

107 41 25 90 318 177 154 16 928

24.4

11

0.9

11

C-INV % N

26.2 53.5

62 23

6.7

85

INT

ECQ

%

N

%

N

11.4 10.4 19.4 19.5 20.6 22.7 8.4 9.3 75.6

14 5 6 22 83 53 20 4 34

1.6 4.2

2 2

0.9 0.2 1.3 0.4

1 1 3 1

18.9

241

0.8

10

TOTAL N 123 48 31 113 402 233 237 43 45 1275

such elements) or in a position immediately adjacent to the inflected verb (and hence preceding them). (145)

Et chez vous iront les damoiseaux? and to you.PL will.go the.PL young.ladies “And will the young ladies go to your place?” (Molière.146.225)

It has been proposed that such structurally ambiguous interrogatives with postverbal subject DPs represent a favorable context for reanalysis whereby Simple inversion was reinterpreted as Free inversion (cf. Roberts 1993:  191). However, the variable context of yes/no questions itself turns out to be particularly unfavorable for DP inversion. A theory of language change taking reanalysis as its main driving force makes sense obviously only if based on more than 0.86% of the data (N=11/1275). I re-address this issue later when considering DP inversion in whquestions, and I then discuss whether these are more likely to constitute a favorable context for a potential language change due to structural reanalysis. Verb identity The patterns emerging from Table 37 are not as clear as those from the nineteenth and twentieth century (cf. Table 22 on page 108 and Table 5 on page 79). Among those verbs which trigger high rates of Pronominal inversion are cognitive verbs such as savoir, trouver, penser, vouloir, and connaître. Yet there are also cognitive verbs which are associated with relatively low rates of this variant (e.g. croire, craindre, cuider, oser, douter). The table also shows that modal and auxiliary verbs do not exhibit a uniform distribution of variants. The variants scatter freely across all kinds of lexical contexts and do not show any indication of a lexicalization effect.



Chapter 4.  Results 

Table 37.  Verb identity – Distribution of factors across yes/no variants (15th to 17th century French)   Verb appeler laisser savoir trouver penser falloir (modal) entendre vouloir (modal) pouvoir (modal) demander avoir (auxiliary) voir connaître dire être (auxiliary) croire craindre bailler prendre aller (auxiliary) parler faire devoir (modal) others cuider venir oser douter TOTAL N

P-INV % N 100.0 100.0 92.5 90.9 89.7 86.5 (92.3) 85.7 84.9 (87.7) 80.0 (80.0) 80.0 79.9 (63.9) 78.6 76.9 75.0 72.1 (35.0) 71.9 71.4 66.7 66.7 64.3 (33.3) 63.6 61.8 61.5 (60.0) 60.0 60.0 57.9 42.1 20.0 72.8

DP-INV % N

9 6 49 1.9 10 26 32 (12) 12 107 (64) 68 (60) 4 51 (78) 33 10 15 220 0.3 (7) (10.0) 23 5 4 16.7 12 9 7.1 (1) 7 21 5.9 16 3.8 (15) (4.0) 156 1.5 3 11 8 1 928

0.9

C-INV % N

1

0.8 (1.4) 11.8 (13.3) 9.4 (4.1)

5.0 1 10.8 (2) (35.0)

1 1

5.6 7.1

2 2.9 1 26.9 (1) (28.0) 4 7.7 21.1

11

6.7

INT %

N

ECQ % N

5.7 3 9.1 1 10.3 3 13.5 5 (7.7) (1) 14.3 2 1 13.5 17 0.8 1 (1) (11.0) (8) 10 7.1 6 1.2 1 (10) (6.7) (5) 20.0 1 6 9.4 6 1.6 1 (5) (31.1) (38) (0.8) (1) 21.4 9 23.1 3 1 20.0 4 33 16.4 50 0.3 1 (7) (20.0) (4) 28.1 9 28.6 2 16.7 1 1 27.8 5 1 21.4 3 (66.7) (2) 27.3 3 9.1 1 1 26.5 9 2.9 1 7 7.7 2 (7) (8.0) (2) 20 29.2 76 1.5 4 40.0 2 4 21.1 4 57.9 11 80.0 4 85 18.9

241

0.8 10

  TOTAL N 9 6 53 11 29 37 (13) 14 126 (73) 85 (75) 5 64 (122) 42 13 20 305 (20) 32 7 6 18 14 (3) 11 34 26 (25) 260 5 19 19 5 1275

 Grammatical Variation across Space and Time

Verb frequency Contrary to what was found in the more recent data sources, the fifteenth to seventeenth century data provide evidence that Pronominal inversion is more likely to be used when the sentence contains a frequent verb than when it contains a rare verb. This can be interpreted as a first sign of lexicalization and hence loss of productivity. It was shown that neither the OH data nor the RFQ data exhibited such a verb frequency effect. Instead, Pronominal inversion manifested a restricted use in a very specific linguistic context, i.e. with second person subject pronouns. In European varieties of French, however, it is well known that Pronominal inversion is lexically restricted, i.e. it occurs only with a very limited number of lexical verbs so that the resulting structures are lexicalized chunks rather than productive instances of inversion, as in vois-tu, voyez-vous, etc. (cf. Behnstedt 1973: 21). It thus appears that the late Middle French data (which is a predecessor of both European French and Quebec French) already show the first signs of this receding productivity. At this time, it should be reiterated that the OH data showed a more frequent use of Pronominal inversion in the context of the verbs vouloir, savoir, voir, and avoir than in the remainder of the lexical contexts (cf. Figure 3 on page 82). Perhaps this may be interpreted as an indicator of a lexical restriction along the lines observed in the fifteenth to seventeenth century data, despite the fact that verb frequency did not turn out to significantly condition Pronominal inversion (cf. Table 6 on page 80). Table 38.  Verb frequency – Distribution of factors across yes/no variants (15th to 17th century French)   Verb frequency

P-INV % N

DP-INV % N

frequent mid frequent average frequency mid rare rare

76.2 76.6 51.0 68.5 51.8

735 36 26 87 44

0.6

6

3.9 0.8 2.4

TOTAL N

72.8 928

0.9

C-INV % N

INT % N

ECQ   % N TOTAL N

2 1 2

6.7 4.3 7.8 4.7 9.4

65 2 4 6 8

154 8 18 32 29

0.5 2.1 2.0 0.8 2.4

5 1 1 1 2

965 47 51 127 85

11

6.7

85 18.9 241

0.8

10

1275

16.0 17.0 35.3 25.2 34.1



Chapter 4.  Results 

High frequency verbs In both the OH and the RFQ data, we have seen that sorting out the five most frequent verbs and considering them separately resulted in some interesting findings. But did the same five verbs already exert a comparable influence on the variation in the literary sources from the fifteenth to seventeenth centuries? Figure 8 below shows that the verbs être, vouloir, savoir, avoir, and voir account for 46% (N=590/1275) of all yes/no questions. Almost the same distribution was obtained from the OH data (cf. Figure 2 on page 81).

être

others vouloir

savoir voir

avoir

Verb

%

N

être vouloir savoir avoir voir others

24 10  4  5  3 54

305 126   53   64   42 685

TOTAL N

1275

Figure 8.  The distribution of vouloir, savoir, voir, avoir, and être in the fifteenth to seventeenth century data (only yes/no questions)

 Grammatical Variation across Space and Time

If one now compares the distribution of these highly frequent verbs across the yes/ no variants with the remainder of the verbs (cf. Table 39), one can see that even in the fifteenth to seventeenth century data, some of the patterns observed above are replicated. As in the OH corpus, the verbs voir, avoir, vouloir, and savoir show a proportion of Pronominal inversion above the average (of the other verbs and être). Avoir and être apparently constitute a favorable context for Complex inversion. Figure 9 summarizes and illustrates the distribution of yes/no variants in the late Middle French data. The discrepancy between the five most frequent lexical verbs and the other verbs as shown in Figure 9 turns out to be rather unimportant. Still the slight tendency of Pronominal inversion to occur 10% more often with frequent verbs seems to be more than a pure coincidence of the data: it is the same effect that could be observed in the RFQ corpus and in the OH corpus, only at a lower rate. This was expected since instances of Pronominal inversion in contemporary Quebec French were hypothesized to be linguistically or lexically restricted relics of once productive constructions. It should not come as a surprise then that the late Middle French data already show some (apparently insignificant) precursors. Table 39.  The distribution of savoir, vouloir, avoir, voir, and être across yes/no variants in the fifteenth to seventeenth century data (P-INV = Pronominal inversion; DP-INV = DP inversion (i.e. Free & Simple inversion); INT = intonation questions, ECQ = particle est-ce que) Verb

P-INV % N

DP-INV % N

savoir vouloir avoir voir être others

92 85 80 79 72 68

49 107 51 33 220 468

0 1

TOTAL N

73

928

1

2

C-INV % N

1

INT

ECQ % N

TOTAL N

%

N 3 17 6 9 50 156

1 2

1 1

0 1

1 7

53 126 64 42 305 685

241

1

10

1275

1 9

1 6

1 9

11 7

33 45

6 13 9 21 16 23

11

7

85

19



Chapter 4.  Results  80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0%

P-INV

DP-INV

C-INV

frequent verbs

Variants P-INV INT C-INV ECQ DP-INV TOTAL

frequent verbs (vouloir, savoir, voir, avoir, être) % N 78 14  7  1  0

460   85   40    3    2 590

INT

ECQ

other verbs

other verbs %

N

68 23  7  1  1

468 156   45  7  9 685

Figure 9.  The distribution of yes/no variants in the 15th to 17th century French data across the lexical contexts defined by the verbs vouloir, savoir, voir, avoir, and être and by the remainder of the verbs respectively

 Grammatical Variation across Space and Time

Table 40.  Tense and mood – Distribution of factors across yes/no variants (15th to17th century French)   Verb tense, mood

P-INV % N

DP-INV % N

C-INV % N

INT %

N

simple future conditional present tense simple past present perfect imperfect

80.4 79.3 74.1 64.3 57.8 54.8

78 65 671 9 74 17

2.1 1.2 0.4 7.1 1.6 3.2

2 1 4 1 2 1

4.1 6.1 6.3 21.4 9.4 12.9

4 5 57 3 12 4

13.4 13.4 18.1 7.1 31.2 29.0

13 11 164 1 40 9

TOTAL N

72.7

914

0.9

11

6.8

85

18.9

238

ECQ % N

1.0

9

0.7

9

TOTAL N 97 82 905 14 128 31 1257

Tense and mood The distribution of interrogative variants across different tense and mood forms of the verb has not revealed any informative patterns in the twentieth century data (cf.  Table 8 on page 85). In the RFQ corpus, there was a tendency of synthetic tenses (the simple future and the conditional) to trigger above average rates of Pronominal inversion. Table 40 confirms this tendency for the fifteenth to seventeenth century. This is in contradiction to the empirical findings reported by Ashby (1977: 40). Yet it is a minor effect which will not be investigated further. Grammatical verb type Interestingly, the same conclusion drawn with regard to the previous factor group also applies to the grammatical verb type, namely that the fifteenth to seventeenth century data show a certain relatedness with the RFQ corpus, but not with the OH corpus. Table 41 ranks the factors in this group from the one with the highest rate of inversion to the one with the lowest rate. The ranking is exactly the same as in the nineteenth century data (cf. Table 26 on page 114), with reflexive verbs triggering a relatively frequent use of Pronominal inversion and intransitives somewhat lower rates of this variant. Recall that the OH data provided a completely different set of patterns of conditioning (cf. Table 9 on page 86). It therefore appears that the RFQ data are more similar to the earlier stages of the language when looking at the properties of the verb (its tense, mood, and grammatical class).



Chapter 4.  Results 

Table 41.  Grammatical verb type – Distribution of factors across yes/no variants (15th to 17th century French)   Verb: grammatical type

P-INV % N

DP-INV % N

reflexives transitives predicatives unergative unaccusatives, passives

75.8 25 75.0 623 71.7 231 67.5 27 44.7 21

0.6 0.6 2.5 6.4

TOTAL N

72.8 927

0.9

C-INV % N

9.1 5 4.5 2 10.6 1 3 21.3 11

6.6

INT % N

ECQ TOTAL % N N

3 12.1 4 37 19.3 160 34 16.5 53 27.5 11 10 27.7 13

3.0 0.7 0.6 2.5

1 6 2 1

33 831 322 40 47

84 18.9 241

0.8

10

1273

Table 42.  Semantic verb type – Distribution of factors across yes/no variants (15th to 17th century French)   Verb: semantic type

P-INV % N

DP-INV % N

C-INV % N

INT % N

ECQ   % N TOTAL N

cognitive verbs other verbs

80.8 290 69.7 638

0.3 1.1

1 10

0.6 9.1

2 17.8 64 83 19.3 177

0.6 0.9

2 8

359 916

TOTAL N

72.8 928

0.9

11

6.7

85 18.9 241

0.8

10

1275

Cognitive verbs Table 42 shows a tendency which has so far been observed in all databases: cognitive verbs trigger the use of Pronominal inversion more frequently than the remainder of the verbs. This is a stable effect which has not undergone any diachronic change. Thus, although the consideration of the individual verbs in Table 37 (on page 129) have not revealed a clear favoring effect of cognitive verbs on Pronominal inversion, this evolutionary tendency already seems to be in place in the fifteenth to seventeenth century data. Verb syllables The influence of the number of syllables of the inflected verb is another stable effect across the centuries and databases considered here (cf. Table 11 on page 88 and Table 28 on page 115): the longer the verb, the more frequent Pronominal inversion is and the less frequent other variants are (Complex inversion and intonation questions). Three pragmatic factor groups which were tested both in the OH and in the RFQ data could not be examined in the late Middle and Classical French data. These are the parallel processing effect, the style of the conversational setting in

 Grammatical Variation across Space and Time

Table 43.  Number of verb syllables – Distribution of factors across yes/no variants (15th to 17th century French)   Verb: number of syllables

P-INV % N

DP-INV % N

polysyllabic monosyllabic

76.0 452 70.0 476

0.8 0.9

TOTAL N

72.8 928

0.9

C-INV % N

5 3.7 6 9.3 11

6.7

INT % N

ECQ % N

TOTAL  N

22 18.7 111 63 19.1 130

0.8 0.7

5 5

595 680

85 18.9 241

0.8

10

1275

which the interrogative token is embedded, as well as the localization of the respective token in the course of the interview. Obviously, all three factor groups require an oral interview setting as instantiated by the sociolinguistic interview. The late Middle French data sources are all literary texts and are hence not appropriate for testing these factor groups. Literary source So far, the late Middle and Classical French data were analyzed as if they were a homogeneous whole without distinguishing between the particular literary sources. Since these represent different points in time, it is worth investigating if they reveal some diachronic effects. In Table 44, the literary sources are arranged from the earliest (the Cent nouvelles nouvelles) to the latest (the plays by Molière) in time. In effect, there is a relatively abrupt decline of Pronominal inversion between the texts ending with Rabelais and those beginning with Corneille (i.e. between the sixteenth and the seventeenth century) with a simultaneous rise of intonation questions. This indicates a diachronic change in the usage of yes/no variants in the expected direction, i.e. a progressing loss of the inversion variant with a coinciding rise of other variants, but with preverbal subjects. This trend, however, should not be overestimated for two reasons: first, Pronominal inversion still remains the majority variant in the three more recent data sources; and second, there are no more than six texts and authors widely scattered over time which are tacitly taken to be representative for the speech of their time. The late Middle and Classical French data hence do not meet the strict requirements imposed by sociolinguistic research methods such as the sociolinguistic interview in which all informants must be carefully stratified according to their age, sex, socio-economic class, and other (extralinguistic) criteria. Since it is impossible to obtain qualitatively equivalent data from this period, one has to make due with what is available. Despite these reservations, the tendency displayed in Table 44 cannot be attributed to idiosyncrasies of the texts alone. The decline of Pronominal inversion (as small as it might be) is consistent across the texts before and after the sixteenth century.



Chapter 4.  Results 

Table 44.  Literary source – Distribution of factors across yes/no variants (15th to 17th century French)   Literary Source

P-INV % N

DP-INV % N

C-INV % N

5 5.5 6 3 8.6 7 18 9.0 29 27 26.1 79 2 33.3 12 30 25.5 108

2.8 2.1

1 9

110 81 321 303 36 424

85 18.9 241

0.8

10

1275

Cent nouvelles nouvelles Farce de maître Pathelin Rabelais Corneille Agréables Conférences Molière

89.1 98 86.4 70 82.9 266 65.0 197 58.3 21 65.1 276

0.9 1.2 2.5

0.2

1

4.5 3.7 5.6 8.9 5.6 7.1

TOTAL N

72.8 928

0.9

11

6.7

1 1 8

INT % N

ECQ TOTAL  % N N

Variable rule analysis The above analysis of the marginals showed some similarities to the nineteenth (RFQ) and twentieth (OH) century data. In order to answer the question as to whether these effects are independent and statistically significant or whether they are below the level of significance, a variable rule analysis was conducted. Table 45 shows the results of this GoldVarb-run. The second column displays the results for Pronominal inversion, the third column the results for intonation questions, the fourth those for Complex inversion, the fifth those for est-ce que questions, and the last column results for postverbal nominal subjects respectively. The first factor group displayed in Table 45 shows that nothing indicates the future restriction of Pronominal inversion to second person contexts yet. Instead, this variant is rather favored by first person subjects, a context explicitly proscribed by Vaugelas (1647b:131–132). Perhaps this proscription was a reaction to an above average usage of inverted first person pronouns at that time. Intonation questions are strongly favored by subject DPs. Out of a total of 1,275 yes/no questions, 130 contain a subject DP, 65% (N=85) of which are preverbal and co-occur with a postverbal third person subject pronoun (Complex inversion and Clitic left dislocations) and the remainder without such a pronoun. Three-quarters of the remaining 45 questions exhibiting subject DPs feature an SVO word order. In only 11 cases does this subject DP occur in postverbal position. In the fifteenth to seventeenth century data, there is hence a strong tendency of subject DPs to occur preverbally (92%, N=119/130). Subject pronouns, on the other hand, still prevail in inversion contexts (82%, N=1013/1230). This finding confirms that postverbal subject DPs in yes/no questions, which are excluded from varieties of contemporary French, were already the exception in the fifteenth to seventeenth century data.

N Input value Subject identity first person pronouns second person pronouns third person pronouns nominal subjects range Verb frequency singleton rare average frequency frequent very frequent range Cognitive verbs cognitive verbs others range

Variants

  .73   .69 .50 .43   26   .28 .42 .21 .55 .55 34   .59 .47 12

FW

290 638

  51.8 68.5 51.0 76.6 76.2

80.8 69.7

  359 916

  85 127 51 47 965

  44 87 26 36 735

  85.7 78.0 68.3 0.0

  .19   .39 .59 .34 .93 59   .67 .58 .77 .45 .46 32   .43 .53 10

Total FW N

928 1275       132 154 495 635 301 441 0 45

72.8

P-INV % N

17.8 19.3

  34.1 25.2 35.3 17.0 16.0

  13.0 21.4 11.6 75.6

18.9

%

N

64 177

  29 32 18 8 154   359 916

  85 127 51 47 965   .12 .69 57

  [.57] [.42] [.67] [.40] [.50]

  .07  

Total FW N

241 1275       20 154 136 635 51 441 34 45

INT

0.6 9.1

  9.4 4.7 7.8 4.3 6.7

  0.0 0.0 19.3 0.0

6.7

Total N

2 83

  8 6 4 2 65

  359 916

  85 127 51 47 965

85 1275       0 154 0 635 85 441 0 45

C-INV % N

0.6 0.9

  2.4 0.8 2.0 2.1 0.5

  1.3 0.6 0.9 0.0

0.8

%

2 8

  2 1 1 1 5

  359 916

  85 127 51 47 965

10 1275       2 154 4 635 4 441 0 45

ECQ N Total N

0.3 1.1

  2.4 0.8 3.9 0.0 0.6

24.4

 

0.9

1 10

  2 1 2 0 6

  0 0 0 11

11

359 916

  85 127 51 47 965

  154 635 441 45

1275

DP-INV % N Total N

Table 45.  Conditioning of yes/no variants in the fifteenth to seventeenth century French data – Factor weights obtained by GoldVarb X (a variable rule application)

 Grammatical Variation across Space and Time

Verb: number of syllables monosyllabic polysyllabic range Literary Source Cent n. nouvelles Farce d. m. Pathelin Rabelais Corneille Agréables Conférences Molière range

Variants

70.0 76.0

89.1 86.4 82.9 65.0 58.3 65.1

  .74 .73 .63 .41 .35 .37 39

98 70 266 197 21 276

476 452

P-INV % N

[.48] [.53]

 

FW  

  110 81 321 303 36 424

  .22 .28 .31 .64 .70 .65 48

680 [.53] 595 [.47]

 

Total FW N

5.5 8.6 9.0 26.1 33.3 25.5

N

6 7 29 79 12 108

130 111

INT

19.1 18.7

%

  110 81 321 303 36 424

680 595

 

4.5 3.7 5.6 8.9 5.6 7.1

5 3 18 27 2 30

  110 81 321 303 36 424

680 595

63 22

.58 .40 18   [.39] [.30] [.48] [.56] [.47] [.54]

Total N  

9.3 3.7

C-INV % N

 

Total FW N

0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 2.8 2.1

0.7 0.8

%

0 0 0 0 1 9

5 5   110 81 321 303 36 424

680 595

 

ECQ N Total N

0.9 1.2 2.5 0.0 0.0 0.2

0.9 0.8

%

1 1 8 0 0 1

6 5

110 81 321 303 36 424

680 595

DP-INV N Total N

Chapter 4.  Results 

 Grammatical Variation across Space and Time

Table 45 reveals further interesting patterns: Complex inversion, the supposed predecessor of the interrogative marker -tu (cf. Picard 1992), still occurs only in third person contexts. Unambiguous evidence for the grammaticalization of the -tu marker would require its appearance in first and second person contexts, but in the data sources studies here, this is not the case. I therefore cannot provide any empirical proof that -tu questions indeed originate from Complex inversion. The only indication that Complex inversion is in some way related to the interrogative marker -tu are the common conditioning patterns: in the fifteenth to seventeenth century data, the presence of a cognitive verb disfavors the use of Complex inversion. In the nineteenth and twentieth century data, it makes the use of -tu questions unlikely (though below the level of statistical significance). In both the fifteenth to seventeenth and the twentieth century data, monosyllabic verbs favor the use of the respective variants, Complex inversion, and -tu questions. Common conditioning patterns such as these might be interpreted as indirect evidence for a diachronic relationship between the two variants. A verb frequency effect appears in Table 45. This has already been noted in the marginals. The more frequent verbs favor Pronominal inversion and the less frequent verbs favor intonation questions. The nineteenth and twentieth century data do not exhibit such an effect, but – as has been mentioned before – vernacular varieties of European French (which are a descendant of the Middle French varieties as well) show clear signs of lexicalization of this variant (cf. Wandruszka 1970, cited in Behnstedt 1973: 51). In other words, it is possible that the favoring effect of frequent lexical verbs on Pronominal inversion is a harbinger of its later lexical restriction. The favoring effect of cognitive verbs on the choice of Pronominal inversion applies consistently to all data sets, from the fifteenth to the twentieth century. It shall be noted that many of the verbs in this group are so-called bridge verbs which are defined by “[…] allow[ing] extraction from their sentential complement.” (Vikner 1995:  70, footnote 7). In Germanic languages, these verbs may introduce subordinate clauses which lack a complementizer and show V2 word order. It is hence a semantically defined class of verbs which show characteristic syntactic patterns. According to Cattell (1978), Erteschik-Shir & Lappin (1979) and Kluender (1992) (cited in Featherston 2004), a common property of this class is the semantic thinness of these verbs. At this time, I will leave the question unanswered as to what the exact structural relation between the “bridgeness” (cf. Featherston 2004) of these verbs and the syntactic mechanism of Pronominal inversion is or whether there is one at all. In fact, the argument that belonging to the semantic class of bridge verbs influences variable choice might be challenged by the observation that three of the high frequency verbs (i.e. vouloir, voir, and savoir) feature prominently in the class of cognitive



Chapter 4.  Results 

100%

15–17th cent.

RFQ

OH

90% 80% 70% 60%

126

43

50% 40%

49

30%

8

20% 10% 0%

34

31

613

25

17

27

142

107

45

39

25

21 1

cogn.v. others

cogn.v. others vouloir

voir

cogn.v. others savoir

others

Figure 10.  Percentage of Pronominal inversion in the three data corpora within the context of cognitive verbs versus non-cognitive verbs, respectively, each bar showing its respective proportion of each one of the verbs vouloir, savoir, and voir as opposed to all remaining verbs (absolute numbers displayed within bars). Circles display the rate of Pronominal inversion triggered by the respective use of these verbs. Total numbers: — 15th to 17th century: cognitive verbs N=359, non-cognitive verbs N=916 / vouloir N=126, voir N=42, savoir N=53, others N=1054. — RFQ: cognitive verbs N=187, non-cognitive verbs N=356 / vouloir N=55, voir N=31, savoir N=39, others N=418. — OH: cognitive verbs N=247, non-cognitive verbs N=385 / vouloir N=61, voir N=40, savoir N=55, others N=476

verbs. It has been shown that these three verbs also exhibit high rates of Pronominal inversion (cf. Table 7 on page 81 for the OH corpus, Table 24 on page 113 for the RFQ corpus, and Table 39 on page 132 for the fifteenth to seventeenth century

 Grammatical Variation across Space and Time

data). Figure 10 above shows how much of the effect exerted by the class of cognitive verbs is actually due to these three lexical verbs. The figure reveals that the three verbs vouloir, savoir, and voir indeed account for the majority of the contexts defined by the class of cognitive verbs in all three corpora. In the data predating the twentieth century, the verbs vouloir and savoir feature rates of Pronominal inversion which outrange the rate of the other cognitive verbs. In the twentieth century, it is vouloir and voir in particular which exhibit high rates of inversion, but also the rate of savoir is higher than the other cognitive verbs. One may conclude from Figure 10 that a large part of the effect exerted by cognitive verbs is in fact due to the three lexical verbs vouloir, savoir, and voir. However, the figure also shows that this effect cannot entirely be explained by the influence of these particular verbs: the rate of inversion of the remaining cognitive verbs (hence excluding from consideration vouloir, savoir and voir) is always higher than the respective rate of the non-cognitive verbs, which is true to a minor degree in the fifteenth to seventeenth century data, but which is remarkably true in the later data corpora. One can therefore not dismiss the favoring effect of cognitive verbs on Pronominal inversion as a mere artifact of the three lexical verbs vouloir, savoir, and voir. The fact that cognitive verbs favor Pronominal inversion in all three data corpora demonstrates that some of the patterns of conditioning apply independently of the diachronic dimension or, to put it differently, not all effects on variable choice are subject to diachronic change; some of them are stable. This also applies to the number of syllables of the inflected verb: in the nineteenth and twentieth century, polysyllabic verbs have a favorable influence on the choice of Pronominal inversion. This is also true for the fifteenth to seventeenth century data, though below the level of statistical significance (cf. Table 45). The common effects of conditioning also provide indirect evidence that the instances of Pronominal inversion extracted from the three data corpora are indeed instantiations of one and the same syntactic construction, and this in spite of the substantial differences visible in other factor groups (such as the subject identity). The last factor group considered in Table 45, the literary sources from which the interrogative tokens were extracted, confirms the tendencies observed in the marginals (cf. Table 44 on page 137): While Pronominal inversion is characterized by a decline in usage between the sixteenth and the seventeenth century, intonation questions show the reverse pattern. This is one of the most important results since it complies with the general tendency of a gradual quantitative dwindling of this variant from 73% in the fifteenth to seventeenth century data (N=928/1275), to 51% in the nineteenth century (N=278/543) and down to 32% in the twentieth century (N=205/632). The observation that intonation questions rise in usage to the same extent as Pronominal inversion recedes is in line with empirical studies



Chapter 4.  Results 

of contemporary European French which report that intonation questions represent the default interrogative variant (e.g. Behnstedt 1973, Coveney 2002, Terry 1970). In Quebec, the change has affected the -tu variant instead. Both est-ce que questions and yes/no questions featuring a postverbal subject DP are too rare to draw any conclusions about their conditioning. Est-ce que questions emerge only in the seventeenth century. Their appearance hence coincides with the decline of Pronominal inversion. Postverbal subject DPs prevail in the texts by Rabelais and in contexts featuring a non-cognitive verb. They virtually disappear in the seventeenth century. In other words, between the sixteenth and the seventeenth century, interrogative variants exhibiting postverbal (nominal or pronominal) subjects become fewer in number and variants with preverbal subjects (i.e. intonation and est-ce que questions) gain ground. In the data studied here, the grammaticalized interrogative particle -ti/-tu has not yet appeared (at least, no unambiguous evidence for its appearance can be found). This might be the reason why Complex inversion does not function as a serious contender with regard to the other SVO variants. Summing up this chapter about fifteenth to seventeenth century French yes/ no questions, the following five examples of the respective variants illustrate the favoring effects outlined above. (146) A chef de piece, maistre curé se vire vers l’oste et en l’oreille luy dist: «Voulons nous bien tromper ce trenchecoille? – Oy, je vous en prie, ce dit l’oste. “Finally, the parish priest approaches the guest and says into his ear: ‘Shall we cheat on this Trenchecoille? – Yes, by all means, this says the guest.” (Cnn.403.34–35) (147) Et puis après cela votre conduite est belle? “And then after this, is your performance beautiful?” (Molière.67.1532) (148) Voire mais (dist Pantagruel), le roy y est il? – Ouy, Sire, dist le prisonnier; […] “Yea but, said Pantagruel, is the king there? Yes, sir, said the prisoner; [...]” (Rabelais.298) (149) Quoi! chevalier, est-ce que tu prétends soutenir cette pièce? “What! Knight, do you pretend to support this play?” (Molière.204.392–393) (150) Ne periroit le noble art d’imprimerie? “Would not perish the noble art of printing?” (Rabelais.537)

 Grammatical Variation across Space and Time

(146) is an instance of Pronominal inversion extracted from the Cent nouvelles nouvelles. The sentence features a first person subject and a cognitive verb (vouloir). (147) is an intonation question extracted from a text by Molière. It contains a subject DP and a non-cognitive verb (the copula être). (148) shows a case of Complex inversion (or Clitic left dislocation) with a monosyllabic and non-cognitive verb. (149) is an est-ce que question extracted from the most recent data source (i.e. Molière). Finally, (150) shows a postverbal nominal subject. This token was extracted from the text by Rabelais. It contains a non-cognitive verb. Returning to the research questions and expectations initially asked in Chapter 4.1, the following answers may now be given: Pronominal inversion has clearly not disappeared from the French vernacular in Canadian French. It is true, however, that its use has gradually declined over time. While the fifteenth to seventeenth century data provide some evidence for a future lexical restriction of this variant (as has reportedly happened in European French), the nineteenth and twentieth century Quebec data show a linguistic restriction to second person contexts. The assumption that the rate of Pronominal inversion should be lowest in the literary data sources approximating the vernacular most (Farce de maître Pathelin, Agréables conferences) is not borne out. Instead, there is a quantitative difference separating the fifteenth and sixteenth from the seventeenth century data. The initial assumption that subject DP inversion (Simple and Free inversion) in yes/no questions are already marginal in the earlier data sources and absent from the more recent ones is indeed confirmed by the data. Complex inversion is virtually absent from the nineteenth and twentieth century oral data. In fifteenth to seventeenth century French, its use fluctuates between 4% and 9%. Yet there is no consistent increase over time which would coincide with the simultaneous decrease of the different inversion variants. This might have two reasons: first, yes/no questions represent a context which makes the distinction between Clitic left dislocation and Complex inversion impossible (cf. Roberts 1993: 166). In other words, there might be cases of topicalization of a subject DP to an initial position among the 85 tokens appearing under the label Complex inversion in Table 45, thereby masking a potential quantitative increase. Second, according to Foulet (250–251), left dislocations have been reanalyzed in terms of Complex inversion by the sixteenth century and, according to Roberts (1993: 169), no later than by the 1450s. It is possible that in the data sources studied here, Complex inversion has already been established as an only minor participant in the variable system of yes/no interrogatives. With regard to the SVO-variants (i.e. intonation, -tu, and est-ce que questions), the fifteenth to seventeenth century data indeed show an increase of intonation questions, contrary to my initial expectations. I had supposed that the written language constitutes an unfavorable context for this variant since no syntactic mechanism indicates the interrogative character of the sentence. Yet this variant is the second



Chapter 4.  Results 

most frequent following Pronominal inversion. Since intonation questions represent the most important variant in contemporary European vernacular French, the intonation variant in the fifteenth to seventeenth century data might be seen as a forerunner of this. In this context, it is important to mention that in Table 45, the intonation variant is the antagonist to Pronominal inversion with regard to the conditioning by the independent variables. -tu questions have indeed gained much ground in Quebec French and seem to have developed into the new default variant, contrary to European French. In the fifteenth to seventeenth century data, symptoms of this tendency already appear in the form of a favoring effect of noncognitive and monosyllabic verbs on its predecessor, Complex inversion. After having discussed in detail the conditioning of yes/no questions, I now turn to interrogatives involving a wh-word. As the next section shows, they do not exhibit the same extent of variability in Quebec French as yes/no questions do. 4.2 Wh-questions As is the case in yes/no questions, speakers may choose between several distinct variants when uttering a wh-question. These were presented in examples (2)a. to (2)g. on page 4 (and are repeated below). Pronominal inversion (Subject-clitic inversion) (151) a. Voyons, il dit, jeune officier d’Arodate qu’as-tu fait de mes trente-neuf princes? “Let’s see, he says, young officer from Arodate, what have you done with my thirty-nine princes?” (RFQ.015.517) Simple inversion b. Comment seroit la folie antique abolie? “How would the ancient folly be abolished?” (Rabelais.266) Stylistic / Free inversion c. Que me vient donc conter ce coquin assuré? “What has this assured rogue just told me?” (Molière.89.1027) Complex inversion d. Depuis quand ton Éraste en tient-il pour Mélite? “Since when has your Eraste asked for Melite’s hand?” (Corneille.31.547)

 Grammatical Variation across Space and Time

Wh-fronting e. De quoi la ville a changé? La ville a changé du tout au tout. “In which way has the city changed? The city hasn’t changed at all.” (OH.095.709) Wh-in situ f. Que c’est que j’allais dire, tu pourrais repasser quand? “What I was about to say, when could you come by again?” (OH.115.302) Est-ce que g. Quand est-ce que c’est que vous allez vous marier? Dans trois jours. “When are you going to marry? In three days.” (RFQ.044.1204) This array of variants is again just a theoretical option. One would never expect any native speaker of French to use every variant listed above with the same likelihood or to find every single variant with an equal proportion in spontaneous speech data. Most probably, one or two of them will turn out to be the majority variants with the others quantitatively falling behind. This is indeed what previous empirical studies of European and Quebec French have shown. In fact, when comparing them (as was done in the overview of the literature in Section 2.), it arises that inversion variants become considerably less frequent the closer the language data approximate the vernacular. Instead, wh-fronting, wh-in situ and wh-est-ce que questions are more frequently used. In formal speech and written language, however, inversion still remains the default option. 4.2.1 Wh-questions in the RFQ and OH data Both the OH and the RFQ corpus contain highly vernacular oral speech data whereas the late Middle and early Modern French literature and plays can only be considered as approximations to spoken French. One can thus expect that whquestions show two parallel trends: first, in accord with the much more general observation that inversion variants have gradually been displaced by the respective SVO variants, this trend should be mirrored in the relevant data. Second, the two spontaneous speech corpora should only marginally contain subject-verb inversion whereas the written data sources should still exhibit a fairly high amount of this variant. The diamesic (i.e. written versus oral language) and the diachronic (i.e. late Middle and Classical French versus Modern French) dimensions can be told apart by the stratification of the fifteenth to seventeenth century data sources according to formality. Turning our attention first to the OH and the RFQ data, the supposed lack of inversion variants can indeed be confirmed.



Chapter 4.  Results 

Figure 11 shows the distribution of the wh-variants in the OH data. It turns out that the so-called /εsk/(est-ce que) variant accounts for the bulk of the interrogative tokens (almost three-quarters of all wh-questions). This variant refers to wh-questions whose wh-phrase appears sentence-initially followed by a variant of the interrogative particle est-ce que (as in (152)).

/εsk/

Wh-fronting

Wh-in situ

P-INV

Ottawa-Hull /εsk/ Wh-fronting Wh-in situ DP-INV P-INV

%

N

72.3 17.6   7.6   1.4   1.1

693 169   73   13   11

TOTAL N Wh=subject /εsk/ Wh-fronting

959 89.6 10.4

TOTAL N

Figure 11.  Distribution of wh-variants in the OH corpus (P-INV = Pronominal inversion, DP-INV = DP inversion).

  86   10   96

N-INV

 Grammatical Variation across Space and Time

(152) Avant z hier, qu’on a été- quand est-ce qu’on a été nous-autres, c’ est-tu samedi qu’on a été, oui, c’est samedi qu’on a été aux Galeries de Hull là. “The day before yesterday when we were- when were we there, was it on Saturday that we went there, yes, it was on Saturday that we went to the Galleries in Hull.” (OH.095.1089) The next most frequent variant is wh-fronting which distinguishes itself from the former variant only by the lack of the /εsk/-formula (cf. (153)). It accounts for nearly one-fifth of all wh-questions. (153) On est (inc) des Français, pourquoi on se parlerait en anglais? “We are French, why should we address each other in English?” (OH.080.91915) Wh-in situ questions represent a minor variant with hardly more than 7% (cf. (154)). (154) Ah oui, j’ai eu ma première télévision en quelle année Antoine? “Oh yes, I had my first television in which year, Antoine?” (OH.119.2307) The occurrence of Pronominal inversion and of DP inversion is a marginal, almost negligible phenomenon (cf. (155)). Only 2.5% of the data show a postverbal subject. (155) a. Une des premières questions, c’était combien d’heures de télévision regardez-vous par semaine? (rire). J’ai dit, ah quarante à soixante […] “One of the first questions was, how many hours of television do you watch per week? (laughing). I said, oh forty to sixty [...]” (OH.073.22109) b. Où ce qui est le Giant Tiger? Bon bien juste là, dans le milieu de la côte, du Giant Tiger. “Where is the Giant Tiger? Well, just over there, in the middle of the slope, of the Giant Tiger.” (OH.089.933) Therefore, unlike the situation in yes/no questions, variation in wh-questions is limited to the optional realization of the complementizer /εsk/ (or one of its derivations) and marginally to the optional placement of the wh-phrase in its in situ position. Neither Pronominal inversion nor the interrogative particle -tu play a role in wh-questions. This observation fundamentally distinguishes wh-questions from yes/no questions. A look at the nineteenth century RFQ data reveals a strikingly similar picture with the only exception being that wh-in situ is almost absent from this corpus.



Chapter 4.  Results 

/εsk/

Wh-fronting

Wh-in situ

P-INV

N-INV

RFQ

/εsk/ Wh-fronting P-INV Wh-in situ DP-INV

%

N

80.2 16.9   1.6   0.9   0.5

652 137   13    7    4

TOTAL N Wh=subject /εsk/ Wh-fronting

813 85.5 14.5

TOTAL N

  65   11   76

Figure 12.  Distribution of wh-variants in the RFQ corpus (P-INV = Pronominal inversion, DP-INV = DP inversion).

The examples (156) through (159)a. and b. illustrate the respective variants in this corpus. (156) Toujours il dit, mon petit garcon, il dit, tu pleures, qu’est-ce que tu as à pleurer, donc? “Still he says, my little boy, he says, you cry, but what do you have to cry about?” (RFQ.023.1305)

 Grammatical Variation across Space and Time

(157) Puis, il dit, comment tu trouves la chatte? Ah! il dit, parle pas, il dit, mon cher prince- parle pas, il dit, mon chat. “Then he says how do you like the cat? Ah! he says, don’t talk, he says, my dear prince- don’t talk, he says, about my cat.” (RFQ.038.691) (158) Elle dit à l’habitant, c’est qui ça? “She says to the resident, who is that?” (RFQ.037.489) (159) a. Il dit, jeune officier d’Arodate quelle punition lui donnes-tu? “He says, young officer from Arodate, which punishment do you mete out to him?” (RFQ.015.1025) b. Il y en a un qui dit, Monsieur, dites moi donc quel est l’effet de votre voyage? “There is one among them who says, sir, so tell me what is the outcome of your trip?” (RFQ.018.148) Now that the comparison between the nineteenth and the twentieth century data shows that relatively little has changed during this time, it is worth having a closer look at the majority variant, i.e. the wh-est-ce que questions. As I have mentioned above, the interrogative particle est-ce que does not always appear in its most commonly known form /εsk(ә)/. There is considerable variation in the composition of this particle, as the following two examples illustrate ((160) is an instance of the complementizer /sek(ә)seki/ and (161) of the complementizer /k(ә)/). (160) Il dit qui c’est que c’est qui frappe sur la maison comme ça, bien je dis c’est eux-autres au côté tu sais, qui nous donnent du trouble, hein? “He says who knocks on the house like that, well I say it’s the others next door you know, who make trouble, don’t they?” (OH.096.1089) (161) Après que la vieille avait mangé, la vieille fée, bien, elle dit, où que tu vas, elle dit, mon petit gars? “When the old had eaten, the old fairy, well, she says, where do you go, she says, my little boy?” (RFQ.038.814) Whether these diverse forms of the complementizer trace back to one common origin (such as est-ce que) or whether they are structurally unrelated with an independent



Chapter 4.  Results 

history of origin is a subject of debate in the literature (e.g. Druetta 2003: 31)6. Here I will neither engage in this discussion nor will I explore the internal structure of the interrogative particle, and this for several reasons. No matter which morphological or phonological variant of est-ce que is at play, the same word order is obtained in every single instance, i.e. the wh-word is followed by the complementizer and the latter is followed by the canonical SVO word order. Hence est-ce que and its (supposed) derivatives have no syntactic effects whatsoever. It is absolutely possible that the choice of one derivative over the other largely depends on the phonological environment in which it is embedded or on the emphatic weight the speaker wants to allocate to the wh-constituent. Since this present study aims at describing and explaining syntactic variability in the French interrogative system, such research questions lie beyond the focus of interest and would need to be discussed elsewhere. At this point, it will suffice to show the distribution of the different derivatives of est-ce que with respect to the wh-word across the two data corpora. Table 46 provides an overview of the number and distribution of all morphophonological variants of the interrogative particle est-ce que found in the wh-questions from the OH and the RFQ corpus. The original form /εsk(ә)/ represents only 14.4% (N=217/1509) out of all wh-est-ce que tokens. In most cases, apheresis (i.e. the drop of initial /ε/ or /εs/) or apocopy (i.e. the drop of final /k/ or, very marginally, /sk/) has affected this particle (cf. Druetta 2002, 2003). Table 46 also reveals that out of all wh-est-ce que tokens, 11.1% feature apocopy in the RFQ corpus (N=80/721), and 30.08% in the OH corpus (N=237/788). Druetta (2003: 22, referring to the maps 1,25 and 31,1416 of the Atlas Linguistique de la France) states that Northeast France is the place where apocopy of /εsk(ә)/ is applied most frequently. Strikingly, this is one of the regions where the majority of francophone settlers in North America originally came from. The table further shows that est-ce (que) is indeed virtually restricted to the wh-words que (yielding qu’est-ce (que)) and quand (N=369/381). There is only a dozen exceptional occurrences of est-ce (que) in wh-questions initiated by qui, comment, and où (N=12/381). Interestingly, this 6. “Nous préférons cependant être plus prudents sur cette dernière forme: attestée depuis le Moyen-Âge, elle correspond à un emploi très répandu du connecteur que pour insérer une proforme ou un autre élément dans la phrase nucléaire, comme on peut le voir dans les propositions concessives du type où que vous alliez, quoi qu’il fasse, qui que ce soit etc. […] nous ne dispos[…]ons pas d’autres éléments permettant de trancher sur la nature du marquage interrogatif par que seul.” (We prefer however to be more cautious about this last form: attested since the Middle Ages, it corresponds to a widespread use of the connector que in order to insert a proform or another element into the kernel sentence, as one can see in the concessive clauses of the type ‘wherever you go, whatever he does, whoever it is’ etc. We do not dispose of other elements which would permit one to define the nature of the interrogative marking by que alone. Druetta 2003: 31, my translation.)

TOTAL N

  2    

  1    

                            20        

       

97404 77 145 207 0 78 60 128 2 46 4815 71 26 20

                    26        

       

              1 4 3 4   6 16   9           1     1               4 17 1 1 5 1 1 6 63 29 116 1 30 12 8 23   2     1     2     7   2 4   6                               1 4 3       13 6 23                                                                

       

       

  3   3

       

  2    

22

        9 10         3        

       

0

                             

       

19

1       1 8         8 1      

       

3

        1 1         1        

                6 8   4              

       

0 18

                             

       

0

                             

       

7

          2   1     4        

                            1        

4 5    

2 10

                             

1     1

4

                    4        

       

41 146 6 1 127 603 10 38 1 1 148 3 1 1 1

147 217 1 16

N

0 1509

                             

       

comquoi où 0 qui pour- quel+NP comment de quoi d’où combien quand laquelle ment quoi (=combien) 19 20 19 20 19 20 19 20 19 20 19 20 19 20 19 20 19 20 19 20 19 20 19 20 19 20 19 20

que

est-ce 21121         est-ce que 62141   1     est-ce que c’est   1         est-ce que c’est 1 11         que   36     3   c’est c’est que 7 89     8   c’est que c’est que   5         c’est ce que             ce 1   10 43 20   ce que 2   55 82 153   ce que c’est     2 1 2   ce que c’est que       1 13   ce c’est que         1   ce que que             que     10 17 5   que c’est que         2   est 1           est c’est 1           est c’est que 1          

wh-/εsk/ questions

Table 46.  Cross-tabulation of /εsk/ derivatives (rows) and wh-words (columns) in the RFQ and OH corpus respectively (absolute numbers).

 Grammatical Variation across Space and Time



Chapter 4.  Results 

observation completely conforms to an earlier study of wh-est-ce que questions in oral French and in near-oral written French from France, effected by Druetta (2002, 2003). The fact that 94% (N=358/381) out of all wh-questions with /εs(k)/ and /εsk(ә)se(k)/ co-occur with the wh-word que is strong evidence that both the wh-word and the particle have grammaticalized to /kεs/ as a simple wh-word (equivalent to que). However, que does not occur every time as /kεs/. More than a quarter (N=137/501) of all instances of que appears as que c’est (/kәse/). Whether / kәse/ is a grammaticalized wh-word like /kεs/ is not so clear since there are also instances of quoi c’est (que), où c’est (que), qui c’est (que), and pourquoi c’est (que) (27% of all wh+/se/, N=53/194). In sum, the high proportions of /kεs/ and /kәse/ (both optionally followed by que) indicate that these are two lexical items (i.e. simple wh-words meaning ‘what’) whose use varies due to reasons that will remain unexplored in this study (cf. (162) and (163)). (162) Qu’est-ce qu’elle va faire avec six-cents piasses par mois avec les logis que … tu sais? “What will she do with six hundred bucks a month with the accommodations which... you know?” (OH.088.1979) (163) J’ai dit que c’est que tu as à pleurer tout le temps de même, je fais toute, je fais mon possible puis toute. “I have said what do you have to cry about all the time, I have done everything, I do my best, that’s it.” (OH.119.1444) Druetta (2003: 27–29) affirms that due to its grammaticalization, the particle est-ce que has lost the emphatic properties of a cleft construction. According to the author, the non-inverted formula c’est que still has analyzable properties, i.e. it consists of syntactically independent items (the pronoun ce, the copula être and the conjunction que) which carry referential meaning. He states that this formula assumes the function of a cleft and may therefore follow the est-ce que particle. Such an account predicts the impossibility of two c’est que formulae in the same interrogative sentence (due to referential redundancy). This expectation is borne out according to Druetta (2003: 28). In the OH data, however, six instances of a resumption of this formula could be found (cf. (164)). (164) Nous-autres c’est bien plus un jargon que, c’est vrai parce que il y a des mots là... on le prononce en anglais puis, quand même que on va se demander des fois, on va dire bien que c’est que c’ est que c’ est en français?

 Grammatical Variation across Space and Time

“Ours is rather a slang which, it’s true because there are words … we pronounce it in English then, notwithstanding we sometimes ask ourselves, we will say well what is it in French?” (OH.104.1607) I interpret cases of reduplication of c’est que as in (164) as evidence that /se(kә)/ is in fact used as a grammaticalized interrogative particle equivalent to /εs(kә)/. Admittedly, six tokens out of a total of 1,944 wh-questions in both corpora is an infinitesimal number (0.31%), and one could argue that it is well below the threshold which would qualify them as performance errors. On the other hand, nearly 13% out of all wh-est-ce que questions makes use of the non-inverted formula c’est que (N=194/1509). This is a particularly high number which makes it unlikely that all of them carry emphasis. At this point, I will not verify this assumption. It shall suffice to pinpoint two distributional patterns in this regard: first, 82.5% out of these 194 tokens (N=160) occur in the OH data. The six tokens exhibiting a resumed c’est que formula all stem from the OH corpus as well. This strongly suggests that c’est que receives a different structural interpretation by the OH speakers than by the RFQ speakers, namely the one of a grammaticalized interrogative marker lacking the properties of a cleft. Second, 70.6% out of these 194 tokens (N=137) co-occur with the wh-word que. As Table 46 shows, this is exactly the context where /εs(k)/ clusters. All other wh-words rather co-occur with either /s(ә)/ or /k(ә)/. I take both observations as further evidence in favor of the argument presented above, namely that /kεs(kә)/ and /kәse(kә)/ are two lexical variants with the reference what. While both est-ce que and c’est que mainly cluster in the group of wh-questions beginning with que and quand, the remainder of the wh-words (comment, quoi, où, qui and pourquoi) triggers the use of either the complementizer ce, ce que, or que (cf. examples (165) through (169)). (165) Comment ce que tu as passé la nuit? Ah, il dit, grand-père, j’ai passé une belle nuit, mais j’ai fait un curieux rêve. “How was your night? Ah, he says, grandfather, I have spent a beautiful night, but I had a strange dream.” (RFQ.018.1193) (166) Il arrive au gars, il dit, quoi ce que vous dites de ça, il dit, vous, Monsieur? “He approaches the guy, he says, what do you say there, he says, you, sir?” (RFQ.033.1557) (167) Hey tabarnouche, d’où ce tu viens toi, du fond des bois? “Hey tabernacle [québ. swear word], where do you come from, from deep in the woods?” (OH.100.1539)



Chapter 4.  Results 

(168) Vive l’ indépendance! Qui qui va être independent? Pas toi, ni toi. Ni moi. “Long live the independence! Who will be independent? Neither you, nor you. Nor me.” (OH.105.2298) (169) Pourquoi, il dit, que la ville est si en noir que ça? “Why, he says, is the city this black?” (RFQ.048.182) Undoubtedly, these complementizers are the result of a phonological reduction typical of grammaticalization processes and may hence be traced back to the particle est-ce que. They have undergone a transformation from independent functional interrogative complementizers into morphological affixes to the wh-word. Comment ce, quoi ce, and d’où ce in the examples (165) to (167) may therefore be analyzed as simple lexical units. The parenthetical il dit between the wh-word and the complementizer que in example (169) might call into question the above explanation for this particular case. It seems to be unlikely that a parenthesis may split a lexical item in the middle. I address this problem in the next chapter. A look at Table 46 reveals some differences between the nineteenth century RFQ and the twentieth century OH data. When the direct object is questioned, the informants from the RFQ corpus predominantly use the formula quoi ce (que) (cf. (170)). This expression has completely disappeared in the OH corpus. Instead, qu’est-ce (que) and que c’est (que) fulfill this function. Another change is related to this observation: with the disappearance of quoi ce (que), null wh-words ceased to be used (with two exceptional cases in the OH data). In the nineteenth century, it was precisely quoi which could be dropped in front of ce que (cf. (171)). But also the wh-word où could be dropped, as example (172) shows. Since both quoi ce (que) and ce que are lexical variants of the same wh-word (‘what’), it is not surprising that the loss of one coincides with the loss of the other. Actually, the fact that the wh-word itself could be (phonologically) dropped is quite strong evidence that already in the nineteenth century the interrogative complementizer (ce (que) in this case) had built a morphological unit with the wh-word. From this perspective, there are just several lexical variants of one single lexeme ‘what’ realized either as quoi, quoi ce que, ce que, qu’est-ce que, or que c’est que (the first three being indicative of nineteenth century and the last two of twentieth century speech). (170) Elle a pas le temps en rouvrant la porte, quoi ce que c’est qu’elle aperçoit? Il y avait des filles là dedans, puis ils étaient tout le cou tranché. “She has no time when opening the door, what does she perceive? There were girls therein, they had all a slit throat.” (RFQ.011.112)

 Grammatical Variation across Space and Time

(171) Ils ont dit, ce que tu as Ti-Jean à pleurer? Ah, il dit, ce que j’ai! “They said, what do you have to cry about, little John? Ah, he says, what I have?” (RFQ.013.331) (172) Elle- il a dit, je suis pas fou. Bien elle dit, mon petit garcon, elle dit, ce que tu veux aller? Ah bien, il dit, je m’en vas, il dit, je pars, il dit, tu trouves que je sacre trop, il dit, tu as peur du diable. “He said, I am not crazy. Well she says, my little boy, she says, where do you want to go? Oh well, he says, I go away, he says, I leave, he says, you find that I swear too much, he says, you are afraid of the devil.” (RFQ.023.2272) When the wh-word is the subject, qui qui may be used (cf. (173)). This however is an innovation of the twentieth century data. A peculiarity of the nineteenth century data is the use of the wh-word comment with the meaning of combien (cf. (174)). In the twentieth century, combien was used in this context. (173) Qui qui a cassé la vitre? C’est Louis, c’est lui. “Who has broken the pane? It’s Louis, it’s him.” (OH.077.6469) (174) Ah bien, il dit, de même comment ce que vous me donnerez? Elle dit, je vous donne deux-cents piasses. “Oh well, he says, how much will you give me? She says, I will give you two hundred bucks.” (RFQ.023.1091) Table 46 above shows that in each case is it possible to add the formula c’est (que) to the wh+est-ce (que)/c’est (que)/ce (que) construction (cf. (164)). Some authors have claimed that the complementizer est-ce que originally served to mark the interrogative sentence as emphatic. Once it had grammaticalized to a point where it built a morphological unit with the wh-word, its recursive use became necessary to maintain emphasis (cf. Behnstedt 1973: 189,193, de Boer 1926, Druetta 2003: 27). Table 47 below shows the cross-tabulated distribution of wh-tokens in the RFQ and the OH corpus across all variants and wh-words. As can be observed, no further changes than the ones described above occurred. Wh-est-ce que questions and wh-fronting (or, in other words, the optional realization of the est-ce que interrogative particle) are the two main variants in the data. Wh-in situ is a marginal variant and primarily reserved for the wh-word quoi in the OH corpus. Subject inversion occurs only sporadically. In his corpus of oral speech and near-oral writings from France, Druetta (2002:  71) found that the use of est-ce que extends only to one-fifth of all

20

comment

19 20 19

que

où

19 20 19 20

quoi 19

Total N

1 42

0

0

8

0

0

0

0

0 41 52

30 43 11 9 23 0

23 1

1 2

1 1

19 8 5 3 3 38

0

0

0

0

23

0

30

0

7 5 9 2

22 8

quel+NP comment combien (=combien) 19 20 19 20 19 20 19 20

0

5 105 1 25 3 9 5 1 1 3 1 111 26 14 105 2 38

19 20

qui

71 16 34 5 6 5

20

pourquoi

ECQ 95 362 76 145 217 3 77 70 15 wh-fronting 8 24 48 82 31 2 12 8 14 wh-in situ 2 42 5 P-INV 6 1 4 2 DP-INV 1 1 1 1 1 8 Total N 110 387 125 229 254 47 90 93 29 Wh = subject ECQ 1 42 8 wh-fronting

wh-/εsk/ questions

0

3

2 1

19

0

15

10 3 1 1

20

quand

Table 47.  Cross-tabulation of wh-variants (rows) and wh-words (columns) in the RFQ and OH corpus respectively.

2

2

2

2

N

0 0 0

172

151 21

1345 306 80 24 17 0 1 0 1772 1

19 20 19 20

laquelle quel

Chapter 4.  Results 

 Grammatical Variation across Space and Time

wh-questions, but that 94% among these co-occur with the wh-word que. Such a sharp pattern occurred neither in the RFQ nor in the OH corpus. Though it could be shown that 94% out of all wh-questions involving one of the interrogative particles /εs(kә)/ or /εsk(ә)se(kә)/ co-occur with the wh-word que, this preponderance of que disappears when taking into consideration the totality of the diverse morpho-phonological variants of the est-ce que particle. In the RFQ corpus, 80.7% (N=717/889) out of all wh-questions make use of (one or another form of) est-ce que of which only 13.2% (N=95/717) now contain the wh-word que.7 In the OH corpus, 73.8% (N=779/1055) make use of est-ce que (or one of its variants) of which no more than 46.5% (N=362/779) contain que.8 Therefore, although the data provide evidence that /kεs(kә)/ has evolved into a single morphological and lexical unit meaning what, one cannot draw the conclusion that est-ce que (in its abstract meaning covering all of its variants) is reserved for the wh-word que. Druetta (2003: 24) himself states that the increasing contextual restriction of est-ce to wh-questions involving the wh-word que is an innovation of twentieth century French from France where the overall rate of /εsk(ә)/ shows a considerable decline in this period. This evolution is hence unrelated to the vernacular varieties of Quebec French. 4.2.2 Late Middle French data In the corpus of French literature and plays covering the time frame from the fifteenth to the seventeenth century, subject-verb inversion was still the unrivaled default variant in wh-questions. Table 48 shows the distribution of wh-variants in three contexts: first, wh-questions with a pronominal subject; second, wh-questions with a nominal subject; and third, wh-questions whose wh-word is the subject, stratified according to the respective literary source (in chronological order). Pronominal inversion has a very high percentage of occurrence with more than 90% in all literary sources, except in those which are stylistically closest to the colloquial language, i.e. the Farce de maître Pathelin and the Agréables conférences de deux paysans. Here, wh-est-ce que questions occur at a relatively high rate of 9%. These two literary sources, however, are also the ones with the lowest number of interrogative tokens (with N=72 and N=52 tokens respectively). The diverging rates may therefore be an artifact due to the small number of tokens.

7. However, when adding to this the number of wh-questions beginning with the functionally equivalent wh-words quoi (yielding quoi ce (que)) and ø (yielding ce (que)), the proportion increases to 58.2% (N=417/717). 8. Adding to this quoi and ø yields a proportion of 47.0% (N=366/779).

N

127 38 243 117 38 252

%

97,7 86,4 96,8 96,7 88,4 93,7

95,0 815

Literary Source Cent n. n. Farce d.M.P. Rabelais Corneille Agr. Conf. Molière

TOTAL N

P-INV

11

9

3,3

1,3

2

N

1,7

%

1,2

2,3 0,4

0,8 4,5 2,0

%

10

1 1

1 2 5

N

Subject pronoun C-INV Wh-fr.

2,6

1,5 9,1 1,2 1,7 9,3 2,6

%

22

2 4 3 2 4 7

N

/εsk/

858

130 44 251 121 43 269

N

TOTAL %

1,9 1

2,1 2

N % N

46 19 89 3,2 3 34 2 51

N

Subject noun Wh-fr. /εsk/

97,6 241 1,2 3 0,4 1

100,0 100,0 94,7 100,0 100,0 98,1

%

DP-INV

247

46 19 94 34 2 52

N

TOTAL

Table 48.  Distribution of wh-variants in the literary sources from the late Middle and Classical French corpus (3 contexts: 1. pronominal subjects, 2. nominal subjects, 3. Wh-subjects)

2 1

1 1

% N

22 8 11,1 59 1,7 44 5 28,6 61 1,6

N

97,5 199 2,5 5

100,0 88,9 98,3 100,0 71,4 98,4

%

204

22 9 60 44 7 62

N

Wh-subject Wh-fr. /εsk/ TOTAL

Chapter 4.  Results 

 Grammatical Variation across Space and Time

Subject nouns are even more often inverted than subject pronouns. Only in two literary sources (Rabelais and Molière) do variants with preverbal subject DPs occur. Among these are five tokens from Rabelais which split up into three interrogatives with whfronting (cf. (175)a. through (175)c.) and two wh-est-ce que questions (cf. (176)a. and (176)b.). All of them have pourquoi as a wh-word. The plays by Molière which I have analyzed provided only one wh-question with a preverbal subject DP (cf. (176)c.). (175) a. Pourquoy le leon, qui de son seul cry et rugissement espovante tous animaulx, seulement crainct et revere le coq blanc? “Why the lion, who with his only cry and roaring affrights all beasts, dreads and feareth only a white cock?” (Rabelais.36, translation: Urquhart & Motteux, see above) b. Pourquoy Nabuzardan, maistre cuisinier du roy Nabugodonosor, feut entre tous aultres capitaines esleu pour assieger et ruiner Hierusalem? “Why was Nabuzardan, King Nebuchadnezzar’s head-cook, chosen to the exclusion of all other captains to besiege and destroy Jerusalem?” (Rabelais.165, translation: en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Fourth_Book /Chapter_XXXIX, July 18, 2008) c. Pourquoy Potiphar, maistre queux des ciusines de Pharaon, celluy qui achapta Joseph, et lequel Joseph eust faict coqu, s’il eust voulu, feut maistre de la cavallerie de tout le royaulme d’Ægypte? “How came Potiphar, who was head-cook of Pharaoh’s kitchens, he that bought Joseph, and whom the said Joseph might have made a cuckold if he had not been a Joseph; how came he, I say, to be made general of all the horse in the kingdom of Egypt?” (Rabelais.165 translation by Gustave Dore in The Works of Rabelais Faithfully Translated From the French with Variorum Notes, and Numerous Illustrations (Two Volume Set), page 85) (176) a. A propos truelle, pourquoy est ce que les cuisses d’une damoizelle sont toujours fraisches? “To the purpose of the truel,—what is the reason that the thighs of a gentlewoman are always fresh and cool?” (Rabelais.119, translation: Urquhart & Motteux, see above) b. Pourquoy (dist Gargantua) est ce que frer Jean a si beau nez? “Why (says Gargantua) has brother Jean such a beautiful nose?” (Rabelais.123) c. Quand est-ce que l’hymen unira nos deux cœurs, […] “When will the hymen unite our two hearts, …” (Molière.50.225)



Chapter 4.  Results 

The wh-questions in (175) are characterized by the common fact that the subject constituent is considerably lengthened by a sentential or nominal attribute. This similarity suggests that wh-fronting cannot yet be considered a productive means of constructing an interrogative clause. The fact that five out of six wh-questions with a preverbal subject DP have pourquoi as wh-word seems to be more than a pure coincidence. In the literature, it has generally been stated that pourquoi and DP inversion are incompatible (e.g. Korzen 1985); yet three instances of postverbal DPs with pourquoi were present in the late Middle French data (cf. (177)). (177) a. Pour quoy sont noz heures en temps de moissons et vendenges courtes, en l’Advent et tout hyver longues? “Wherefore is it, that our devotions were instituted to be short in the time of harvest and vintage, and long in the advent, and all the winter?” (Rabelais.87, translation: Urquhart & Motteux, see above) b. Pourquoy en ce temps, non plus tard, print fin l’antique folie? “Why did the old folly end now, and no later?” (Rabelais.266, translation: Urquhart & Motteux, see above) c. Pourquoy en ce temps, non plustost, commença la sagesse presente? “Why did the modern wisdom begin now, and no sooner?” (Rabelais.266, translation: Urquhart & Motteux, see above) Subject-verb inversion is obviously not possible when the wh-word itself is the subject. In this case, the unmarked option is the fronting of the wh-subject, as in (178). Wh-est-ce que questions are as marginal as in the other wh-interrogatives (cf. (179)). (178) Vous comptez sans rabatre: qui dyable les vous prestera? “You count without disillusioning: who the hell will lend you them?” (Farce.83) (179) Attendez je vous vas tirer de differant, qui est-ce qui s’apelle Janin de vous deux? “Wait, I will tell you apart, who of you two is called Janin?” (AgrConf.113.133) The small number of Complex inversions is noteworthy when compared to yes/no questions (cf. page 205). Only 0.84% (N=11/1309) of all wh-questions show Complex inversion (cf.  (180)). Among yes/no questions, this rate was considerably higher (7.19%, N=123/1711). It should be noted that only wh-questions provide a context where Complex inversion can unambiguously be identified and distinguished from Clitic left dislocation.

 Grammatical Variation across Space and Time

(180) Sous quel astre ton maître a-t-il reçu le jour? “Under which star has your master seen the light of day?” (Molière.49.153) This brief overview of wh-interrogatives in the late Middle and Classical French data shows that there was hardly any variation. Despite this near categoricity of inversion, there are several trends which already indicate the direction of the future effects of conditioning. The rate of Pronominal inversion is relatively low when the interrogative sentence contains the auxiliary verb être (83.3%, N=15/18, compared to the overall rate of Pronominal inversion which is 95%). Relatively low rates of Pronominal inversion are also found with a reflexive verb (86.4%, N=19/22) and in negated interrogatives (87%, N=20/23). When the wh-question contains a cognitive verb, Pronominal inversion occurs categorically (N=148, versus other verbs: 93.9%, N=666/709). Interestingly enough, many of these observations anticipate later conditioning effects in yes/no questions of the nineteenth and twentieth century Quebec French: in the RFQ corpus, for instance, yes/no questions with the auxiliary être trigger a low rate of inversion (cf. Table 25 on page 114). In both the RFQ and the OH corpus, negated interrogatives constitute a context reserved for intonation questions. Cognitive verbs, finally, significantly favor the use of Pronominal inversion in the nineteenth (cf. Table 32 on page 118) and in the twentieth century (cf. Table 16 on page 93). The problem, however, is whether the low number of tokens on which the observations of the late Middle French data are based allows such an interpretation. Furthermore, it is questionable if effects of conditioning applying in the context of wh-questions may extend to yes/no questions afterwards. Here it shall suffice to mention the observed effects and the commonalities between the data sources without attaching too much importance to them. On page 128, in the context of yes/no questions, the theoretical assumption was mentioned according to which subject DP inversions with a structurally ambiguous position of the nominal subject constituted a favorable context for a reanalysis of Simple inversion (cf. (181)) as Free inversion (cf. (182), cf. Roberts 1993:  191). As the results showed, yes/no questions contain only a very small number of subject DPs (N=11/1275) and hence do not represent a possible locus of reanalysis. In wh-questions, the situation is different: 18.87% (N=247/1309) out of all tokens have a subject DP, and this is postverbal most of the time. As Figure 13 shows, 85% of all wh-questions with a postverbal subject DP are structurally ambiguous between Simple and Free inversion, i.e. there is no participle, infinitive or object which would separate the inflected verb from the subject (cf. (183)).



Chapter 4.  Results  31 12.9% 6 2.5%

204 84.6% Structurally ambiguous

Simple inversion

Free inversion

Figure 13.  Proportions of Simple inversion, Free inversion, and ambiguous cases within the wh-questions with a postverbal subject DP in the late Middle and early Modern French data

(181)

Simple inversion: Comment seroit la folie antique abolie? “How would the ancient folly be abolished?” (Rabelais.266)

(182)

Free inversion: D’où vous peuvent venir ces douleurs non communes? “Where might come your uncommon pains from?” (Molière.117.365)

ambiguous (Simple or Free inversion): (183) Mais dont me vient ce cyron icy entre ces deux doigtz? “But whence comes this ciron-worm betwixt these two fingers?” (Rabelais.442, translation: Urquhart & Motteux, see above) The distribution of the data hence is in line with the reanalysis hypothesis purported by Roberts (1993).

chapter 5

Interpretation and discussion of the results In the preceding chapter, I presented the results of the empirical evaluation of the interrogative data. In this section, I discuss their theoretical implications, again starting out with the more recent data (Ottawa-Hull French Corpus) and then moving backwards in time to the earlier data sources (Récits du français québécois d’autrefois and fifteenth to seventeenth century literature and plays). With regard to the syntactic hierarchy of functional and lexical projections, I have adopted the following (minimal) structure where the complementizer phrase (CP) is followed by the inflectional projection (TP), the light verb phrase (νP), and by the verb phrase (VP): (184) [CP [C' C0] [TP [T’ T0] [νP [ν’ ν0] [VP [V’ V0]]]]] When discussing the structural accounts of interrogatives made in the literature, I adapt them to this structure in order to achieve better comparability. For instance, some authors make use of only a single inflectional domain, IP, in order to explain the facts (e.g. Valois & Dupuis 1992). Others presume an articulated IP-system, splitting it up into a TP and several AgrPs (e.g. de Wind 1995). Still others work with a split CP-system, going back to Rizzi (1997) (e.g. Kayne & Pollock 2001). I will use the authors’ original terminology when designating the different projections only if some crucial aspects of their line of reasoning depend on this. 5.1 The interrogative syntax in twentieth and nineteenth century Quebec French In contemporary vernacular Quebec French (as spoken in the second half of the twentieth century in Gatineau) and in nineteenth century Quebec French, three yes/no (cf. Figure 3 on page 82) and three wh-variants (cf. Figure 11 on page 147) coexist in productive usage. These are illustrated below: Pronominal inversion (185) a. As-tu déjà été voir une prison toi? “Have you already seen a prison?” (OH.114.1878)

 Grammatical Variation across Space and Time

Interrogative particle -tu b. Tu aimes-tu ça? “Do you like that?” (OH.112.1342) Intonation c. Tu t’appelles Mélanie? “Is your name Mélanie?” (OH.093.1482) Wh-est-ce que (186) a. Tu sais bien Touraine, où ce tu veux qu’elle aille travailler? “You know well Touraine, where do you want her to go and work?” (OH.088.1357) Wh-fronting b. L’ombrage, que tu veux dire par…? “The shade, what do you want to say by …?” (OH.078.7114) Wh-in situ c. Non, non la f– Tu vas t’avorter pourquoi? “No, no, the f– why will you have an abortion?” (OH.078.7859) Yes/no est-ce que questions are not listed because they correlate with a formal (and therefore non-vernacular) speech style. The variants displayed above exhibit the complete inventory of interrogative variants used in current Quebec French. In this section, I give a structural account of the interrogative system represented by the OH and the RFQ corpus, based on the empirical findings from Chapter 4. First I address yes/no questions and start out with the status of the postverbal elements (i.e. subject pronouns and interrogative particles) in Pronominal inversion and -tu questions. 5.1.1 Pronominal inversion: the status of the (inverted) subject pronoun 5.1.1.1 Pronominal inversion: previous analyses:  In this section, I briefly recapitulate some of the generative literature which has considered Pronominal inversion more closely, before providing my own account in the remainder of this section. Previous studies on Pronominal inversion in French can be divided into those which presume a verb movement to C0 (e.g. Kayne 1983, Rizzi & Roberts 1989, Roberts 1993) and those which suppose the verb to stay in the head of the



Chapter 5.  Interpretation and discussion of the results 

inflectional projection (e.g. Drijkoningen 1990, Hulk 1993, Noonan 1989, de Wind 1995). It has often been claimed that Pronominal inversion and Complex inversion had similar distributional properties: their use presumably extends to both yes/no and wh-questions as well as to sentences introduced by certain adverbs such as ainsi, à peine, and peut-être while being excluded from subordinate contexts (cf. de Wind 1995: 106). The present study has shown that this applies to fifteenth to seventeenth century French but not to contemporary Quebec French where Pronominal inversion is in fact also excluded from wh-questions. According to Kayne (1983), the subject pronoun is base-generated in SpecTP (S in his terminology). The inflected verb moves to C0 and the inverted word order is obtained. This is also the derivation proposed by Rizzi & Roberts (1989) and Roberts (1993) who add to this account that the subject clitic incorporates from SpecTP into C0 (after verb movement to C0) in order to be assigned Case. The structure these authors advocate may be illustrated as follows: Kayne (1983), Rizzi & Roberts (1989), Roberts (1993)1 (187) [CP où [C' sont-elles [TP elles [T’ sont [νP elles [ν’ sont [VP [V’ sont [PP où ]]]]]]]]] Contrary to the authors advocating a verb-to-C0 movement, Noonan (1989) asserts that the finite verb stays in T0 and that the subject clitic is base-generated in SpecVP (as a spell-out of the subject trace under VP, cf. Noonan 1989: 317, which in more recent phrase structure terms would need to be located in SpecνP). It then cliticizes to the inflectional head. She proposes that the logical subject of sentences displaying Pronominal inversion is a null subject pro. In her account, the finite verb can assign a so-called [Iota] feature only once, either to the wh-operator or to the subject.2 Since in wh-questions this feature is already reserved for the checking of the wh-phrase, the empty subject pronoun pro in SpecTP remains unlicensed and cannot receive Case. This is why the inverted subject pronoun is needed. According to Noonan (1989), Case can either be assigned by means of the [Iota] feature in specifier-head agreement or (independently of the [Iota] feature) under government. The subject clitic may therefore receive Case in SpecVP under government by the verb in T0 before cliticizing to this verb. It then passes the [Case] feature on to the empty subject pro. 1. For the purpose of illustration, I simply allege at this point that the copula être in (187) and in the following examples is base-generated in V0 and raises to ν0 in order to establish a feature checking relationship with the subject elles in SpecνP. Whether the subject of a copula verb is structurally equivalent to the subject of an ordinary (transitive or unergative) verb does not concern us here. On page 252, I review this point. 2. “Iota is a licensing feature which is assigned under the head/specifier relation, where I(NFL) is taken to be the inherent Iota assigner.” (Noonan 1989: 315)

 Grammatical Variation across Space and Time

Noonan (1989) (188) [CP où[Iota] [C' C0 [TP pro[Case] [T’ sont[Iota]/[Case]-elles[Case] [νP elles[Case] [ν’ sont [VP [V’ sont [PP où ]]]]]]]]] Drijkoningen (1990) assumes that in Pronominal inversion, the inflectional domain is split into an upper IP and a lower AgrP. In his model, the finite verb moves to I0 where it establishes a non-local specifier-head agreement relationship with the wh-operator in SpecCP through a chain of a [tense] feature which both C0 and I0 share. Due to a limitation of the participants involved in such a chain to just one (in main clauses), the subject pronoun may not move to SpecIP in order to be assigned Case. Instead, the subject pronoun remains in SpecAgrP where it is antecedent-governed by the verb. Drijkoningen (1990) (189) [CP où[wh] [C' C0[tense] [IP [I’ sont[tense]/[wh]/[Case] [AgrP [Agr’ sont[Case]-elles[Case] [νP elles [ν’ sont [VP [V’ sont [PP où ]]]]]]]]]]] Hulk’s (1993) approach differs from the other ones presented above by claiming that not only the verb stays in the inflectional domain, but also the wh-operator. Once nominative Case has been assigned to the subject pronoun through incorporation into the inflectional head, the specifier of the inflectional projection turns from an A-specifier into an A’-specifier which may henceforth accommodate the wh-phrase. The EPP-requirement that the specifier of the inflectional projection be filled (cf. Chomsky 1981, 2001) may be satisfied by means of either a wh-operator or a subject constituent. Hulk (1993) (190) [TP où [T’ sont-elles [νP elles [ν’ sont [VP elles [V’ sont [PP où ]]]]]]] De Wind (1995: 119–127) proposes an account based on two inflectional projections, namely a lower AgrSIIP which is responsible for the checking of ([N‑]) agreement features and an upper AgrSIP which assumes the role of checking nominative Case. The head of the complementizer projection is allegedly inaccessible to (verb) movement, so the finite verb only moves as far as AgrSI0. There it benefits from the chain established by means of the [tense] features which C0 and AgrSI0 share in order to check the [wh] feature in a non-local specifier-head agreement relation between the operator in SpecCP and the inflectional head in AgrSI0. Similar to Noonan (1989), de Wind (1995) states that the subject of interrogatives exhibiting Pronominal inversion is an empty pro in SpecAgrSIP. De Wind (1995) refers to Kayne’s (1994) constraint according to which every head can select only one specifier and he modifies it by formulating the Biuniqueness principle on checking which states that “[e]ach functional head checks one and only one specifier at



Chapter 5.  Interpretation and discussion of the results 

each level of representation.” (de Wind 1995: 17) Since AgrSI0 already checks the wh-operator in SpecCP, it is no longer available for checking the [Case] feature of the pro-subject in SpecAgrSIP. For this purpose, the subject pronoun cliticizes as an agreement marker from SpecAgrSIIP to the inflected verb in AgrSI0 and formally licenses and identifies pro by means of specifier-head agreement. de Wind (1995) (191) [CP où[wh] [C' C0 [AgrSIP pro[Case] [AgrSI’ sont[wh]-elles[Case] [AgrSIIP elles [AgrSII’ [ν’ sont [VP [V’ sont [PP où ]]]]]]]]]]]]]] sont [TP [T’ sont [νP With regard to the situation in nineteenth and twentieth century Quebec French, I consider it rather unlikely that the finite verb moves to C0 in interrogatives, such as Kayne (1983), Rizzi & Roberts (1989), Roberts (1993) suggest for standard varieties of French. The empirical results have shown that Pronominal inversion is no longer a fully productive phenomenon, but is rather restricted to a very specific linguistic context (i.e. second person subject pronouns). Under a verb-to-C0 analysis, this finding would be unexpected since every pronoun (regardless of its [φ] feature composition) would end up in a position following the inflected verb in C0. Instead, the analysis I present below conforms with Hulk (1993), Noonan (1989) and de Wind (1995) who all suppose that the inverted pronoun is part of the inflectional head. I also assume that the inverted pronoun is base-generated as an (interrogative) agreement marker in the inflectional head. I refer back to the empirical evidence in favor of this interpretation below. As for the variety of Quebec French studied here, I do not see any necessity to assume the involvement of one (or several) agreement projections (below or above TP). In what follows, I elaborate my structural interpretation of Pronominal inversion in Quebec French. 5.1.1.2 Examining Pronominal inversion in the Quebec French data.  In Chapter 4., it was shown that one-third of all (non-negated) yes/no questions in the OttawaHull French corpus (Vieux-Hull and Mont-Bleu) are interrogatives making use of Pronominal inversion (32.44%, N=205/632). However, there are several unmistakable signs that this type of inversion cannot be interpreted as a syntactic mechanism whereby the verb and the pronoun represent two independent items, the former undergoing head-movement across the latter which is localized in some specifier position. The literature on clitic pronouns in French is divided into those taking as their basis a syntactic analysis of these elements and those who instead presume a

 Grammatical Variation across Space and Time

morphological status of clitic pronouns as agreement affixes3. The syntactic analysis leads back to Kayne (1975), followed by comparable work by Belletti (1999), de Cat (2005), Laenzlinger (1998) and Rizzi (1986). The morphological analysis is advocated in the work by Auger (1994), Cummins & Roberge (1994), Hulk (1986), Jaeggli (1986), Kaiser & Meisel (1991), Miller & Monachesi (2003) and Roberge (1986). Heap & Roberge (2001) provide an overview of the scientific debate which has characterized the linguistic literature on French clitic pronouns during the last three decades. The observation that atonic pronouns in French are clitics (special clitics following the terminology of Zwicky (1977)) is uncontested: contrary to tonic pronouns or nouns, they may not appear separately from their host (the verbal head) (cf. (192)), and they appear in a different structural position than their tonic counterparts (cf. (193)). (192) a. Cet étudiant, d’après moi, a écrit une bonne thèse. this student, to.according me, has written a good thesis “In my opinion, this student has written a good thesis.” b. *Il, d’après moi, a écrit une bonne thèse. he, to.according me, has written a good thesis “In my opinion, he has written a good thesis.” (193) a. Il soutient cette thèse demain. “He defends this thesis tomorrow.” b. Il la soutient demain. “He defends it tomorrow.” (Examples adapted from Heap & Roberge 2001: 63, examples (2) and (3) respectively) There is less agreement with regard to the syntactic or morphological status of these clitics. Kayne (1975) provides evidence that in Standard French, clitic subject pronouns are base-generated as XPs in the same structural positions as their tonic counterparts (i.e. in the respective argument positions subcategorized by the verb): the simultaneous realization of both a clitic and a tonic element as one and the same argument of the verb are ruled out from this variety (cf. Heap & Roberge 2001: 71). This generalization, however, does not hold for colloquial varieties of French where subject doubling clearly is an option (cf. footnote 30). This observation is one of the main arguments in favor of the morphological analysis.

3. “Syntactic clitics cannot be separated from their host by any syntactic process and are necessarily phonological clitics. Phonological clitics are syntactically autonomous if they are not syntactic clitics as well.” (Sportiche 1998: 337, footnote 2 referring to page 310)



Chapter 5.  Interpretation and discussion of the results 

Contrary to Rizzi (1986) who asserts that French clitics adjoin to the verb only at PF, Jaeggli (1982, cited in Heap & Roberge 2001: 72) proposes that clitics are directly generated on the verb and are connected with an empty PRO in their related argument position. The presence of the clitic deprives the verb of its capacity to assign Case to the argument position which accounts for the use of prepositions (cf. (194)). (194) Rio Plata Spanish: Loj vimos a Juanj. him we.see to Juan “We see John.” (Example adapted from Heap & Roberge 2001: 73, example (18)a.) Subsequent studies analyze the subject clitic as base-generated in I0 and co-indexed with an empty subject pronoun pro in SpecIP (i.e. the external argument position). This approach is analogous to the analysis of null subject languages in which rich verbal agreement allows the recovery of the content of the specifier position, the only difference being that this agreement is not realized in form of a person or number suffix on the verb but in form of the preverbal subject clitic. Such an analysis of the clitic equates it with a phonological realization of some functional verbal features in form of an inflectional morpheme (cf. Heap & Roberge 2001: 79). As a further argument in favor of the morphological account, the fact that certain language varieties exhibit major differences in the linear order of clitics in spite of their close syntactic relatedness should be mentioned (cf. Bonet 1991, cited in Heap & Roberge 2001: 69). Based on the observations ensuing from the evaluation of the interrogative data provided by the Ottawa-Hull French corpus and by the Récits du français québécois d’autrefois, I think that the morphological analysis serves better than the syntactic analysis in accounting for the distributional patterns of Pronominal inversion and of the interrogative particle -tu. In the following, I elaborate on this assertion. Interrogatives containing a subject DP are relatively rare (cf. (195)). In many cases, it is resumed by a coindexed (preverbal) subject clitic (cf. (196)).4

4. The following numbers display the rate of interrogatives involving a subject pronoun in addition to a (co-indexed) subject-DP out of all interrogatives with a subject-DP in the RFQ and in the OH corpus:  FQ (yes/no questions) R OH (yes/no questions) RFQ (wh-questions) OH (wh-questions)

= = = =

7/31 11/64 26/50 33/50

(22.6%) (17.2%) (52%) (66%)

 Grammatical Variation across Space and Time

(195) a. Puis pour quelle raison que ces gens-là vivaient si vieux tandis que nousautres avec toutes les remèdes qu’on nous donne, qu’on meure si jeunes. “For what reason did these people get so old whereas we die so young with all the medicine which one gives us.” (OH.120.389) b. Les gens sont pour la peine de mort? “Are the people in favor of the death penalty?” (OH.115.1050) (196) a. Pourquoi que les ministres ils se marissent eux-autres? “Why don’t the ministers marry each other?” (OH.096.1001) b. Est-ce que mes enfants ils auraient été heureux? “Would my children have been happy?” (OH.101.2281) In a number of empirical studies on subject doubling in French, it was shown that this co-occurrence of a subject DP with a co-indexed subject pronoun is not an exception, but the unmarked default case. Bonnesen & Meisel (2005) and de Wind (1995: 137) refer to Sankoff (1982) in whose analysis more than half of all sentences with a subject DP also contained a subject clitic. In the study conducted by Kaiser (1994), this proportion even accounted for around three-quarters of all tokens. Similarly high numbers were reported by Nadasdi (1995) and (2001), Nagy et al. (2003), and Thibault (1983). The preponderance of such double subject constructions makes it unlikely that all these cases can be analyzed in terms of Clitic left dislocations with topicalized subject DPs. Some authors have instead proposed that subject pronouns are agreement markers on the finite verb and that subject DPs hence appear in the ordinary subject position (cf. Bonnesen & Meisel 2005, Kaiser & Meisel 1991, Roberge 1986, de Wind 1995: 129–151). Friedemann (1997) adopts an approach according to which preverbal subject pronouns receive a different structural account than postverbal pronouns with regard to their status of grammaticalization towards agreement markers. He states that preverbal pronouns are not yet merged in the inflectional head position, but that they are rather base-generated in its specifier. Evidence in favor of this stems from the observation that, according to the author, although preverbal subject DPs are often accompanied by co-indexed clitic pronouns, this doubling is not (yet) obligatory. Only when colloquial French shows the same characteristics as Northern Italian dialects, i.e. obligatory doubling, can one infer that they have grammaticalized into syntactic heads. Friedemann (1997:  114) claims that this diachronic development proceeds gradually rather than abruptly. He affirms (p. 145)



Chapter 5.  Interpretation and discussion of the results 

that even in colloquial French, preverbal subject pronouns may not double a coreferential subject DP if this DP is quantified. This indicates that these pronouns are not yet agreement markers on the finite verb. The observation that they necessarily appear on the second verbal part of a coordinated clause in colloquial French, however, indicates that they are not far from turning into agreement markers: (197) Elle chante (et) p(u)is ?*(elle) danse. (français populaire) “She sings (and) then (she) dances.” (Friedemann 1997: 143, example (38)a.)5 The preverbal subject DP has arguably already been reanalyzed from an A’‑constituent (topicalized and adjoined to IP) into an A-constituent (occupying the specifier of IP). This exerts a further pressure on the grammaticalization of the preverbal pronoun into an agreement marker (cf. Friedemann 1997: 146–150). In the analysis I propose below, it is not immediately relevant if the preverbal subject pronoun is a phonological clitic and hence generated in an XP-position or whether it is a syntactic clitic which is base-generated in the inflectional head. Based on the large amount of evidence cited in the literature about colloquial varieties of French and which was mentioned above, I adopt the analysis of the proclitic as an inflectional agreement marker base-generated in the head T0 for Quebec vernacular French. Postverbal subject pronouns (i.e. those occurring in Pronominal and Complex inversion), clearly exhibit properties of interrogative agreement markers merged in the inflectional head, according to Friedemann (1997: 151–203). The author draws this conclusion referring (among others) to equivalent constructions in some Northern Italian dialects where the postverbal pronouns appear in a different form from their preverbal counterparts, and to the very fact that they may be doubled by preverbal subject DPs (in Complex inversion) which are clearly not topicalized (in the face of their localization in between the wh-word and the verb, as well as considering the fact that they may be quantified). Enclisis is limited to interrogative (and certain restricted adverbial) contexts. Usually, pronouns appear as proclitics in French. Bonnesen & Meisel (2005) found only marginal instances of Pronominal inversion in their evaluation of child and adult language data. Contrary to Friedemann (1997), the authors assume that preverbal subject pronouns are to be analyzed as agreement markers on the inflectional head. Under this perspective, the lack of postverbal subject pronouns is hardly surprising (as the authors emphasize themselves). According to them, the pronominal subject, being a verbal proclitic (or even a prefix), necessarily appears 5. Based on different structural accounts which may be used to analyze coordinated phrases, the author admits that this evidence is rather weak.

 Grammatical Variation across Space and Time

preverbally, whether the verb stays in T0 or whether it raises to C0 (in order to check the interrogative feature). Note that if one adopted the syntactic analysis of French subject pronouns, one would expect Pronominal inversion to happen and to occur productively since subject pronouns being base-generated as XPs in some specifier position within the inflectional domain would always end up in a position following the inflected verb (provided this latter moves to C0 in interrogatives). This is indeed what de Cat (2005) proposes (contrary to what this present study of vernacular French from Quebec suggests and contrary to what Bonnesen & Meisel (2005) state). The almost absence of Pronominal inversion from spontaneous speech by the informants analyzed by Bonnesen & Meisel (2005) in itself constitutes evidence in favor of the analysis of subject pronouns as agreement markers. In the following, I refer to those empirical findings from Quebec French interrogatives which provide support to the analysis of the postverbal items /tsy/ and /vu/ (be it one of the inverted pronouns tu and vous or the interrogative marker ‑tu) as morphological agreement markers base-generated in the inflectional head position and expressing interrogation. The most important pattern emerging from the empirical analysis of the interrogative data in both twentieth and nineteenth century Quebec French is the restriction of Pronominal inversion to yes/no questions with second person subject pronouns (cf. (198)). It is virtually non-existent in other linguistic contexts (i.e. wh-questions and interrogatives with non-second person subjects, cf. (199)). This actually confirms findings from earlier studies (e.g. Auger 1996, Barbarie 1982: 161, Fox 1989, Picard 1992: 69). If Pronominal inversion in contemporary colloquial Quebec French was in fact the result of a syntactic computation whereby the inflected verb moves across a subject pronoun which is base-generated as an XP, the restriction to second person contexts would be unexpected. (198) […] je leur demande, êtes-vous capables de faire plus vous-autres avec cinquante cennes? “I ask them, are you able to do more with fifty cents?” (OH.119.280) (199) a. Quand on dit le Notre Père, Notre Père qui êtes aux cieux, que ton nom soit sanctifié, bien oui mais si vous connaissez pas le nom, comment vous pouvez le sanctifier c-te nom là? “When we say the Our Father, Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name, well yes, but if you don’t know the name, how can you hallow this name?” (OH.092.446)



Chapter 5.  Interpretation and discussion of the results 

b. Nous-autres on parle le québécois? “Do we speak Quebec French?” (OH.079.2143) Another hardly less important pattern emerged from splitting up the OH data into those interrogative tokens containing one of the lexical verbs savoir, vouloir, voir, avoir, and être, and into those tokens containing one of the remainder of the verbs: whereas in the former context, inversion has turned out to be the majority variant (42.62%, N=130/305), it only ranges third in the latter (22.94%, N=75/327) after -tu questions (40.06%, N=131/327) and intonation questions (27.52%, N=90/327). This observation entails a crucial consequence for the interpretation of the results if one retains the assumption that Pronominal inversion is still productive nowadays. It would be a mystery why this syntactic mechanism should be confined to an increasingly small class of lexical items. Another no less important problem would be the mutual incompatibility of Pronominal inversion and of the -tu variant which would remain unexplained. In principle, there is no reason why an inflected verb hosting the interrogative particle -tu should not be able to move into a position preceding the subject pronoun, provided this pronoun occurs in some specifier position. This never happens however (cf. (200)).6 (200) a. * Avez-vous-ty du papier à rouler? “Do you have cigarette paper?” (adapted after: OH.088.1171) b * Avez-ty-vous du papier à rouler? 6. There were two instances of Pronominal inversion with the question marker -ti in JeanJoseph Vadé’s (1720–1757) Œuvres poissardes from the 18th century: (i) ai-je ty affaire d’avoir besoin de ça, moi? “Do I need to be in need of that?” (Vadé, lettres de la grenouillère, 111) (ii) Hé ben, q’mencerai-je-ty? “Well, will I begin?” (Vadé, théâtre, compliment de clôture, 208)  ecchiato (2000: 154–157) develops a syntactic account of such cases. Contra Friedemann (1997), V she assumes that the postverbal subject clitic in Pronominal inversion is not an interrogative marker. Instead, the pronoun ends up in postverbal position as a result of verb movement to C0. The interrogative marker -ti/-tu is merged either in an inflectional head or in C0 as the overt realization of the interrogative feature [Q]. In the course of the derivation, it cliticizes to the complex comprising the verb and the inverted pronoun. If Vecchiato’s account is on the right track, the absence of questions as in (i) and (ii) from our nineteenth and twentieth century Quebec French data could be explained by stating that in the meantime the inverted subject clitic has grammaticalized into an interrogative morpheme which is functionally equivalent to -ti/-tu.

 Grammatical Variation across Space and Time

The fact that the -tu variant shows so many mirror effects to Pronominal inversion in the conditioning by the factors tested would also have to be taken as a pure coincidence of the data. In Chapter 4., it was shown that those linguistic and extralinguistic contexts which favor Pronominal inversion disfavor -tu questions at the same time. In the OH corpus, this concerns polysyllabic verbs and speakers over 35 years of age (and below the level of statistical significance verbs with an average frequency of occurrence as well as a sequence of several interrogative tokens of the same variant), cf. Table 16 on page 93 and Table 20 on page 104. In the RFQ data, this applies to male speakers (and again below the level of statistical significance to verbs with an average frequency as well as to cognitive verbs), cf. Table 32 on page 118 and Table 34 on page 125. In addition, both variants are restricted to the same variable context, namely yes/no questions. Another important pattern is revealed in Figure 7 on page 112: after sorting out the five most frequent lexical verbs, one can see in the remainder of the verbs a dramatic drop of Pronominal inversion and a simultaneous proportional rise of -tu questions in the course of one century (from the nineteenth to the twentieth century). Intonation and est-ce que questions have turned out to be unaffected by this change. This observation shows that Pronominal inversion (or, in other words, the use of postverbal /tsy/ and /vu/ without the co-occurrence of a preverbal subject) increasingly clusters in a group of very specific lexical contexts and is therefore in a stage of decline, while -tu questions (i.e. the use of postverbal /tsy/ in addition to a preverbal subject) compensate for this drift in usage by penetrating into the ‘vacated’ contexts. This is most impressively shown by the age effect in apparent time in the OH data. It is important to mention, however, that such a decline in productivity does not necessarily compel a decreasing frequency of usage of the variant under consideration and that there is no causal relationship between the two.7 Even though Pronominal inversion exhibits a decline from more than half of all non-negated yes/no questions in the nineteenth century RFQ corpus down to only a third of all tokens in the twentieth century OH corpus, this decline in frequency has to be considered apart from the increasing tendency of this variant to co-occur with one of the verbs vouloir, savoir, voir, and avoir. Poplack (1992) shows that even the reverse can be the case, i.e. an increase in frequency coupled with a decline in productivity: the French subjunctive as used by the informants from the OH corpus features an increasing restriction to a very limited class of lexical contexts of which falloir is the most important. The near categorical choice of the subjunctive in these lexical contexts and the highly frequent use of the respective verbs in discourse contributes to the effect by which an increase in usage and a decrease in productivity can be detected. 7. I thank Shana Poplack for pointing this out to me.



Chapter 5.  Interpretation and discussion of the results 

Bearing in mind the observations made so far, one could ask why it is Pronominal inversion and -tu questions of all variants in the twentieth century data that exhibit the mirror effects and the related change in usage? Is it a mere coincidence that these effects do not apply to intonation and est-ce que questions, for instance? Here and in the remainder of this section, I provide arguments in favor of a negative answer to the latter question. The first and most striking fact is that Pronominal inversion and -tu questions are historically and structurally related, while intonation and est-ce que questions have different and unrelated origins. In brief, the postverbal particle -tu was formerly an inverted subject pronoun which underwent a grammaticalization process. In the following, I outline this diachronic evolution and provide arguments in favor of a unified structural account of Pronominal inversion and of -tu questions. It turns out that, from a structural but not necessarily from a variationist perspective, there are good reasons to treat both as different actualizations of a single variant, as opposed to the other two variants of intonation and est-ce que. Pronominal inversion and -tu questions are, so to say, allovariants of an underlying structurally uniform variant. It is therefore not surprising that changes and factors of conditioning which affect one of them have repercussions on the other, without necessarily influencing intonation and est-ce que questions. 5.1.2 -tu questions: their relatedness to Pronominal inversion The interrogative particle -tu is generally considered to be the descendent of a grammaticalized inverted third person subject pronoun il in Complex inversion (Foulet 1921: 269, Picard 1992, Roberts 1993: 220–224, among others). At some point during the diachronic evolution, an epenthetic /t/ was inserted in between the inflected verb and the inverted pronoun (cf. (201)b.), and the final /l/ was phonologically dropped, giving rise to postverbal /ti/ (cf. (201)c.). This particle lost its properties of an independent third person pronoun, turning into an interrogative morpheme on the inflected verb. As a consequence, its context of occurrence expanded from third person subjects to subjects of other persons, as illustrated in (201)d. (201) a. Oy vraiement, dit il, quel sera il? “Yes really, says he, which one will he be?” (Cnn.184.87–88) b. Sous quel astre ton maître a-t-il reçu le jour? “Under which star has your master seen the light of day?” (Molière.49.153)

 Grammatical Variation across Space and Time

c. Ça fait-y plaisir à un queu-qu’un comme je pourrois être? “Does it please somebody like me?” (Vadé.111) d. Il dit je viens d’en ôter une paire, il dit, j’en ai encore une paire, il dit, je vas-tu passer la nuit à me déchausser de-même? “I have just taken off a pair, he says, I still have another pair, he says, will I spend the night taking off my shoes like this?” (RFQ.015.1550) I follow Friedemann (1997: 182–185), Noonan (1989) and Rizzi (1996: 66) in assuming that the postverbal particle -tu is the phonetically overt expression of an interrogative feature in T0. Noonan (1989: 325) states that […] in the Q[uebec ]F[rench] grammar, the clitic on I has been reanalysed as a wh-feature, a question marker base-generated under I. The question marker tu, though historically derived from a pronominal clitic, is now an overt functional feature, the wh-feature. We thus expect that it does not agree with the subject (because it is no longer a nominal element), also that it is not Case marked (thus it may co-occur with a pronoun in subject position; […]), and it is restricted to yes/no questions, which involve I as a wh-element.

As example (201)d. and the empirical findings outlined in Chapter 4. show, these expectations are indeed borne out and adequately describe the facts. In accordance with Vinet (2000), but contrary to what Vecchiato (2000) has found, neither the RFQ nor the OH corpus has revealed any -tu particle in the context of whquestions. In other words, wh-questions and -tu questions are mutually exclusive. Interestingly, this also applies to Pronominal inversion, as has been shown. They are also absent from wh-questions. Both variants (Pronominal inversion and -tu questions) thus seem to be closely connected, be it by their mirror effects in the patterns of conditioning, by their diachronic evolution (the former being the origin of the latter), or by the linguistic context in which they may occur (yes/no questions). The case of homophony between the interrogative particle -tu and the inverted subject pronoun tu should not be underestimated either (cf. Auger 1996: 27, Picard 1992: 69–70). Due to this homophony, only two phonologically distinct items may occur in a postverbal position immediately adjacent to the inflected (part of the) verb, namely /tsy/ (the interrogative particle or the pronoun) and /vu/ (the pronoun). Finally, the European French vernacular distinguishes itself from the Quebec French vernacular by having neither the interrogative particle -tu nor Pronominal



Chapter 5.  Interpretation and discussion of the results 

inversion.8 This was shown in the overview of the literature in Chapter 2. where the findings of several previous empirical studies of French interrogatives were reported. This state of affairs strongly suggests that both the question particle and the inverted pronoun should be structurally analyzed along the same lines, namely the morphological analysis of /tsy/ and /vu/ as interrogative morphemes on T0. The vernacular French varieties in Quebec and in Europe hence differ in one main regard, i.e. the possibility of overtly realizing an interrogative morpheme in T0. 5.1.3 /tsy/ and /vu/: a unified account of postverbal subject pronouns and question markers Some obscurities in this analysis which might give occasion to objections still remain: if postverbal /tsy/ and /vu/ are indeed grammaticalized interrogative morphemes instead of fully referential subject pronouns, what is then the logical subject of an interrogative sentence such as (202)? (202) Je me prends peut-être un peu trop tard, voudriez-vous quelque chose à boire? “Perhaps, I find myself thinking of it a little late, would you like to have something to drink?” (OH.110.1988) Another related and much more obvious objection is the question as to why there would be two distinct interrogative morphemes agreeing in person and number with the preverbal subject which is furthermore phonetically silent in the case of Pronominal inversion. According to Auger (1996:  33), the inflected verb in French carries subject features which are checked by a subject pronoun. She states that this pronoun is in fact a morphological affix to the verb. If the verb carries the feature specifications [+int], [+II], [+sg]/[+pl] (i.e. interrogative, second person singular or plural), then tu or vous appears as a suffix. If the verb carries the specifications [-int], [+II], [+sg]/[+pl], then tu or vous appears as a prefix. Verbs being specified for [-II] have affixes which are not specified with regard to [int] and hence disallow subject suffixes. This analysis ensures that subject features are phonetically realized only once, ruling out interrogatives with both a preverbal and a postverbal subject affix. 8. Bonnesen & Meisel (2005: 41) report cases of Pronominal inversion in spoken oral adult French. They interpret the majority of these, relatively rare, instances as fixed locutions (e.g. comment vas-tu?, quelle heure est-il? and particularly those involving the verb vouloir and a second person singular subject pronoun, e.g. veux-tu). This does not contradict the generalization that European vernacular French is exempt from Pronominal inversion (as a syntactically productive mechanism).

 Grammatical Variation across Space and Time

Either of them serves equally well to check these features. Whether the affix occurs pre- or postverbally solely depends on the positive or negative specification of [int] (or its non-specification).9 According to this analysis, subject pronouns in Quebec French are morphological agreement markers bearing subject features no matter in which (preverbal or postverbal) position they occur. Their relative position with regard to the verb is determined by the positive or negative specification of the [int] feature on the finite verb. This entails that sentences such as (202) (i.e. Pronominal inversion in Quebec French yes/no questions) do not actually lack a subject. The postverbal affix serves just as well to check the subject features as the preverbal affix. Auger (1996: 30–31) provides evidence in favor of the analysis according to which morphological agreement affixes may occur in different positions with regard to their verbal host, depending on the feature composition of this host, from the EastCushitic language Afar and from the Amerindian language Huave in which dual position affixes exist as well. According to the author (Auger 1996: 35–37), the impossibility of inverted pronouns and of the interrogative particle -tu to appear in wh-questions is linked to the wh-criterion (cf. Rizzi 1996), which requires a specifier-head configuration between a [wh]-operator and a head endowed with uninterpretable [wh] features in order for these features to be checked. In yes/no questions, C0 is empty and thus available as a landing site for the inflected verb carrying the [+int] feature (cf. (203)). In wh-questions, however, C0 is occupied by the complementizer que preventing verb movement to C0 in consequence of the Doubly-filled Comp filter (DFCF)10 and hence ruling out the postverbal realization of the affix (cf. (204)a. and (204)b.). (203) [CP Wh-Operator [C' voudriez-vous[+int, +II, +pl] [TP [T’ voudriez [νP [ν’ voudriez [VP voudriez quelque chose à boire ]]]]]]] “Would you like something to drink?” (204) a. * [CP Quand est-ce [C' qu’il est-tu[+int] [TP [T’ est [νP [ν’ est [VP est parti ]]]]]]] (adapted after Auger 1996: 36) b. [CP Quand est-ce [C' qu’ [TP [T’ il est [νP [ν’ est [VP est parti ]]]]]]] “When did he leave?” 9. This part of the analysis does not make a prediction with regard to the behavior of the interrogative marker -tu. 10. The Doubly-filled Comp filter (DFCF) rules out sentences in which both the specifier and the head of the complementizer phrase are filled with lexical material (cf. Chomsky & Lasnik 1977). This filter describes the ungrammaticality of sentences such as (i) in Standard French.

(i) * Peux-tu me rappeler [CP qui [C' qui [tu as rencontré hier soir ]]]?



Chapter 5.  Interpretation and discussion of the results 

In wh-questions such as (204)b., the wh-criterion is fulfilled by means of dynamic agreement between the wh-operator in SpecCP and the inflectional head in T0 (cf. Auger 1996:  37).11 Languages such as Franco-Provençal (and possibly also the variety of Quebec French investigated by Vecchiato (2000)), which allow for Pronominal inversion and the interrogative particle -tu in wh-questions, permit sentences such as (204)a. and hence are not subject to the Doubly-filled Comp filter (DFCF). Below, I provide a different structural account of the data according to which all varieties of French (which are analyzed in the present study) comply with the DFCF. Auger’s (1996) analysis, which states that only second person pronouns may invert because other pronouns are not specified with regard to the [int] feature, is an adequate description of the facts without explaining them however. It is certainly a challenge to fathom why second person pronouns behave so differently from all other pronouns. However, if one dismisses the peculiarity of second person subjects in Quebec vernacular French like de Cat (2005: 1199) who states that “[…] contrary to what is claimed in Auger (1994), inversion of the subject clitic and the verb is productive in Canadian French as it affects not only second person clitics (as claimed by Auger) but also third person clitics […]”, this would clearly warp the facts provided by the present study. Still, the model proposed by Auger (1996) is unsatisfactory in one respect: it leaves unresolved the questions as to why and under which circumstances a second person subject pronoun may invert in yes/no questions. Table 4 on page 77 shows that yes/no questions with the subject pronouns tu and vous undeniably allow the choice of the other variants: out of 402 yes/no questions with one of these subjects, only 204 show Pronominal inversion (= 50.75%). The remaining tokens split up among intonation, est-ce que, and even -tu questions, ruling in sentences such as (205). (205) Non. Ah, ça vient cogner icitte à trois heures du matin. Tu peux-tu m’appeler un taxi? “No. Oh, they came here banging on my door at three o’clock in the morning. Can you call me a cab?” (OH.088.1239) 11. Rizzi (1996) introduced the notion of dynamic agreement in order to account for those cases where the wh-criterion is apparently violated when no interrogative complementizer appears in a specifier-head relation with the interrogative operator (e.g. in cases of wh-fronting where the initial wh-operator is followed by the SVO word order). The author proposes that in these cases the operator may endow the head it selects with the interrogative feature. Auger (1996) draws on this mechanism because the inflectional head bearing the interrogative feature does not end up in a specifier-head configuration with the operator in sentences such as (204)b. The notion of dynamic agreement has often been criticized since it considerably weakens the explanatory value of the wh-criterion (cf. Kaiser 2002: 38, Rinke 2007: 43).

 Grammatical Variation across Space and Time

The presence of a second person subject pronoun hence does not always and necessarily trigger Pronominal inversion. The model proposed by Auger (1996) contents itself with acknowledging optionality in this area. In sum then, besides the observation that only second person pronouns may invert, it remains unclear why they need not invert. The question as to why first and third person subject pronouns virtually never occur in Pronominal inversion remains unresolved. At this point, I can only contribute to this debate with a speculative account. As was mentioned above, the question particle -tu has its origin in the inverted third person pronoun -t-il. The phonological change which has transformed the particle /ti/ into the particle /tsy/ took place in Quebec only (cf. Picard 1992:  69). As a result, homophony was achieved between this particle and the second person singular pronoun tu. Due to this development, second person singular features were occasionally attributed to the interrogative particle. This was stated by Vinet (2000: 386): Moreover, the phonological representation of –tu can sometimes be blurred in the mind of speakers who will misinterpret the form as a 2ps [second person singular] enclitic. Evidence for this can be found in Picard (1991: 182) who notes that journalists who sometimes write the colloquial form often mistakenly use a second person verb form as in: [Ç]a se peux-tu (“Can you believe it?” or more literally “Is it possible?”) instead of [Ç]a se peut-tu, using the wrong inflectional form on the verb which rather reflects the agreement pattern with a 2ps of the Clitic Inversion structure from S[tandard ]F[rench]: Peux-tu? (Can you?). The same type of misspelling is observed in Grevisse & Goosse (1993: 599) Y as-tu quequ’un qui t’suit? (Is there anyone following you?)[…].

If it is true that the interrogative particle -tu is sometimes misinterpreted as a second person pronoun, then it would not seem implausible if second person pronouns may (conversely and occasionally) also be misinterpreted as interrogative particles. This expectation is indeed borne out, as example (206) shows. Here, the interrogative particle appears as /vu/ (and not as /tsy/). In other words, sentences such (206) may be considered to be analogous to sentences such (207): both feature a postverbal interrogative marker which agrees (somewhat surprisingly) in number with the preverbal pronoun. I come back to this problem later in this section. (206) À Montréal? Vous allez-vous étudier là oubedonc …? “In Montreal? Will you study there or...?” (OH.119.1968) (207) Il dit, tu es-tu correct là? “He says, are you alright there?” (OH.097.2116)



Chapter 5.  Interpretation and discussion of the results 

These observations show that the interrogative particle -tu and the inverted subject pronoun tu share important properties and are not always perceived by the speakers as entirely distinct items. In fact, they call into question the strict differentiation between an interrogative affix -tu and a phonological clitic pronoun tu. The observations rather ask for a unified account of both items in terms of agreement markers on the verb. In fact, de Wind (1995) makes a very similar proposal for subject pronouns in French. He emphasizes that […] subject clitics that evolve from an argument into a functional head do not immediately loose their referential value.[…] It decreases in time until the point where the subject clitic reaches the status of an affix, i.e. the status of a pure agreement-marker. (de Wind 1995: 149)

With regard to the contemporary situation in French, the author states […] that the preverbal subject clitics in French are in a transitional stage, by which we understand that they are evolving from a PF-clitic which is base-generated in an XP-position and cliticizes at PF, into a syntactic subject clitic which is basegenerated in a functional head position. (de Wind 1995: 129)

According to the author, the grammaticalization of clitic pronouns to purely functional agreement markers has reached different evolutionary stages in different varieties in French: […] in French there are two types of preverbal subject clitics. The first type of subject clitic is the PF-type of subject clitic as proposed by Kayne (1983). It originates in a SPEC-position and cliticizes onto AgrS at PF. The second type of subject clitic is identical to the subject clitics found in most Northern-Italian dialects. This implies that it is base-generated in AgrS. Furthermore, we assume that the first type is uniquely found in Standard French, while the second type only occurs in Popular French. (de Wind 1995: 140)

De Wind (1995: 143) proposes the following structural account of subject clitics in what he calls Popular (cf. (208)) and Standard French (cf. (209))12: (208) [AgrSIP pro [AgrSI’ il [AgrSIIP pro [AgrSII’ vient [νP pro [ν’ vient [VP [V’ vient ]]]]]]]]

12. The structure displayed here is taken from de Wind (1995) and adapted to the hierarchy of projections displayed in (184) on page 257.

 Grammatical Variation across Space and Time

(209) [AgrSP il [AgrS’ vient [TP il [T’ vient [νP il [ν’ vient [VP [V’ vient [DP il ]]]]]]]]] “He comes.” The author states that in Popular French, the [N]-agreement features are checked in specifier-head agreement at the SpecAgrSIIP-level. The null subject pro still needs to have its [Case] features checked and moves to SpecAgrSI for this purpose where these features are checked against the subject pronoun in AgrSI0. In Standard French, there is only one AgrSP responsible for checking both the agreement and the [Case] features. The model presented by de Wind (1995) makes an interesting prediction. He states that if the structure in (208) is correct, then one would expect to find interrogatives with both a preverbal (instead of pro) and a postverbal subject pronoun. He asserts that this expectation is not borne out: The analysis of Pronominal Inversion […] as well as the analysis for French Complex Inversion […] are unable to prevent the generation of sentences like the one illustrated in (37)[13]. This problem that we are unable to solve is shared by all analyses of Complex inversion. (de Wind 1995: 121)

In view of sentences such as (206), this conclusion seems incorrect and hence invalid as a potential counter-argument against the postulation of an empty pro subject in the specifier of the inflectional projection. In fact, it is possible that an inverted subject pronoun co-occurs with a preverbal one. As I argue later in this section, the compatibility of having both a preverbal and a postverbal pronoun relates to the fact that the postverbal pronoun is first and foremost an interrogative agreement marker. Another striking fact revealed by the data is the virtual incompatibility between yes/no questions making use of the interrogative particle -tu and of the second person plural pronoun vous. In the OH corpus, no such combination occurred. In the RFQ corpus, only five instances could be found (0.92%, N=543), cf. (210) and Table 21 on page 107. The varbrul results in the RFQ corpus (cf. Table 32 on page 118) confirm the strong disfavoring effect of the second person plural subject pronoun vous on -tu questions.14 13. De Wind’s (1995: 121) example (37) is: * Quand elle est-elle venue? (“When did she come?”). 14. In the evaluation of the data, I have not distinguished between the pronoun vous as a plural marker and the pronoun vous as a formality marker of addressing an interlocutor. A quick survey of the distribution of these two items in the OH data had not revealed any difference with regard to the relative proportions of the interrogative variants. In any case, I suppose that both plural vous and formal vous bear a grammatical [plural] feature, so the account provided in this section should apply to both regardless of which one is actually involved in a particular token.



Chapter 5.  Interpretation and discussion of the results 

(210) Vous avez-tu eu peur? “Have you been afraid?” (RFQ.033.1118) I interpret this distributional pattern as an indicator in favor of a feature mismatch between the preverbal subject pronoun and the postverbal interrogative particle. Based on de Wind’s (1995) statement that the evolution of pronominal subjects base-generated as external arguments into agreement affixes is not abrupt but gradual (hence involving a potential retention of referential features for a certain time) and on Vinet’s (2000) argument that the interrogative particle -tu is sometimes misinterpreted as pronoun tu, I propose that the particle indeed carries a residual set of [φ] features qualifying it in certain cases as [2sg], i.e. second person singular. The unlikelihood that vous co-occurs with this particle may then be ascribed to a mismatch between the [plural] feature on vous and the [singular] feature on postverbal -tu. If there is some truth in this, one expects the interrogative particle -tu to generally be disfavored when a plural subject precedes the verb. This expectation is indeed borne out: in the OH corpus, there are only three such cases (in which -tu questions contain a third person plural subject pronoun, cf. (211)), and in the RFQ corpus there is no more than one such case (in which the preverbal plural subject is a noun, cf. (212)). (211) Ils vont-tu le garder là indéfiniment Caline, des dizaines d’années? Voyons! “They will keep him there indefinitely Caline, tens of years? Come on!” (OH.107.2322) (212) Mais ils ont dit, ces hommes-là vient-tu fous? “But they have said, do these men go mad?” (RFQ.049.70) It should be noted that in (212), the inflected verb lacks third person plural morphology and hence does not agree with the preceding subject DP. This provides further support in favor of my analysis according to which the postverbal particle carries a [sg] feature which is checked by the verb. It could even be one of the cases mentioned by Vinet (2000), namely a misinterpretation of postverbal -tu as second person pronoun. In this case, the verb would rather have had to be transcribed as viens. This assertion, however, remains speculative in view of the fact that only one such token was extracted from both the OH and the RFQ corpus. At this time, it shall suffice to state that cases such as (212) can be considered as indicative of the line of reasoning advocated here (recall that in none of the five interrogatives exemplified in (210) does the verb lack the plural morphology). While the claim that the interrogative particle -tu carries a [sg] feature makes the right empirical prediction in 89 out of 94 cases (= 94.7%) in the RFQ corpus

 Grammatical Variation across Space and Time

and in 189 out of 191 cases (= 99%) in the OH corpus, the same does not hold for the second person feature. In the OH corpus, 107 -tu questions co-occur with a preverbal non-second person subject (= 56%). In the RFQ corpus, 60 -tu questions have a preverbal non-second person subject (= 63.8%). If the assumption that this particle gradually loses its referential properties is on the right track, then these percentages show that the second person feature seems to be more vulnerable with regard to this loss than the [number] feature. Yet claiming that the -tu particle carries second person features only in those cases where it co-occurs with a preverbal second person subject would constitute a circular and not testable assertion. The danger of circularity may possibly be circumvented if one enlarges the focus of attention to interrogatives involving Pronominal inversion. The arguments presented in Sections 5.1.1 and 5.1.2 have clearly demonstrated that both the inverted subject pronoun tu and the interrogative particle -tu share important distributional properties, asking therefore for a unified account of both phenomena. Under the premise that both are effectively two instances of the same operation (i.e. the postverbal realization of an interrogative affix), it follows that in Pronominal inversion, at least, the postverbal element, be it /tsy/ or /vu/, carries person features (along with number features). The mere fact that the (arguably) very same particle extends to interrogatives with preverbal subjects (i.e. in -tu questions) suggests that it keeps some of its person-reference here as well. It has been shown above that it obviously retains its number feature (the -tu particle being almost restricted to tokens involving a verb with singular marking). So, why should it abruptly lose its person feature? In lack of direct evidence, I cannot pursue this discussion further. I address a last problem only with regard to the question as to why the postverbal particle may be realized either as /tsy/ or as /vu/. If both are to be analyzed as postverbal interrogative morphemes, why would they occur as two distinct allomorphs? In my view, the answer to this lies in the retention of referential features, particularly of the number feature. The /tsy/ particle is reserved for singular subjects (as in (213)) and the /vu/ particle for plural ones (as in (214)). (213) a. Tu[sg] veux-tu[sg] aller par terre, tiens tu vas aller...hein, tu veux aller par terre un petit peu? “Do you want to go on the floor, look! you will go … hey, do you want to go on the floor just a bit?” (OH.113.204)



Chapter 5.  Interpretation and discussion of the results 

b. Veux-tu[sg] aller l’amuser juste un peu, maman en a pas pour longtemps, okay? “Do you want to entertain him just a bit, mum won’t need a long time, okay?” (OH.113.237) (214) a. Vous aimez-vous ça- vous[pl] aimez-vous[pl] ça dans Hull vous-autres? “Do you like that- do you like that in Hull, you guys?” (OH.081.1677) b. Aimez-vous[pl] Elvis Presley vous-autres? “Do you like Elvis Presley, you guys?” (OH.112.1657) It is a matter of fact that plural subjects occur much less often in interrogatives extracted from the spontaneous speech data than singular ones. Abstracting away from those questions which make use of the subject pronoun vous (a large proportion of which contains this pronoun as a formality marker), the RFQ corpus contains only four interrogative tokens with a plural non-second person subject (cf. (215)). In the OH corpus, 17 such cases could be found (cf. (216)a. and (216)b.). (215) Le roi dit, tes chiens sont maganés pas mal? “The king says, are your dogs quite tired?” (RFQ.014.3052) (216) a. Parce que les religieuses là, est-ce qu’ils étaient mieux au couvent que chez eux, on le sait pas. “Because the nuns there, were they better in the convent than at their place, we don’t know.” (OH.117.1867) b. Me poserais la question, est-ce que les enfants seraient heureux? “I would ask myself, would the children be happy?” (OH.101.2293) The observation that plural contexts are much rarer than singular ones is in line with the assumption that the postverbal particle -tu has much further advanced in its evolution towards a grammaticalized functional interrogative morpheme on the inflected verb (exempt from referential features) than the postverbal particle -vous. As a consequence, the loss of referential features on -vous advances much more slowly than those on -tu. The observation that the former co-occurs with a preverbal subject considerably less often than the latter indicates that it still bears its complete set of [φ] features (except for the few, supposedly innovative cases such as in (214)a. in which these features have been transferred to the preverbal

 Grammatical Variation across Space and Time

pronoun) while the latter is much further ahead with regard to the loss of these features (as the many cases – around 60% – of postverbal -tu with a non-second person preverbal subject show; cases in which -tu clearly lacks a person feature). In other words, due to the quantitative rarity of interrogatives exhibiting a plural subject, the grammaticalization of the subject pronoun vous has not proceeded as rapidly as that of the pronoun tu. There may be another, independent, reason why sentences featuring the subject pronoun vous constitute the most favorable context for an empty preverbal subject position (or, in other words, why interrogatives with the postverbal subject pronoun vous constitute the last residual context where Pronominal inversion, on its way to extinction, may take place): the agreement morphology on a second person plural finite verb (i.e. the ending –ez) permits the recovery of the referential content of the external argument. In the literature, it has been argued that Old French licensed null subjects due to its rich agreement morphology on the finite verb: […] we would say that Agr0 contains a set of inflectional features that are rich enough to permit the recovery of the content of a null subject, and so pro can be identified as long as it is in the relevant structural relation with Agr0. (Roberts 1993: 125)

The particularly high frequency of null subjects in second person plural contexts in the Middle French period (cf. Hirschbühler 1991, cited in Roberts 1993) was accounted for in the following way: This greater phonological prominence [i.e. the verbal ending in –ez] more readily permitted recovery of the features of the null subject. In a system where the content of null subjects is licensed by the semantic presence of an agreement affix, it is unsurprising that the phonologically more distinct affixes should show a statistical preference of this kind for licensing null subjects. (Roberts 1993: 180–181) […], if we suppose that Agr had uniformly lost its capacity to formally license due to the parameter change, but that 2pl retained, for a while, the capacity of identifying pro, we explain one class of contexts in which null subjects were still allowed in the early 17th century ([…]). (Roberts 1993: 215)

If there is some truth in these statements, as I suppose, then the following observation receives a rather straightforward explanation. The results have shown that Pronominal inversion with vous is more likely than with tu. This effect was minimal in the fifteenth to seventeenth century French data (cf. Table 36 on page 128) and in the RFQ corpus (cf. Table 21 on page 107). In the twentieth century OH corpus, however, it becomes obvious (cf. Table 4 on page 77): 71 out of 114 yes/no



Chapter 5.  Interpretation and discussion of the results 

questions with the subject pronoun vous feature Pronominal inversion (= 62.3%), but only 133 out of 288 yes/no questions with the subject pronoun tu belong to this variant (= 46.2%). At the same time, it was shown that Pronominal inversion is quantitatively receding with regard to the other variants (in particular with regard to -tu questions, cf. Figure 6 on page 111). Pronominal inversion with subjects other than tu or vous is not productive any more, neither in the RFQ corpus nor in the OH data. The assumption that it once actually was productive is reinforced by the occurrence of some isolated cases of inverted third person subject pronouns (there was one such case in the OH data and five in the RFQ corpus), as well as by the fifteenth to seventeenth century French data. Bearing in mind Roberts’ (1993) statements cited above, one could look at these facts from the following angle: on its way to extinction, Pronominal inversion first stopped occurring with first and third person pronouns.15 As a consequence and by means of reanalysis of the inverted third person singular subject pronoun il, Complex inversion gave rise to the interrogative particle /ti/. As the RFQ and the OH data show, Pronominal inversion continued being used with second person pronouns in Quebec French. In the same variety, /ti/ has been converted into /tsy/ making it indistinguishable from the inverted second person singular subject pronoun (and for both of which I have therefore proposed a common structural account). As the evaluation of the empirical data has revealed, there is an increasing tendency in Quebec French of the (partly) non-referential interrogative morpheme /tsy/ to quantitatively outrank the use of /tsy/ as an inverted subject pronoun with its full set of referential features. If this diachronic development continues in the same way as it has evolved so far, one could predict the second person plural subject pronoun vous to represent the last linguistic context where Pronominal inversion will take place. In other words, the contexts where the preverbal subject can be absent have become more and more restricted: at the outset, the [φ] features on the verb did not affect the presence or absence of the preverbal subject (i.e. Pronominal inversion was required not because of the person and number features of the inflected verb, but because of the interrogative character of the sentence, which is in line with Auger (1996)). At some point, the possibility of omitting the preverbal subject became restricted to second person contexts (this is the current state of the development). The data show that this context is in the middle of being further delimited to second person plural verbs (with second person singular verbs being increasingly reserved for -tu questions). This is exactly the linguistic context which 15. The inversion of the first person singular pronoun je was probably the first construction which faded away. As Foulet (1921: 297) states, “[d]ans leur embarras, les grammairiens eurent recours à un moyen terme : Thomas Corneille et l’Académie sont d’accord que le plus sûr est de prendre « un autre tour », comme « est-ce que je ments I? » [au lieu de : mens-je]”. This indicates that the change was already well advanced in the seventeenth century.

 Grammatical Variation across Space and Time

Roberts (1993) stated to be the last one licensing null subjects (i.e. empty preverbal subject positions). It seems evident that the presence of a preverbal subject exerts a considerable pressure on the referential features of the postverbal particle ‑tu, ultimately leading to their complete loss and turning it into a purely functional interrogative affix. This development, however, has not yet been accomplished. This will be the case only when the interrogative particle co-occurs with an equal likelihood with all kinds of preverbal subjects, be it plural or singular, second, third or first person, and when instances of Pronominal inversion have completely vanished from spontaneous speech (i.e. when the postverbal particle cannot fulfill the function of an external argument any more). Although this is not yet the case, the findings strongly point in this direction (cf. the age effect in the OH data, Table 17 on page 98). To summarize, postverbal /tsy/ and /vu/ should be analyzed along the same lines in contemporary Quebec French: they are affixal interrogative morphemes on T0 and carry a defective set of [φ] features. /tsy/ carries a [singular] feature and /vu/ carries both a [second person] and a [plural] feature. Constructions which exhibit postverbal /tsy/ or /vu/ in addition to a preverbal subject (cf. (213)a. and (214)a. on page 186) exhibit an agreement of these features, similar to the second person plural agreement between the preverbal pronoun and the verbal inflectional ending in example (217) below. (217) Vous savez ce que je veux dire? “Do you know what I want to say?” (OH.082.585) The difference between postverbal /tsy/ and /vu/ and preverbal pronouns is that only the former qualify as a phonetic expression of the interrogative feature of the verb. However, as the presence of intonation and est-ce que questions shows, the mere fact that a sentence is interrogative does not necessarily require the postverbal markers to be present. 5.1.4 Intonation questions Intonation questions constitute the only variant in which no question word, particle, or morpheme is present to signal the interrogative character of the sentence. The interpretation of the respective token as a question thus relies on the intonation curve alone. A phonological analysis of intonation questions would lead us too far away from the purposes of the present study (but cf. Fontaney 1991). At this point, it shall suffice to state that question formation by interrogative intonation alone is a very old variant which may be traced back to vulgar Latin texts and which has hence always coexisted with the other variants. In spite of that,



Chapter 5.  Interpretation and discussion of the results 

subject-verb inversion was the major interrogative variant in late Middle and early Modern French. Only between the sixteenth and the seventeenth century have intonation questions gained ground as a competitor of Pronominal inversion (cf. Table 45 on page 138). This was shown by their quantitative increase as well as by the patterns of conditioning which were the opposite to the ones observed for Pronominal inversion. In contemporary European French, the intonation variant has reportedly ousted Pronominal inversion from the vernacular (cf. Table 1 on page 16). The nineteenth century Quebec French data are in line with this development: intonation questions show opposite patterns of conditioning as compared to Pronominal inversion (cf. Table 32 on page 118). However, in the twentieth century data, the -tu variant assumes this role (cf. Table 16 on page 93 and Table 20 on page 104). In other words, both European and Quebec French show an initial stage in which intonation questions progressively infiltrate into the contexts which were formerly reserved for Pronominal inversion. The twentieth century Quebec French data, however, show an innovative tendency whereby the intonation variant falls behind (only three independent variables exert a statistically significant effect on their choice) and -tu questions become the main contender of Pronominal inversion. As already mentioned above, intonation questions do not contain any syntactic or morphological mechanism to express interrogation. From a structural perspective, they are an interrogative variant apart and are in no syntactic relationship with the other variants. I therefore refrain from integrating them into the syntactic account provided for Quebec French yes/no questions in this chapter. 5.1.5 Est-ce que questions So far, the discussion of the contemporary Quebec French interrogative variants has focused on Pronominal inversion and the question marker -tu in yes/no questions. The question marker est-ce que has turned out to correlate with a highly formal conversational style (cf. Table 13 on page 90), indicating that it may be attributed to the grammar of a more formal diaphasic variety of French (as opposed to the colloquial vernacular). Before discussing the structural properties of the estce que marker in yes/no questions, I address the wh-variants in which est-ce que has clearly turned out to be the default marker with over 70% out of all tokens (cf. Figure 11 on page 147). The contrasting distributional patterns which emerge when comparing yes/no questions and wh-questions with the particle est-ce que suggest that the two contexts ask for two different structural accounts. In yes/no questions, the interrogative marker always appears in its phonetically full form /εsk/. In wh-questions, it is often phonologically reduced, as the contrast in (218)a. through (218)d. demonstrates.

 Grammatical Variation across Space and Time

(218) a. Où est-ce que tu étais? “Where were you?” (OH.115.349) b. Donc, où ce qu’elle était? “Well, where was she?” (OH.091.1267) c. Où qu’il est? “Where is he?” (OH.099.351) d. Où ce ça va, après? “Where does it go afterwards?” (OH.105.65) e. Où Ø tu as eu ça? “Where did you get it from?” (OH.090.1891) This finding is in line with Druetta (2002, 2003) who also reports an absence of phonologically reduced /εs/ (with an apocopy of final /k/) from yes/no questions. In my opinion, it further indicates that, in wh-questions, the complementizer /εsk/ can no longer be analyzed as occupying an independent structural (head) position (such as C0).16 Instead, the particle seems to have built a lexical and structural unit with the wh-word through affixation. Evidence in favor of this assumption comes from the observation that in colloquial and regional varieties of French and contrary to normative Standard French, est-ce que may be used in embedded wh-questions and relative clauses but not in embedded yes/no questions (cf. Munaro & Pollock 2005). Sentence (219)a. is provided by Munaro & Pollock (2005:  602–603) as an example for Pied noir French of older generations. Sentence (219)b. stems from the OH corpus. 16. I will not discuss the possibility that the question marker est-ce que could be analyzed as a (non-grammaticalized) proposition consisting of a copula, an inverted demonstrative pronoun, and a subordinating conjunction (cf. Plunkett 1999 for such an approach). The assumption that est-ce que is a grammaticalized interrogative marker located in C0 is the standard analysis in generative research: “Following Rooryck 1994, est-ce que is considered here to be a complex Q-morpheme, an unanalyzed chunk that is base-generated (merged directly) in C0. This complex interrogative complementizer ESK is restricted to matrix interrogatives in standard French. In colloquial varieties, it can also appear in embedded interrogatives.” (Zuckerman & Hulk 2001: 73) “By contrast, we propose that the overt Q-morpheme est-ce que differs from the intonation morpheme in that it does not check the Q feature of C0. Rather, we take est-ce que to be an instantiation of the C0 feature itself, a feature which needs to be checked.” (Cheng & Rooryck 2000: 8)



Chapter 5.  Interpretation and discussion of the results 

(219) a.

La ville où est-ce qu’il vit c’est Paris the city where is-it that he lives, it’s Paris “The city where he lives is Paris.” (from Munaro & Pollock 2005: 576, example (93)a.)

b. Et puis c’est en- c’est drôle comment ce que tout tourne dans- dans la vie parce qu’il- encore hier j’ai eu un- un appel me demandant d’ aller m’occuper des loisirs au- au foyer pour vieillards ici, le- le... “And then it’s in- it’s funny how everything goes in- in life, because he- still yesterday I had a call asking me to spend my spare time at the old people’s home here, the- the....” (OH.106.230) (220) * Je ne sais plus est-ce que la police a arrêté un escroc “I don’t know any more whether the police have arrested a con artist.” (from Munaro & Pollock 2005: 587, example (121)b.) Sentences such as in (219) are ruled out from Standard French under the premise that the wh-word appears in the embedded SpecCP and the est-ce que marker in the embedded C0. It is generally assumed that the Doubly-filled-Comp-filter (DFCF) applies in French and banishes the simultaneous realization of both a filled specifier and a head in the CP-domain if the CP is lexically selected by a matrix verb. The examples in (219) show that Quebec French and other varieties of vernacular French apparently do not exhibit such a restriction. It has been argued that the DFCF is therefore not operative in Quebec French (e.g. Plunkett 2000: 521) and that this and other varieties of French arguably allow such a doubly filled complementizer (cf. (221), which is an adaptation of (219)b.). (221) C’est drôle [CP comment [C' ce que [TP tout [T’ tourne] dans la vie ]]] it=is funny how COMP everything goes in the life Instead of drawing this conclusion, I would like to propose that all of the varieties discussed here are subject to this constraint, but that Standard French features estce que as an independent complementizer, whereas in Quebec French this marker has been morpho-syntactically attached to the wh-word forming a structural unit with it. Thus, comment ce que in (219)b. is just a lexical variant of Standard French comment. Both occur in SpecCP (when selected by a matrix verb) and are followed by an empty complementizer. (222) C’est drôle [CP comment ce que [C' Ø [TP tout [T’ tourne] dans la vie ]]]

 Grammatical Variation across Space and Time

Now the grammaticality contrast between (219) and (220) becomes understandable. While the est-ce que particle is an inseparable part of the wh-word in SpecCP in the examples in (219), it appears independently in the embedded C0 head in (220). (223) Je ne sais plus [CP Ø [C' est-ce que [TP la police [T’ a] arrêté un escroc ]]] From this follows that in all varieties of French, est-ce que is excluded from appearing in a non-root C0.17 If est-ce que received the same structural account in (219) and in (220), i.e. the one of a filler of C0, this difference in grammaticality would remain an unresolved problem. This is a descriptive generalization of the observations which does not attempt to provide an explanation for the question as to why a lexically selected embedded C0 needs to be empty in French. The objective is merely to show that in vernacular French the sequence wh+est-ce que behaves just like simple wh-words in Standard French and that they hence require to be analyzed as such. A further argument in favor of this account stems from the data presented by Lefebvre (1982: 80) who states that in Quebec French est-ce may even occur in whwords in situ and in infinite embedded clauses (examples (224) and (225) are taken from the author):18 (224) a. Tu as fait ça /kãtεs/? you have done that when-/εs/ b. Tu as fait ça /kfmãtεs/? you have done that how-/εs/ (225) a. Je sais pas /kãtεs/ faire ça. I know not when-/εs/ to.do that b. Je sais pas /kfmãtεs/ faire ça. I know not how-/εs/ to.do that The wh-words displayed in (224) and (225) may be paraphrased as quand est-ce and as comment est-ce. Sentences like these undoubtedly show that est-ce forms a unit with the wh-word. Yet, neither the OH nor the RFQ corpus revealed any instances of the structures exemplified above. Thus, interrogatives with wh+est-ce in situ can only be mentioned as potential evidence in favor of the outlined account. Summarizing this paragraph about the structure of contemporary Quebec French interrogatives, the following theoretical generalizations ensue from the empirical observations. 17. Note that (220) becomes fine when est-ce que is replaced by si. 18. According to Lefebvre (1982), the non-inverted interrogative chunk /se/ (c’est) may also follow a wh-word introducing an embedded clause.



Chapter 5.  Interpretation and discussion of the results 

In the (nineteenth and twentieth century) Quebec French vernacular, the estce que question marker may no longer occur as structurally independent item but appears only attached to the wh-word forming a lexical and structural unit with it. Hence it is absent from yes/no questions (where its occurrence indicates the switch to a more formal variety of French which still allows its realization as an independent complementizer). One can deduce that wh+est-ce que occupies a specifier position as a whole and functions as a wh-operator (just like simple wh-words, e.g. quand, comment, où). This account is challenged, however, by the occurrence of interrogatives whose wh-word is separated from the est-ce que particle (or one of its reduced variants) by a parenthesis, as in sentence (169) on page 155, repeated below. (226) Pourquoi, il dit, que la ville est si en noir que ça? “Why, he says, is the city this black?” (RFQ.048.182) In this case, the wh-word obviously appears in a position syntactically detached from the interrogative particle. The crucial observation is that a parenthesis, such as il dit or donc, may intervene either between the wh-word and the est-ce que particle (as in (227)) or between wh+/εs/ and /k(ә)/ (as in (228)). (227) Pourquoy (dist Gargantua) est ce que frer Jean a si beau nez? “Why (said Gargantua) does brother Jean have such a beautiful nose?” (Rabelais.123) (228) Qu’est-ce donc qu’il y a? “What’s there then?” (Molière.204) Assuming that, at the time of Molière, /kεs/ had already been reanalyzed as a simple wh-word, then the two sentences may be accounted for in the same way. In the OH corpus, only two such sentences could be found (0.26%, N=779): (229) quel– quelle année Charles que j’ai eu mon attaque de cœur? “In which year, Charles, did I have my heart attack?” (OH.096.234) (230) À quel début tu sais, que c’était. “At which beginning do you know that it was?” (OH.096.311)

 Grammatical Variation across Space and Time

In the RFQ corpus, seven tokens show elements incising in between the wh-word and the est-ce que marker (0.98%, N=717): (231) Il dit, comment- comment, il dit, que je peux faire tant que ça? “He says, how- how, he says, can I do as much as that?” (RFQ.054.1875) (232) Bien, elle dit comment- quand est-ce… à quel temps, elle dit, qu’on va se marier? “Well, she says, how- when, at what time, she says, are we going to marry each other?” (RFQ.079.66) (233) Pour quelle raison, il dit, que j’ai pas de l’air à travailler? “For what reason, he says, do I not look as if I was working?” (RFQ.072.1091) (234) Quelle mort, il dit, que tu veux que je te fasse? “Which death, he says, do you want me to cause you?” (RFQ.074.2059) (235) Un jour toujours, elle se met à dire à son fils, mais elle dit, pourquoi, elle dit, mon fils, que tu te maries pas? “One day, she is about to say to her son, but she says, why, she says, my son, don’t you marry?” (RFQ.079.10) (236) Pourquoi il dit, ce que vous découragez tant que ça? “Why he says, do you become so discouraged?” (RFQ.074.362) In the fifteenth to seventeenth century data, six interrogative sentences exhibit this phenomenon (16.67%, N=36): (237) Mais qui est ce (en conscience) qui a estably, confirmé, authorisé ces belles religions des quelles en tous endroictz voyez la christianité ornée, decorée, illustrée comme est le firmament de ses claires estoilles? “But what, on your conscience, was it, do you think, that established, confirmed, and authorized those fine religious orders with whom you see the Christian world everywhere adorned, graced, and illustrated, as the firmament is with its glorious stars?” (Rabelais.206, translation: Urquhart & Motteux, see above) (238) Hé quan es don qui revarra à Pazi? “Hey, when will he see Pazi again?” (Agr.Conf.110.82)



Chapter 5.  Interpretation and discussion of the results 

(239) Et comment doncques est ce qu’on rechasse les moynes de toutes bonnes compaignies, les appellans trouble-feste, comme abeilles cassent les freslons d’entour leurs rousches? “How is it, then, that they exclude the monks from all good companies, calling them feast-troublers, marrers of mirth, and disturbers of all civil conversation, as the bees drive away the drones from their hives?” (Rabelais.121, translation: Urquhart & Motteux, see above) (240) Ah! dieux, s’il est ainsi, qu’est-ce donc que j’ai fait? “Ah! God, if it is like this, what then have I done?” (Molière.120.611) The observation that in Quebec French, the proportion of such constructions is well below 1% shows that in the vast majority of cases where an initial wh-word is followed by an est-ce que particle, this sequence is left intact (99.5%, N=1489/1496). In view of this quantitative prevalence, I conclude that the exceptions enumerated above may be disregarded and do not qualify as counterevidence against the analysis of wh+est-ce que as a simple structural unit. The elevated number of insertions in the fifteenth to seventeenth century French data is simply due to the fact that at that time the est-ce que marker was still an independent complementizer which could be separated from the wh-element, as I argue in Section 5.2.6. The observation made in Section 4.2.1 according to which the interrogative expressions quoi ce que and ce que were replaced by qu’est-ce que and que c’est que at some point between the nineteenth and the twentieth century, may rather be a lexical phenomenon than a structural change: in the RFQ corpus, the use of the wh-words /kwask(ә)/ and /sk(ә)/ was still very productive. In the OH data, there is no trace left of these items; instead, /kεsk(ә)/ and /kәsek(ә)/ have infiltrated into the domain of usage of these lexical variants. This observation is in line with Kemp (1979). Interestingly, the wh-word quoi has not completely vanished from the system. In the twentieth century data, it is preferentially used in situ (N=42/47, 89.4%) contributing to an overall higher frequency of wh-in situ questions in the OH corpus (cf. Table 47 on page 157). In yes/no questions, the situation with regard to the est-ce que marker is very different. The results have shown that in this context est-ce que is preferentially used in a highly formal speech style, by male speakers with the highest level of occupation (the professional and managerial sector), belonging to the older age groups (34 years and older), and living in the middle class neighborhood MontBleu. It is very likely to occur in questions featuring the lexical verbs avoir and être (cf. Table 7 on page 81). Furthermore, it is strongly disfavored by second person subjects, a finding which is consistent with the observation that its rate of usage

 Grammatical Variation across Space and Time

considerably rises in the soapbox style where the speaker talks about general truths and facts rather than addressing the interviewer directly. I think that these patterns of usage very clearly suggest that the est-ce que particle in yes/no questions is not part of the vernacular grammar of the speakers. It rather belongs to a stylistically more elaborated variety which is more likely to be associated with Standard French. The fact that both corpora of oral speech, the OH corpus and the RFQ corpus, provided only so few est-ce que tokens (OH: 7.9%, N=50/632; RFQ: 0.55%, N=3/546) now becomes understandable: both of them were created under circumstances eliciting highly vernacular oral speech and, therefore, they represent in themselves rather unfavorable contexts for the occurrence of this variant. In addition, the rather peculiar finding that the use of est-ce que has risen from nearly zero up to eight percent in the course of one century may now receive an explanation. Of course, one would run into serious problems if one tried to seek an account for the question as to why a variant which is well documented in the French language production before the nineteenth century would vanish from the system at this precise moment, just in order to reappear one century later in the same diatopic variety. Disappearances and subsequent reappearances of certain forms are generally not what one would expect to find when analyzing language change. Taking a closer look at the repertoire of stylistic categories in the OH and the RFQ data, however, solves the problem. Table 13 on page 90 shows that in the OH data, virtually all categories of style from Labov’s (2001a) decision tree are represented among the extracted interrogative tokens. There are tokens in the casual as well as in the careful style. In the RFQ corpus, on the other hand, there is an overwhelming majority of interrogative tokens in the narrative category (Table 30 on page 116). This is due to the composition of the corpus which mainly contains folk tales, legends, and fairy-tales. The proportion of stylistic categories covered is hence heavily shifted towards the casual side of the stylistic continuum, resulting in the almost absence of est-ce que questions. It is therefore not the case that est-ce que has reappeared in the twentieth century after its disappearance in the nineteenth century. It has just developed into a minor variant marking formality well before the time of the RFQ and the OH corpus. Structurally, this distributional and conditional behavior of est-ce que finds its repercussion in the involvement of the CP. As I argue below, neither of the other interrogative variants in nineteenth and twentieth century Quebec French requires the activation of the CP, the only exception being yes/no est-ce que questions. Here, the est-ce que particle occupies the head of the complementizer phrase, C0. The above discussion has provided ample evidence that yes/no est-ce que is not part of the speakers’ vernacular, and hence not of the grammar of vernacular Quebec French which dispenses with the CP-level in interrogatives. Druetta’s (2002: 87) observation that yes/no questions lack phonologically reduced /εs/ (whose use



Chapter 5.  Interpretation and discussion of the results 

even provokes reactions approximating judgments of ungrammaticality among informants) may therefore be linked with the postulate, advocated here, that phonologically reduced forms of est-ce que build a structural unit with the wh-operator in a specifier position, while the full form est-ce que is an independent syntactic item occupying a head position. 5.1.6 The TP as the locus for checking the interrogative feature The postverbal pronouns and question marker /tsy/ and /vu/ are morphological affixes phonetically realizing an interrogative feature on the inflectional head. Their use is only licit when no wh-constituent is overtly realized in the interrogative sentence. This mutual incompatibility should be reflected in the structure. It can be captured in Minimalist terms by assuming that a head carrying an uninterpretable interrogative feature checks and deletes this feature in specifier-head agreement with a wh-operator carrying the respective interpretable interrogative feature. Under the assumption that this specifier-head configuration is local, one can account for the incompatibility by stating that there is only one single checking relation involved. By implication, the interrogative feature can be phonetically realized only once, either by the wh-word in the specifier position (in wh-questions) or by the postverbal question markers /tsy/ and /vu/ in the head position (in yes/no questions). The relevant checking configuration is shown in (241) below.19 s (241) [XP Wh-operator [INT] [X’ verb(- - /t y / ) [uINT] …] /vu / This configuration is in line with Rizzi’s (1996: 64) wh-criterion: The Wh-Criterion: Xo (242) A. A wh-operator must be in a Spec-head configuration with [+wh] . o B. An X must be in a Spec-head configuration with a wh-operator. [+wh] The question which still needs to be answered is which functional projection is actually involved in checking the interrogative feature. According to Rizzi (1996: 66), the head endowed with the interrogative feature is associated with verbal inflection, i.e. I0. The author cites evidence from a number of languages in 19. I adopt Adger’s (2003: 85–86) notation who uses the letter u in front of a feature to indicate that it is an uninterpretable feature. Uninterpretable features need to be checked against a corresponding interpretable feature in a syntactic configuration of sisterhood. The Principle of Full Interpretation requires that by PF and LF, all uninterpretable features be checked and deleted so that only interpretable features remain (cf. Chomsky 1986: 98). Uninterpretable features which are checked and deleted are designated by a strikethrough: u.

 Grammatical Variation across Space and Time

which “[…] the verb manifests a special morphology in interrogatives […].” (p. 66). Among these is Quebec French: the question marker /tsy/ always appears immediately adjacent to the inflectional head (cf. Kayne 1984, Roberts 1993). It is generally assumed that the specifier of CP (or a corresponding specifier in the left periphery) is the designated position for wh-operators. In order to satisfy the whcriterion, the inflectional head must move to C0. In the case of contemporary French, however, this verb movement is quite unlikely. It would leave the ungrammaticality of Simple inversion where a subject DP intervenes in between the finite verb and non-finite parts of the verb such as participles unexplained, cf. (243). Voilà bien à tous deux notre amour couronné; Mais de son Mascarille et de mon Gros-René, Par qui doit Marinette être ici possédée? by whom must Marinette be here possessed “Our loves are indeed crowned, but who ought to obtain the hand of Marinette, his Mascarille or my Gros-René?” (Molière.99.1771, translation: David Moynihan, D. Garcia, Charles Franks, www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext04/8lvtf10.txt, July 27, 2008) (243)

Simple inversion was documented in Old French texts. It became considerably rare in the Middle French period when other variants with preverbal subjects arose (e.g. Complex inversion and the est-ce que question marker). Nowadays, Simple inversion is ruled out (cf. Roberts 1993: 82). Under the assumption that in Modern French, the wh-criterion is satisfied at the CP-level, the ungrammaticality of (243) would be unexpected: (244) [CP Par qui [INT] [C' doit [uINT] [TP Marinette [T’ doit [uINT] ] être ici possédée ]]]? In (244), the finite verb doit has checked its [N] features against the subject DP in SpecTP. The uninterpretable interrogative feature, however, remains unchecked. Therefore it rises to C0 in order to check and delete it in specifier-head agreement with the wh-operator in SpecCP. Yet this derivation yields a sentence which is ungrammatical in contemporary French. As already mentioned earlier, Bonnesen & Meisel (2005) have found only a few instances of Pronominal inversion in their data. This would be unexpected if one supposed that subject pronouns were syntactically independent items (and hence equivalent to the subject DP in (244)). Under the analysis of subject pronouns as prefixed agreement markers, on the other hand, this is exactly what one expects to find since prefixes should (by definition) always precede the inflected verb no matter where it moves. With regard to subject DPs, the authors state that every time the child utters a wh-question with such a subject (and without a



Chapter 5.  Interpretation and discussion of the results 

co-referential subject pronoun), this subject DP categorically occurs in an inverted position, i.e. the child makes use of Stylistic inversion (cf. (245) for an example from the OH corpus). How does this square with the facts that Simple inversion is ungrammatical and that Pronominal inversion is virtually absent from spontaneous speech production? (245) Que doit faire un Chrétien tous les jours de sa vie? “What must a Christian do every day of his life?” (OH.103.1045) I think that these facts may best be accounted for if one assumes that the wh-criterion is not fulfilled at the CP-level but rather at the TP-level (cf. (246)). This would correctly rule out Simple inversion since the finite verb staying in T0 would never move into a position from where it precedes the subject DP in SpecTP, as in (244). At the same time, it would correctly rule in Stylistic inversion where the subject DP apparently occurs in a low position (arguably in situ in its base-generated νP-internal specifier position as to a number of authors, cf. the discussion of this variant in Section 5.2.9). Pronominal inversion is ruled out due to the same reasons why Simple inversion cannot occur. Since, as I have argued, subject pronouns are agreement markers adjacent to the finite verb, their position with regard to their host is predetermined which makes them always appear preverbally. s (246) [TP wh-operator [INT] [T’ (subject pron-) verb finite (-- /t y / ) [uINT] [νP Subject DP /vu / finite non-finite finite non-finite [ν’ verb Verb [VP [V’ Verb Verb ]]]]]] This account is inspired by the analyses of contemporary Romance null subject languages put forward by Alexiadou & Anagnostopoulou (1998) und Barbosa (2001). According to these authors, the argument position of the subject (DP) is in situ, inside the verbal phrase. Preverbal subject DPs are topicalized into a TP (or IP) adjoined position. The specifier of the inflectional projection is an A’-position hosting wh-phrases, non-specific quantifiers and focused constituents (cf. Barbosa 2001). This is exactly what the structure in (246) suggests for modern Quebec French. Barbosa (2001: 41–43) states that in French Stylistic inversion, the [EPP] and the [N] feature of the verb may be checked either by the subject DP (since, according to the author, Modern French is a non-null subject language) or alternatively by a wh-phrase. In the latter case, the wh-constituent is attracted to SpecTP (SpecIP in Barbosa’s terms) and simultaneously checks the interrogative feature on T0. The author follows Déprez (1990) and de Wind (1995) in assuming that Stylistic inversion licenses the subject DP in its base-generated νP-internal position.

 Grammatical Variation across Space and Time

In contemporary French, Stylistic inversion is excluded from root and embedded yes/no questions (cf. Kayne & Pollock 2001: 107). It is allowed in (root and embedded) wh-questions and in certain other contexts (e.g. subjunctive and certain indicative clauses, cf. de Wind 1995: 155) which are beyond the scope of this study. There is no consistent pattern emerging from the usage rates of Stylistic inversion in the RFQ and the OH corpus. In the former, only four out of 4 whquestions with a subject DP show inversion (= 16.7%; tokens with a co-referential subject pronoun in addition to the subject DP were discounted, cf. footnote 4 on page 171). In the latter, 13 out of 17 tokens have an inverted subject DP (= 76.5%, (245) being one of them, repeated below as (252)). These cases are listed below. Stylistic inversion in the RFQ corpus: (247) Il dit, comment ce que ça- il dit- elle dit, comment ce que s’appelle, elle dit, ce chien-là? S’appelle Brise-fer. “He says, how that- he says- she says, how is that called, she says, this dog there? It’s called break-the-iron.” (RFQ.048.75) (248) Qu’est c’est qu’a la vieille, il dit, viens-tu folle, il dit, veux-tu me casser à soir? “What does the old lady have, he says, are you going crazy, he says, do you want to annoy me tonight?” (RFQ.021.1193) (249) Il y en a un qui dit, Monsieur, dites moi donc quel est l’effet de votre voyage? “There is one among them who says, sir, so tell me what is the outcome of your trip?” (RFQ.018.148) (250) Où ce qu’est le cheval? “Where is the horse?” (RFQ.028.380) Stylistic inversion in the OH corpus: (251) Lorsque tu allais à l’ épicerie, ils disaient bien comment va- va- va ta mère? “When you went to the grocery store, they said well how is your mother?” (OH.078.71252) (252) Que doit faire un chrétien tous les jours de sa vie? “What must a Christian do every day in his life?” (OH.103.1045)



Chapter 5.  Interpretation and discussion of the results 

(253) Quel est le but? (1) De- de tout ça là? Ouf! “What is the aim? (1) Of all this? Uff!” (OH.078.715) (254) (1) De- de tout ça là? Ouf! (078) Ou quelle est le- la raison. “Of all this? Uff! (078) Or what is the reason?” (OH.078.716) (255) Bon, quel est le pourcentage de divorces? “Well, what is the percentage of divorces?” (OH.101.1602) (256) Qu’est-ce qui prouve tu es du Droit? Où ce qu’est ton …? Ah là tu vois un affaire rouge là bien quiens. “What proof do you have that you are from Le Droit? Where is your …? Oh there you see a red thing there, well let’s see.” (OH.075.41266) (257) Où ce qui est le théâtre de l’île … “Where is the Théâtre-de-l’Île?” (OH.073.2624) (258) Où ce qui est l’aspect plein air là-dedans. “Where is the outdoor side in there?” (OH.075.4895) (259) Où ce qui est ma boisson? “Where is my drink?” (OH.080.92292) (260) Où ce qui est le Giant Tiger? “Where is the Giant Tiger” (OH.089.933) (261) Même dans le métro j’ai demandé à un- un gardien du métro qui était là là, pour donner les renseignements, puis je lui ai demandé où ce qui est une telle rue puis il le savait pas. “Even on the subway, I have asked a watchman of the subway who was there to give information, then I have asked him where is this street and he didn’t know it.” (OH.094.2010) (262) […] puis ses chums se sont demandé, bien où ce qui est Joanne […] “then his friends asked themselves, well where is Joanne” (OH.110.1371)

 Grammatical Variation across Space and Time

(263) […] puis elle dit coudonc, où ce qui est Joanne, […] “then she says, hey, where is Joanne, …” (OH.110.1371) Strikingly, most of the instances of Stylistic inversion occur in predicative constructions with the copula être (yielding the word order “wh-word + copula + predicative NP” in thirteen out of seventeen tokens, i.e. 76.5%). The only exceptions are (247) and (248) in the RFQ corpus, and (251) and (252) in the OH corpus. In sentence (247), the fact that ce chien-là appears after the parenthesis, as well as the presence of the demonstrative determiner ce and the enclitic -là suggest that the inverted subject occurs in a topicalized position. Sentence (252) is an exemplary case of Stylistic inversion: it lacks an est-ce que derivative and contains no false starts. The token contains a transitive verb whose direct object is the interrogative word which has moved towards the front.20 Yet it is not an example of spontaneous speech; instead it is a literal quote from the Petit Catéchisme (Édition officielle, Québec, 1944), question number 498. This disqualifies it as a representative token for the native speakers’ vernacular. The remainder of the 17 questions exhibiting Stylistic inversion show the same predicative structure. Nine out of the 17 instances of Stylistic inversion, displayed above, exhibit the word order “où ce qu(i) + est + predicative NP” (= 52.9%). Four tokens feature the word order “quel(le) + est + predicative NP” (= 23.5%). This clustering of certain lexical constructions (or, in other words, a low type-token-ratio) is evidence against the analysis of Stylistic inversion as a still productive variant. This observation conforms with the empirical findings in Bonnesen & Meisel (2005). The authors mention a relatively frequent use of the predicative construction où est + subject DP. It is also in line with what Zuckerman & Hulk (2001: 90) report about European child French (from around Paris): “[…], the only questions in which stylistic inversion was used by children ([…]) are predicative questions.”21 The authors conclude from this observation that “[o]ne could characterize them as semi-formulaic; they cannot be taken to show knowledge of inversion.” (Zuckerman & Hulk 2001: 82, footnote 9). The finding that in Quebec vernacular French, Stylistic inversion is marginal also conforms to what Kayne & Pollock (2001: 117) state about this diatopic variety

20. Note that direct objects are ruled out from Stylistic inversion contexts unless they occur as a clitic object pronoun or a wh-element (cf. Kayne & Pollock 2001: 141–142). 21. “The 5% inversion questions the children produced represent two sentences and are both of the stylistic inversion type. Moreover they are ‘predicative’ questions with the verb être ‘be’ in the simple tense form: 15x ‘Où est sa maman’ ‘where is his mummy?’ 23x ‘Quel jour est ton anniversaire’ ‘what day is your birthday?’.” (Zuckerman & Hulk 2001: 82, footnote 9).



Chapter 5.  Interpretation and discussion of the results 

of French. I turn to their approach later when discussing Stylistic and Free inversion in fifteenth to seventeenth century French. Out of the above listed 17 cases of Stylistic inversion, 11 (= 64.7%) feature a derivative of the complementizer est-ce que in a position following the wh-word. This is a quite surprising phenomenon and, to my knowledge, it has so far not been the focus of attention of generative research on Stylistic inversion. However, I do not think that this observation necessitates a revised structural account of Stylistic inversion. In Section 5.1.5, I proposed that the complementizer est-ce que should rather be analyzed as a morphological suffix to the wh-word, forming a structural unit with it. If this is on the right track, then the 11 interrogative tokens featuring est-ce que in addition to Stylistic inversion involve the complex wh-words /kfmãsk(ә)/ (‘how’), /kεsek(ә)/ (‘what’) and /usk(i)/ (‘where’) respectively, all appearing as unanalyzed chunks in a specifier position. 5.1.7 Preverbal subject DPs: evidence for multiple TP-specifiers This account still faces a problem since (contrary to what Bonnesen & Meisel (2005) have found) the OH data actually contain interrogative sentences with preverbal subject DPs between the fronted wh-phrase and the finite verb (cf. (264)). (264) a. Puis là la police l’a pas vu, mais pourquoi ce que la police, elle a pas sorti avec avec une flashlight pour aller regarder dans le char là. “Then the police haven’t seen it, but why haven’t the police gotten out with a flashlight in order to look into that car?” (OH.091.1909) b. Pourquoi lui il a été poussé à faire cet acte-là? “Why has he been urged to do this act?” (OH.098.257) c. Comment ce qu’une femme avec deux enfants peut se débrouiller puis avoir la job comme- une job de concierge pour une femme s– c’est quelque chose. “How can a woman with two children get along and have the job as- a job as caretaker for a woman– that’s something.” (OH.112.683) The structure in (246) on page 201 does not provide a landing site for the preverbal subject DP. Does this mean that in modern Quebec French, the CP is after all the projection where wh-phrases are moved to, contrary to what has been argued for so far? I think that such an account does not solve the problem. Whether the whphrase moves to SpecCP or whether it stays in SpecTP, the subject DP always

 Grammatical Variation across Space and Time

intervenes and apparently destroys the local feature checking relationship required by the wh-criterion between the wh-operator in the specifier and the finite verb in the head position. In any case, the absence from contemporary Quebec vernacular French of both Complex inversion and of est-ce que in yes/no questions has provided further, if only indirect, evidence that wh-phrases are not located in CP. At this time, I propose that even in interrogatives such as (264) (i.e. in which the sequence wh-phrase – finite verb is interrupted by a subject DP), the wh-criterion is met at the local level. Based on observations from languages having multiple subject constructions such as Japanese and some semitic languages (cf. also Adger et al. 1999: 10), Chomsky (1995: Chapter 4) proposed a multiple specifier account for the inflectional projection and the νP-shell. According to Chomsky, the inner inflectional specifier (an A‑position) contains the subject DP which checks its strong [N] features against the inflected verb while the outer specifier (an A’‑position) contains an expletive subject. One could adapt this account with regard to the situation in contemporary Quebec French in a way that the whphrase situates itself in the outer specifier and the subject DP in the inner one. Since multiple specifiers are equidistant from their head, the locality requirement is met and the wh-criterion fulfilled. A look at the diachronic evolution of the interrogative system in the following sections gives further evidence in favor of the claim that wh-phrases are located in an outer specifier of TP. I discuss the structure of Stylistic inversion in Section 5.2.9 below. 5.1.8 The interrogative system of contemporary Quebec French Having set out in the previous paragraphs the structural implications of the distributional properties of interrogative variants in contemporary Quebec vernacular French, I am now in a position to summarize them in the following syntactic representation:22

22. In (265) and the subsequent syntactic representations, I use the notation [XP specifier1 [XP specifier2 [X’ X0 …]]] when referring to a head licensing two specifiers even though a maximal projection terminates with the XP-level by definition. By doing this, I avoid using ternary branching, as in [[XP specifier1] [XP specifier2] [X’ X0 …]], or insertion of the lower specifier as a daughter of an intermediate projection, as in [XP specifier1 [X’ specifier2 [X’ X0 …]]].



Chapter 5.  Interpretation and discussion of the results  TP Spec [int]

TP Spec

T’ vP

To [uint] Spec

v’ vo

VP Spec

wh-phrase subject

verb

subject

verb

V’ Vo

DP

verb

wh-phrase

Wh – est-ce que (subject DP) (265) a. [TP comment ce qu’[INT] [TP une femme avec deux enfants [T’ peut[uINT] [se débrouiller [νP une femme avec deux enfants [ν’ peut se débrouiller [VP [V’ peut se débrouiller [AP comment]]]]]]]]] “How can a woman with two children get along?” (OH.112.683) Wh – est-ce que (subject pronoun) a’. [TP comment ce qu’[INT] [TP pro [T’ on appelle[uINT] [vP pro [ν’ appelle [VP [V’ appelle [DP le cap [AP comment]]]]]]]]] “How do you call the cape?” (OH.120.2333) Wh – fronting (subject DP) b. [TP de quoi[INT] [TP la ville [T’ a[uINT] [changé [νP la ville [ν’ a changé [VP [V’ a changé [PP de quoi]]]]]]]]]? “In which way has the city changed?” (OH.095.709)

 Grammatical Variation across Space and Time

Wh – fronting (subject pronoun) b. [TP comment [INT] [TP pro [T’ tu peux[uINT] [abuser [νP pro [ν’ peux abuser [VP [V’ peux abuser [DP ça [AP comment]]]]]]]]]]? “How can you abuse that?” (OH.076.51573) Wh – Stylistic inversion c. [TP où ce qui [INT] [TP pro [T’ est[uINT] [νP le théatre de l’île [ν’ est [VP [V’ est [PP où]]]]]]]]? “Where is the Théâtre-de-l’Île?” (OH.073.2624) Wh – wh-in situ d. [TP [INT] [TP pro [T’ c’est[uINT] [νP pro [ν’ est [VP [V’ est [DP quoi]]]]]]]]? “What is it?” (OH.091.479) Yes/no – Pronominal inversion e. [TP [INT] [TP pro [T’ pensez-vous[uINT] [νP pro [ν’ pensez [VP [V’ pensez [CP que je suis folle]]]]]]]]? “Do you think that I am crazy?” (OH.091.185) Yes/no – -tu particle f. [TP [INT] [TP pro [T’ elle va-ty[uINT] [faire [νP pro [ν’ va faire [VP [V’ va faire [DP d’autres enfants]]]]]]]]]? “Will she have more children?” (OH.113.1017) Yes/no – Intonation g. [TP [INT] [TP pro [T’ tu vas[uINT] [descendre [νP pro [ν’ vas descendre [VP [V’ vas descendre]]]]]]]]? “Will you come down?” (OH.078.824) (265)a. through (265)d. exemplify wh-questions and (265)e. through (265)f. yes/ no questions respectively, as used in contemporary vernacular Quebec French. (265)a. is a wh-est-ce que question in which the est-ce que marker is phonologically reduced and attached to the wh-word. (265)b. is an instance of wh-fronting without the est-ce que marker, but otherwise structurally similar to (265)a. (265)c. is an instance of Stylistic inversion in which the subject DP remains in situ (i.e. in its base-generated νP-internal argument position). (265)d. is an interrogative



Chapter 5.  Interpretation and discussion of the results 

sentence with wh-in situ.23 In (265)e. and (265)f., respectively, the postverbal question markers /vu/ and /tsy/ phonetically realize the uninterpretable interrogative feature on the inflectional head. The question marker carries a [plural] feature in (265)e. Finally, (265)g. exemplifies an intonation question in which interrogation is expressed by means of an interrogative intonation curve. In the account sketched out above, I implicitly assume that pro is the logical and syntactic subject of those interrogative sentences which feature only a pronominal subject. The latter is an agreement marker attached to the inflectional head. This is in line with an analysis of Modern (vernacular) French as a null subject language, as proposed for instance in Kaiser & Meisel (1991) and in Roberge (1990). Furthermore, I take non-finite verb forms such as infinitives and participles to occupy a non-further specified functional head position above νP. This allows the correct clause-final localization of the subject DP in Stylistic inversion (in SpecνP) to be yielded. In the literature, it has been proposed that participles and infinitives undergo movement to some higher projection (cf. Cho 1997, Pollock 1989). An analysis of remnant IP movement as put forward by Kayne & Pollock (2001) would certainly avoid these and other problems. Yet, even though the authors propose substantive empirical evidence that in Standard French the stylistically inverted subject DP has to be regarded as topicalized (a claim which I do not address at this point for lack of a sufficient number of tokens of this variant in the Quebec French data), a fair number of derivational steps in their account is, in my view, first and foremost motivated by the need of ultimately yielding the desired word order. Since the available data in the present study do not provide sufficient and (theory-)independent empirical evidence for every single one of the diverse movement operations required by a remnant IP movement analysis, I refrain from adopting this model here. The structure in (265) does not make a position for the yes/no question marker est-ce que available. The outer SpecTP is reserved for wh-operators (i.e. phonetically empty operators or wh-phrases). Yes/no est-ce que is a complementizer occupying the head position of the CP. Its absence from the casual style of vernacular Quebec French is taken into account by not making this projection in the structure proposed above available. The model proposed in (265) is to be preferred over an account involving the CP as the layer which hosts the wh-phrase and the finite verb since it correctly predicts that Simple inversion (of either the subject pronoun or the subject DP) is 23. It could be observed that wh-in situ is virtually nonexistent in the RFQ corpus, while there is a relatively high proportion (7.6%) of wh-in situ in the OH data. It was shown that this is not a change in progress, but rather a preference of quoi-in situ in the twentieth century data as opposed to que-fronting (as in qu’est-ce que, que c’est que) in the nineteenth century data.

 Grammatical Variation across Space and Time

not part of the grammar. Pronominal inversion as illustrated in (265)d. is not the result of any syntactic computation involving finite verb movement from T0 to C0 and subsequent cliticization of the subject pronoun from SpecTP to the verb in C0, but rather the result of a morphological mechanism whereby the pronoun is realized as a morphological enclitic, an affixal agreement marker, on the finite verb staying in T0 (cf. Friedemann 1997, Noonan 1989). This analysis allows both the inverted pronouns tu and vous and the question marker -tu to be treated uniformly as outcomes of the same morphological process. Both can only be phonetically realized when the interrogative feature is not yet expressed by an initial wh-phrase, hence the absence of Pronominal inversion and of the question marker from wh-questions. In other words, Pronominal inversion and the question marker /tsy/ are possible only when the outer specifier of TP is not occupied by an overt wh-phrase. 5.2 The interrogative syntax in fifteenth to seventeenth century French The fifteenth to seventeenth centuries may be considered a transitional stage between a state of the grammar in which subject-verb inversion in interrogatives was the unmarked default form (in Old French, cf. Einhorn 1975: 130, Foulet 1921, Roberts 1993, Vance 1997) and a state where it became the exception (in modern vernacular French). The term transitional stage should be understood in terms of structural reanalyses which have affected the interrogative system at this time. 5.2.1 Interrogatives in Middle French: replacement of VS with SV variants The observation that in Middle French there was a noticeable tendency of replacing interrogative variants featuring subject-verb inversion with equivalent variants featuring preverbal subjects was already explicitly stated by Foulet (1921: 262, cf. footnote 5 on page 57). The two most successful interrogative newcomers mentioned in this regard are the est-ce que question marker and Complex inversion (Foulet 1921: 248–251, 264–268). Both variants had themselves been the results of structural reanalyses. Est-ce que once was a subordinating predicative construction with a copula and an inverted subject pronoun. Complex inversion has both a preverbal (nominal) and an inverted postverbal (pronominal) subject. Foulet (1921: 264) describes the change as follows: Une évolution dont nous avons indiqué le cours avait fait de la phrase « votre père est-il là? », jadis plus significative, un simple équivalent de « est là votre père? » Entre ces deux types de constructions la langue en vint naturellement à choisir



Chapter 5.  Interpretation and discussion of the results 

celui qui, sans faire disparaître complètement l’inversion, supprimait du moins ce que cette inversion avait de plus abrupt et de moins conforme à l’esprit du système. Ce choix répondait si bien à un besoin que l’autre type de phrase disparut presque subitement. « Qu’est-ce que tu fais? » a diminué la vitalité de « que fais-tu », mais « votre père est-il là? » a tué « est là votre père? »24

Many researchers have used these observations as an opportunity to propose a structural change in the Middle French period (e.g. Adams 1987, Roberts 1993, Vance 1995, 1997) related to a more general trend, i.e. the loss of the verb-second (V2) property of Old French. These authors claim that Old French exhibited a verb-second property just like contemporary Germanic languages, such as German (cf. Erdmann 1886, Paul 1919, and cf. Labelle 2007, Mathieu 2006, 2007 for recent syntactic accounts of the verb second property in early stages of French). Subject-verb inversion is analyzed as the consequence of verb movement to C0 across the lexical subject in SpecTP. Whether this was indeed the principle cause of subject-verb inversion in Old French is a matter of disagreement in the literature. Kaiser (2002: 48), for example, states that instead of drawing on a hypothetical V2-grammar it would suffice to apply Rizzi’s (1996) wh-criterion in order to account for subject-verb inversion in Old French interrogatives. According to the author, verb movement to C0 is rather the consequence of the requirement whereby the verb needs to be situated in a specifier-head relationship with the wh-operator in order to check and delete the uninterpretable interrogative feature than the result of a verb second property. In fact, it is even doubtful whether the finite verb in contemporary French interrogative inversions moves to C0 at all or whether it rather stays in T0 (as I have argued above for Quebec French) (cf. Kayne 1994: 44, Rinke 2007: 42–46). At this point, I cannot take a stand with regard to the question as to whether Old French subject-verb inversions are due to a V2-property or not, but I agree with the authors defending the point of view that some fundamental structural change occurred in the Middle French period which triggered the observed loss of subject-verb inversion. The effects of this change on contemporary vernacular French has already been outlined in the preceding section. In what follows, I try to illustrate the change in more detail.

24. An evolution whose course we have outlined has turned the sentence “your father is-he there?”, once more significant, into a simple equivalent of “Is your father there?” Between these two types of construction, the language came naturally to choose the one which removed at least what this inversion made appear so very abrupt and so non-conforming to the spirit of the system, without making the inversion disappear completely. This choice met a need so well that the other sentence type disappeared almost instantly. “What-ECQ you do?” has diminished the vitality of “what do you”, but “your father is-he there?” has killed “is there your father?” (my translation).

 Grammatical Variation across Space and Time

5.2.2 Pronominal inversion in fifteenth to seventeenth century French The empirical findings presented in Chapter 4. with regard to Pronominal inversion in yes/no questions confirm the supposed tendency of the proceeding loss of inversion, and this despite its majority status in terms of the number of occurrences. The results reveal striking similarities in the patterns of conditioning of Pronominal inversion among all three diachronic data corpora which have been analyzed. Figure 9 on page 133 has shown that already in late Middle and Classical French, Pronominal inversion tends to be slightly more likely in lexical contexts containing one of the high frequency verbs vouloir, savoir, avoir, and voir. This observation is expected since variants on their way to extinction often survive for a certain time in a limited number of residual lexical contexts. Furthermore, Table 44 on page 137 demonstrates a relatively sharp quantitative decline of Pronominal inversion between the sixteenth and the seventeenth century (or more precisely between the texts by Rabelais (*1493 – †1553) and those by Corneille (*1606 – †1684)). This can be regarded as confirmation of previous claims made in the literature (e.g. Foulet 1921, Roberts 1993) according to which consequences of the related structural change became apparent in the sixteenth century. One could perhaps raise the objection that the kind of Pronominal inversion observed in nineteenth and twentieth century Quebec French in no way resembles the kind of Pronominal inversion extracted from the fifteenth to seventeenth century data. Are these two types of inversion really historically related instances of the same variant? Or is it more likely that the kind of Pronominal inversion used in current Quebec French is an innovation of this particular diatopic variety and only bears superficial similarities with its earlier counterpart? A look at the patterns of conditioning of Pronominal inversion might provide an answer to these questions. If this variant reveals commonalities in these patterns across the different data sources studied here, one may draw the conclusion that it is indeed the very same variant one is looking at in late Middle, Classical, and Modern vernacular Quebec French (cf. Poplack & Tagliamonte 2001: 94 for an approach along these lines). The results in Chapter 4. and the discussion in Section 5.1.3 have shown that this is indeed the case: a considerable number of common effects of conditioning have emerged which quite convincingly establish a historical link between the different instantiations of Pronominal inversion: just as in nineteenth and twentieth century Quebec French, cognitive verbs favor the use of Pronominal inversion in fifteenth to seventeenth century French (cf. Table 42 on page 135). Inflected verbs consisting of a relatively high number of syllables favor the use of Pronominal inversion only in the OH and the RFQ data, but they already show the same tendency in the earlier data sources (cf. Table 43 on page 136). The virtually categorical restriction of Pronominal inversion to second person contexts is already imminent in the Cent



Chapter 5.  Interpretation and discussion of the results 

nouvelles nouvelles and in Rabelais’ Gargantua (thereby contributing to a relatively high percentage of 78% of Pronominal inversion with second person subject pronouns as opposed to the overall lower rate of 73%, cf. Table 45 on page 138). The group of lexical verbs consisting of the items vouloir, savoir, voir, avoir, and être shows a tendency of favoring Pronominal inversion at the expense of the other variants, not only in the nineteenth and twentieth century Quebec French data, but also in the late Middle and early Modern French data. I therefore conclude that the instances of Pronominal inversion extracted from the fifteenth to seventeenth century data represent a historical precursor of contemporary Pronominal inversion in (Quebec) French. Their use was still much more frequent and extended to all kinds of lexical and linguistic contexts (including non-second person contexts). In other words, in fifteenth to seventeenth century French, the grammaticalization of Pronominal inversion was much less advanced than in the nineteenth and twentieth century data. Many authors agree that already in Old French, postverbal pronouns cliticized to the verb (cf. Section 5.1.3, Kaiser 1992, Roberts 1993:  120, Skårup 1975), most probably phonologically and not yet syntactically. This was perhaps a precursor of the subsequent grammaticalization of the postverbal pronoun which has resulted in the emergence of the interrogative particle -ti/-tu. 5.2.3 Complex inversion: previous analyses The first instances of Complex inversion date back to around the middle of the fifteenth century.25 As a reminder, the term Complex inversion designates all interrogative sentences in which a non-topicalized preverbal subject DP is resumed by a co-referential postverbal subject pronoun, cf. (266) and (267). (266) Oui; mais pourquoi chacun n’en fait-il pas de même […]? “Yes; but why doesn’t everybody do it the same way?” (Molière.181.440) (267) Votre hymen résolu ne se fera-t-il pas? “Your resolved hymen doesn’t get used to it?” (Molière.191.1219) 25. “Nous avons vu que ce changement – qui s’est imposé à la langue tout entière – est accompli dès le XVIe siècle.” (We have seen that this change – which has imposed itself on the entire language – has been accomplished as of the 16th century. Foulet 1921: 288, my translation.) “At some point in the 15th century, the left dislocations with NP V pronoun order were reanalysed as complex inversion.” (Roberts 1993: 167) Later on, the author states that evidence indicates that this reanalysis has been accomplished “[…] by the 1450s, i.e., that complex inversion was introduced by this time.” (Roberts 1993: 169)

 Grammatical Variation across Space and Time

The structure of Complex inversion has provoked a lot of interest in the syntactic literature. In the following, I provide a brief overview of the research and analyses discussing this phenomenon (as I have done for Pronominal inversion in Section 5.1.1.1). Complex inversion is restricted to root interrogative (and certain adverbial) clauses and hence excluded from embedded contexts. The problems the syntactic literature has mostly focused on are first and foremost the question as to what licenses the simultaneous realization of two co-referential subjects in one sentence and, second, as to where the landing site of the finite verb is. With regard to the first question, the opinions are divided among those who relate the necessity of the inverted subject pronoun to requirements of case assignment or identification and licensing of the preverbal subject DP (e.g. Drijkoningen 1990, Hulk 1993, Kayne 1983, Noonan 1989, Rizzi & Roberts 1989, Roberts 1993, de Wind 1995) and those who interpret the inverted clitic rather as the phonetic reflex of an interrogative feature on the inflectional head, as I do later in this section (e.g. Auger 1996, Boeckx 2001, Friedemann 1997). Concerning the landing site of the finite verb in Complex inversion, Kayne (1983), Rizzi & Roberts (1989) and Roberts (1993) claim it to be C0, while Barbosa (2001), Drijkoningen (1990), Hulk (1993), Noonan (1989), and de Wind (1995) suppose T0 (or an equivalent head within the inflectional domain) to be the relevant position. In Section 5.2.4, I propose that already in late Middle French (and hence in Complex inversion), verb movement only targeted T0. As Kayne (1972: 88) argued and as has been commonly accepted in the literature by now (cf. de Wind 1995: 26), the possibility of Complex inversion as an interrogative variant is in tight relation with the clitic status of the inverted subject pronoun. While in 1972, the author still supposed the subject clitic to move to the right of the inflected verb, he later revised his account and proposed that the finite verb and the subject DP both move to the CP-domain (cf. Kayne 1983). The clitic (after having been generated in the vacated specifier position of the subject DP) incorporates into the inflectional head in order to turn it into a proper head governor for the trace of the subject DP (cf. (268)). Kayne (1983)26 (268) [CP pourquoi [C' chacun [C' fait-il [TP chacun il [T’ fait […]]]]]] why everybody does-he A rather similar approach is adopted by Rizzi & Roberts (1989) who assume that the finite verb moves to C0 and who suggest two alternative options for the analysis of the preverbal subject DP: either it appears in an adjoined position between the wh-specifier and C0, or it occupies a lower (A‑)specifier following the upper (A’-) 26. The examples in this section are adaptations of sentence (266) on page 340.



Chapter 5.  Interpretation and discussion of the results 

specifier which hosts the wh-phrase. This is possible, as the authors state since the inflectional head substitutes into the complementizer head and by consequence forms a hybrid head bearing the functional features of both heads, C0 and T0 (or I0). Rizzi & Roberts (1989) state that in Modern French, Case can only be assigned to the left (hence ruling out Simple inversion). In order not to violate the Binding requirement according to which the variable, left behind in SpecVP after movement of the subject DP, must be antecedent governed, the subject clitic (base generated in SpecTP) incorporates into the inflectional head in C0 forming an A-chain by means of which it can bind this variable. The clitic has to be analyzed as a nonargument (cf. also Kayne 1983). Otherwise, the A-chain would contain two arguments which would lead to a violation of the θ-criterion. Rizzi & Roberts (1989) (269) [CP pourquoi [CP/C' chacun [C' fait-il [TP il [T’ fait [VP chacun [V’ fait […]]]]]]]] Roberts (1993) also assumes that the CP contains two specifiers. However, he claims that the subject DP does not skip SpecTP on its way to (the inner) SpecCP. The subject clitic is needed in order to govern the vacated SpecTP. It incorporates into the inflectional head in C0, gets Case and establishes the required government relation with SpecTP, and at the same time identifies this position. Concerning the observed disappearance of Simple inversion (cf. (243)) and the simultaneous rise of Complex inversion in Middle French, Roberts (1993: 187– 216) states that a change in the Case assignment parameter is responsible for the modifications: whereas in Old French Case could be assigned both under specifier-head agreement as well as under government, the first option has been the only licit one from that time on until the present27. Roberts (1993) (270) [CP pourquoi [CP chacun [C' fait-il [TP chacun il [T’ fait [...]]]]]] The structural ambiguity between Free and Simple inversion plays an important role in this regard. As long as the interrogative sentence contains only an intransitive verb in a simple tense, there is no way to determine the structural position of the postverbal subject DP. Former instances of Simple inversion may then be reinterpreted as cases of Free inversion. Figure 13 on page 163 demonstrates that in the fifteenth to seventeenth century data, nearly 85% out of all wh-questions involving a postverbal subject DP may either be interpreted as Simple inversion or 27. This account would need a major revision since in the Minimalist program “[…] all these modes of structural Case assignment [are] recast in unified X-bar-theoretic terms, presumably under the Spec-head relation.” (Chomsky 1995: 173)

 Grammatical Variation across Space and Time

as Free inversion. In my opinion, this is a plausible scenario and I adopt it here as well. The structure below is taken from Roberts (1993: 175, example (144)) and it illustrates the reanalysis. (271) a. [CP DontJ [C0 vous + vient]t [IP ce malk [VP ti tk] tJ] => b. [CP DontJ C0 [IP pro [I0 vous + vient]I [VP ti ce mal] tj] Noonan (1989) departs from the accounts presented so far in assuming that the finite verb targets only T0 as its highest functional head. She analyzes the clitic as a spell-out of the trace of the subject DP in its base position SpecVP (or SpecνP in a more recent terminology). Its purpose is the licensing of the preverbal subject DP. The author assumes that DPs can be licensed either by being assigned a so-called [Iota] feature under specifier-head agreement with the inflectional head or by being assigned a [nom] feature under government. In Complex inversion, the [Iota] feature is already used to establish a non-local specifier-head relationship between the inflectional head in T0 and the wh-phrase in SpecCP. This Iota-chain blocks licensing of the subject DP. The second option, licensing under government, is not possible either because the inflectional head remains in T0 from where it cannot govern the subject in SpecTP. The only way out is the incorporation of the subject clitic into the inflectional head which transfers the [nom] feature to the subject DP in SpecTP. Noonan (1989) (272) [CP pourquoi[Iota] [C' C0 [TP chacun[nom] [T’ fait[Iota] -il[nom] [νP chacun il [ν’ fait [VP [V’ fait [DP cela]]]]]]]]] Hulk (1993) agrees with Drijkoningen (1990) and Noonan (1989) when she assumes that in French Complex inversion the finite verb does not move further than to the inflectional head (Agr0, in her terms). The author proceeds on the assumption of a phrase structure with two inflectional projections: an upper AgrP and a lower TP. The finite verb in Agr0 can assign Case only once, either to the subject DP or to the subject clitic. The clitic receives Case by incorporation. Consequently, the element in SpecAgrP remains without Case. It turns into an A’-position. As for Pronominal inversion, Hulk (1993) assumes that the wh-word targets the specifier of AgrP (similar to the analysis of contemporary Quebec French which I have put forward above). This should also apply to Complex inversion. In this construction, however, the subject DP intervenes between the wh-word and the inflected verb with the postverbal pronoun. Hulk (1993) does not provide a solution to the question of where to accommodate the subject DP. Yet she mentions the possibility that it occupies a second specifier of AgrP. Below I provide an



Chapter 5.  Interpretation and discussion of the results 

account of Complex inversion which takes as its basis the assumption of multiple TP-specifiers and which hence develops Hulk’s (1993) suggestion. Hulk (1993) (273) [AgrP pourquoi [AgrP chacun [Agr’ fait-il [TP il [T’ fait [νP chacun [ν’ fait [VP [V’ fait]]]]]]]]] Another author according to whom the finite verb only moves up to the inflectional domain is de Wind (1995). He argues in favor of a tripartite inflectional domain with a TP constituting the source of the agreement features at the bottom, a central AgrSIIP checking agreement, and a higher AgrSIP checking nominative Case. The subject DP is located in SpecAgrSIP while the clitic originates in SpecAgrSIIP. The double AgrS-structure is, according to the author, a phenomenon of French Complex inversion alone. Instead of assuming dynamic agreement (cf. footnote 11 on page 181), de Wind (1995: 62) proposes that based on common finiteness features, the heads C0 and AgrSI0 constitute a tense chain through which the [wh] feature may percolate down and be checked against the finite verb in AgrSI0. The author posits that due to the Biuniqueness Constraint on Checking which limits the number of checking relations between a head and a specifier to only one, AgrSI0 cannot check the features of the subject DP in its specifier after having already checked those of the wh-phrase in SpecCP in a non-local way. The subject clitic, starting out as an expletive (hence as a non-argument) in SpecAgrSIIP, adjoins to AgrSI0 and checks nominative case against the preverbal subject DP. De Wind (1995) (274) [CP pourquoi[Tense] [C' C0 [AgrSIP chacun [AgrSI’ fait-il[Tense] [AgrSIIP il [AgrSII’ fait [TP fait [VP …]]]]]]]] Pollock (2006) proposes an account of French Pronominal and Complex inversion which falls back on remnant IP movement. The author adopts a hierarchy of projections in which the inflectional domain is divided into a higher AgrSP, a central unspecified projection, and a lower TP. The left periphery is at the minimum composed of a higher ForceP and a lower HP. Subject clitics are base generated as heads of complex clitic phrases. Strong subject pronouns and nominal subjects which are associated with the clitic appear in the specifier position of these phrases. Pronominal and Complex inversion are both derived by first moving the clitic phrase to SpecTP. The clitic itself then abandons the clitic phrase and head-adjoins to AgrS0 in order to check the [NOM] feature. All lexical material which follows the finite verb subsequently moves to the specifier of the central inflectional projection in between AgrSP and TP. The remnant TP then moves to SpecHP. As a final step, the wh-phrase abandons the remnant TP in SpecHP and moves further to SpecForceP. This yields the correct word order. Crucially, the author states that

 Grammatical Variation across Space and Time

both Pronominal and Complex inversion feature a finiteness morpheme specified for interrogation which may be phonetically realized either as epenthetic -t- or as the interrogative marker -ti/-tu. This morpheme is base-generated in H0. As a morphological enclitic, -t- must be right adjacent to the finite verb. At PF, -t- is a deficient morpheme and cannot bear word final stress. It has to be left adjacent to a stress bearing suffix; this is the inverted subject pronoun in AgrS0. This account allows Pollock (2006) to avoid the problems which are inherent in analyses supposing verb movement to C0 in French interrogatives as well as in those basing their argumentation on verb movement to I0. Even though the CP is involved in French interrogative formation, there is no head movement of the verb to C0; instead, the remnant TP moves to a specifier position within the left periphery. But besides this advantage, the account involves a number of derivational steps whose sole purpose seems to be the reconstitution of the right word order. To give an example, the topicalization of the lexical material following the finite verb is not independently motivated but triggered by the need of the morpheme -t- in H0 to be verb-adjacent. Pollock (2006) (275) [ForceP quel livre [Force‘ Force0 [HP [TP [DP lui [D’ il]] [T’ a apporté quel livre]] [H’ -t- [AgrSP [AgrS’ il [XP apporté quel livre [X’ X0 [TP [DP lui [D’ il]] [T’ a apporté quel livre] [νP [VP ]]]]]]]]]]] “Which book did he bring?” Before presenting my own analysis of Complex inversion in the next section, I briefly situate it with regard to the above mentioned accounts. In opposition to Kayne (1983) and Rizzi & Roberts (1989), I interpret the very presence of a subject DP intervening between the wh-word and the inflected verb as evidence that the verb does not move to C0. The ensuing analysis is hence in line with Hulk (1993), Noonan (1989) and de Wind (1995). However, instead of alluding to a tense chain or a non-local [Iota] feature checking relationship between SpecCP and the inflectional head, I instead draw on a multiple specifier approach. 5.2.4 A unified account of Complex inversion and of -tu questions Roberts (1993) claims that the rise of Complex inversion in the early fifteenth century is due to the loss of the V2-grammar of Old French. It is the consequence of a structural reanalysis whereby the inflectional head bearing agreement features does not assign Case under government any more, but only under specifier-head agreement. The movement of the finite verb to C0 results in a hybrid head bearing both agreement and complementizer features, thereby licensing two specifiers, an outer A’‑specifier hosting the wh-phrase and an inner A-specifier hosting the



Chapter 5.  Interpretation and discussion of the results 

preverbal subject DP. As a consequence of this structural change, Simple inversion (which bears on the assignment of nominative Case under government) becomes impossible and declines in the second half of the fifteenth century. It arguably disappears in the early sixteenth century (cf. Roberts 1993: 166–177). The proposal made by Rizzi & Roberts (1989) and Roberts (1993) (namely that the functional projection which serves to satisfy Rizzi’s (1996) wh-criterion licenses two specifiers) closely resembles the one I advocate for contemporary Quebec French. The crucial difference between the two approaches, however, is the exact location of this configuration. While Rizzi & Roberts (1989) and Roberts (1993) claim the involvement of the CP-level, I have argued that the TP is the relevant projection. This implies that in spite of some apparent similarities, the two approaches considerably differ when it comes to the motivation of the two specifiers. The double specifier approach in Rizzi & Roberts (1989) is required for reasons of Case assignment. Movement and adjunction of the verb to C0 creates a “double” head licensing both an inner IP-specifier and an outer CP-specifier.28 The two TP specifiers, on the other hand, are independently motivated by observations from multiple subject constructions (MSCs), cf. Chomsky (1995: 349–355). The account proposed by Rizzi & Roberts (1989) and Roberts (1993) faces several problems such as the fact that two syntactic items (the subject DP and the subject clitic) realize just one (external) θ-role. Here, I do not go into further detail as to how the authors try to solve the problems related to their account. The central issue is, in my opinion, that the authors analyze postverbal subject pronouns as phonological clitics. If one instead adopts an analysis according to which these pronouns are syntactic clitics (i.e. syntactically inseparable parts of the inflected verb in T0), many of the problems ingrained in Rizzi’s and Roberts’ model do not appear. The pronoun would be base-generated in T0 without ever occupying the specifier position (which is hence available for a subject DP, a strong pronoun, or pro). One would not need to posit a verb-to-C0 movement in order to derive the inverted word order of the pronoun. If one even goes a step further and analyzes the inverted pronoun not only as a syntactic clitic, but as a morphological enclitic agreement marker of the verb (just as in contemporary Quebec French), one would also circumvent the violation of the θ-criterion (i.e. the fact that the external θ-role is attributed to two distinct items both bearing argument status). In this regard, I 28. “Let us now take seriously the idea […] that the result of inversion is a clause headed by C0 and by I0. In that case, two specifier positions can be licensed: the typical specifier of C0, the landing site for wh movement, and the typical specifier of I0, a subject position. Both positions are used in complex inversion […] If we look at the problem derivationally, […] we can simply assume that, when the new head is created by I0-to-C0 movement, the extra specifier position is automatically provided and made available for the lower subject to move into.” (Rizzi & Roberts 1989: 23)

 Grammatical Variation across Space and Time

closely follow the accounts of French Complex inversion as proposed by Boeckx (2001) and Friedemann (1997) (cf. page 173). In the preceding section, with regard to contemporary vernacular Quebec French, I have argued in favor of a morphological analysis of inverted subject pronouns and of the question marker -tu as agreement markers on the finite verb which phonetically express an interrogative feature. It was proposed that this marker carries not only the interrogative feature but also a defective set of [φ] features. Finally, the diachronic relationship between the question marker -tu and Complex inversion was outlined. Considering these similarities between the three variants Complex inversion in late Middle and Classical French on the one hand and Pronominal inversion and -tu questions in Modern Quebec French on the other hand, it does not seem unlikely to associate these variants with a similar syntactic structure. In fact, Kayne (1984) discusses the question as to why Complex inversion is restricted to third person subjects only (cf. also Noonan 1989: 317, footnote 4): the subject DP forms a chain with the inverted subject pronoun. A chain may contain just one argument which, in this case, is the external one. This argument is overtly realized by the subject DP. The other member of the chain, the postverbal subject pronoun, may therefore only be a third person pronoun. The third person pronoun il serves as the expletive in French, while the first and second person pronouns tu and vous necessarily have argument status. Attributing the properties of an expletive to the postverbal subject pronoun in French Complex inversion suggests that its main function is not the phonological realization of the external argument of the verb and hence the establishment of a [φ] feature checking relation between the finite verb and the subject. It rather serves to mark a sentence as interrogative. If this assumption is on the right track, it would make sense to analyze contemporary Quebec French -tu questions (cf. (276)a.) and Middle and Classical French Complex inversion (cf. (277)a.) along the same lines (as shown in (276)b. and (277)b. respectively), thereby taking into account that the former has evolved from the latter. (276) a. Ti-Jean, il dit, ta princesse est-tu à vendre- ta robe est-tu à vendre? “Little Johnny, he says, is your princess for sale- is your dress for sale?” (RFQ.074.2701) b. [TP[INT] [TP ta robe [T’ est-tu[uINT] … [à vendre]]]] (277) a. Eh quoi! tous les miroirs ont-ils de fausses glaces? “What! Do all the mirrors have fake sheets of glass?” (Corneille.16.173) b. [CP[INT] [TP tous les miroirs [T’ ont-ils[uINT] … [de fausses glaces]]]]



Chapter 5.  Interpretation and discussion of the results 

In both cases, the inverted subject pronoun is the phonologically overt realization of an uninterpretable interrogative feature in T0, which is checked and deleted against the yes/no operator in the outer SpecTP in contemporary French and against the interrogative operator in SpecCP in Middle French respectively (cf. Friedemann 1997 and Noonan 1989, for comparable approaches). Recall that Chomsky (1995) proposed the outer specifier of the inflectional projection to host an expletive subject in multiple subject constructions. My proposal presented above for -tu questions and for Complex inversion bears on this analysis: the inner specifier of TP is the designated position for the external argument. The postverbal interrogative agreement marker in Pronominal inversion and in -tu questions is related to the lexical subject in a way comparable to the relationship between the expletive and its associate in multiple subject constructions since it has also lost its status as a syntactic argument of the verb. While the inverted pronoun has grammaticalized into an interrogative morpheme on the inflectional head, the outer SpecTP has become the default A’-position hosting interrogative operators. The postverbal agreement marker in T0 is linked with it via a feature checking relationship established in terms of specifier-head agreement. I assume that structural similarities between two variants (as proposed for Complex inversion and -tu questions) should be mirrored by a common set of patterns of conditioning. It could be shown that Complex inversion and -tu questions share the same favoring and disfavoring factors. I interpret this as rather strong evidence in favor of the structural account made above. In fact, both Complex inversion in the fifteenth to seventeenth century data and -tu questions in the twentieth century data are favored by monosyllabic verbs. The disfavoring effect of cognitive verbs on the choice of this variant disappears when comparing the late Middle and early Modern French data with the two more recent corpora. However, the tendency persists below the level of statistical significance. Finally, the favoring effect of non-second person pronouns, which is quite strong with regard to -tu questions in the nineteenth century, may be interpreted as a consequence of Complex inversion being restricted to third person contexts. This demonstrates that the contextual domain of usage has been diachronically transferred from Complex inversion to -tu questions. This should not come as a surprise if both variants are structurally identical. 5.2.5 Middle French: loss of verb-to-C0 movement The hypothesis which I want to advocate here is that the French interrogative system lost its verb-to-C0 movement just at the time when Simple inversion (cf. (278)) disappeared and when Complex inversion (cf. (279)) emerged (cf. also Hirschbühler

 Grammatical Variation across Space and Time

& Labelle 2000, citing in this regard de Bakker 1997, Hulk 1993, Noonan 1989, de Wind 1994, 1995). (278)

Simple inversion Par qui doit Marinette être ici possédée? “By whom must Marinette be possessed here?” (Molière.99.1771)

Complex inversion (279) Mais, marquis, par quelle raison, de grâce, cette comédie est-elle ce que tu dis? “But, marquis, for what reason, please, is this comedy what you say?” (Molière.204) Barbosa (2001) adopts a similar point of view in her comparison of Romance with Germanic languages, stressing the observation that the latter allow for Simple inversion while the former generally do not (except for very restricted contexts). She states that “[i]f inflection raises across the subject [as is most widely assumed to be the case in Germanic languages], one would expect the subject to be allowed to appear immediately after the auxiliary, as occurs in English.” (Barbosa 2001: 26) This word order, however, is generally ruled out from Romance languages (including Modern French). Furthermore, Romance null subject languages do not show any asymmetry between declaratives and interrogatives with regard to the positions in which the subject may occur. In a number of Romance languages (Catalan, Romanian, Iberian Spanish), there is no asymmetry between root and embedded clauses either with regard to subject-verb inversion. This lack of asymmetry would be unexpected if one took root interrogative clauses to involve verb-to-C0 movement. Barbosa (2001: 21, 26–27) deduces from these observations that the inflected verb only targets I0/T0 (and not C0) in the respective languages. I interpret the disappearance of Simple inversion in the Middle French period and the emergence of Complex inversion to be nothing other than a change of the position of the finite verb with regard to the subject DP. The older system which allowed for Simple inversion still featured verb movement to C0 (hence deriving the inverted subject DP). Once this movement was abandoned in favor of verb movement only to T0, the subject DP necessarily occurred preverbally (abstracting away from cases of Stylistic inversion). This analysis, however, raises the question as to why Complex inversion is banned from embedded interrogatives. I return to this issue in Section 5.2.8.



Chapter 5.  Interpretation and discussion of the results 

5.2.6 The grammaticalization of est-ce que Middle French represents the time when the question marker est-ce que is generally considered to have appeared as an unanalyzed interrogative chunk (cf. Foulet 1921: 264–268, Marchello-Nizia 1999: 63). Est-ce que questions occurring before this time are rather instances of Pronominal inversion (literally meaning is it that). In other words, before the sixteenth century, the est-ce que formula was not yet grammaticalized. Evidence for this stems from the observation that tense and number of the copula could be modified and that a predicative noun or adjective could appear between est-ce and que (cf. (280) and (281), cf. also Druetta 2003: 26–27 with a similar line of reasoning). (280) Sont-ce là les douceurs que vous m’aviez promises? “Are these the kinds of gentleness which you have promised me?” (Corneille.560.1378) (281) Voire, dist elle, est ce a moy que vous devez adrecer telles parolles? “Verily, said she, is it to me that you have to direct such words?” (Farce.120.14–15) These productive uses of the predicative construction coexist with the just emerging interrogative chunk /εsk/, as the following example shows. (282) Quoi! chevalier, est-ce que tu prétends soutenir cette pièce? “What! Knight, do you pretend to support this play?” (Molière.204.392–393) One way to test whether the use of est-ce que in (282) is still productive or not is to give an imaginary response to the respective questions. While (280) and (281) suggest answers such as ‘Oui, ce sont ces douceurs-là.’ and ‘Oui. C’est à toi.’, a comparable answer to (282) would yield an odd effect: ‘Oui. Ce l’est.’ In other words, one could say that the interrogative force of the first two questions focuses on the copula while it focuses on the main verb (i.e. prétendre) in the last case. (280) and (281) are hence instances of Pronominal inversion, while (282) is an est-ce que question. Druetta (2003) traces the beginning stages of the grammaticalization of est-ce que back to the Middle Ages. He differentiates between five steps of a grammaticalization chain (cf. Figure 14 which is taken from Druetta 2003: 24): first, there was a period of juxtaposition of an est-ce clause and a subordinated sentence introduced by que. The interrogative character of the sentence focused on the copula, as in (280) and (281). Second, the focus of interrogation shifted to the verb in the subordinate clause, turning initial est-ce que into a cleft (syntaxization). Third, during a period of morphologization, the cleft est-ce que lost its capacities to exhibit tense, mood, and [φ] feature agreement with its referent, ruling out sentences

 Grammatical Variation across Space and Time

such as (280). The achievement of this developmental step has even been acknowledged in normative grammars from the middle of the seventeenth century (cf. first volume of Vaugelas 1647a: 419). Druetta (2003:  29) provides evidence for this step from Blaise Pascal’s Provinciales, published between 1656 and 1657, and cited in Grevisse (1993: 609), in which the second clause of two conjoined yes/no est-ce que questions features only the final /k(ә)/ (cf. (283)). (283) Est-ce que cette créance est peu importante, et que vous abandonnez à la liberté des hommes de croire que la grâce efficace est nécessaire ou non? “Is it because this is an unimportant article of belief, and you leave all men at liberty to believe that efficacious grace is necessary or not, as they choose?” (Pascal, Les Provinciales, Seconde lettre écrite à un provincial par un de ses amis. De Paris, ce 29 janvier 1656. Translation: Thomas M’Crie, oregonstate.edu/instruct/phl302/texts/pascal/letters-a.html, July 29, 2008) According to the author, the est-ce part has already formed a morphological (nonanalyzable) unit. In a fourth stage (fusion), the whole formula est-ce que has become a morphological unit, ruling out sentences such as (281). Henceforth, it has been an unanalyzed chunk. This is why nowadays, according to Druetta (2003:  30), sentences such as (283) would yield ungrammatical results. The repetition of the whole formula is required. In a fifth and final stage which we witness in contemporary French, this chunk has become subject to several phenomena of phonological corrosion, such as aphereses and apocopies (stage of the fall). This trajectory appears plausible, and I only want to add that at some point between the fourth and the fifth evolutionary step there is reason to assume a structural shift from an independent syntactic item est-ce que (base-generated in a head position) to a particle which forms a structural unit with the wh-operator (in a specifier position). Contrary to what I have claimed for wh-est-ce que questions in contemporary Quebec French (cf. Chapter 5.1), I assume that the est-ce que particle in Middle French still had an autonomous status as a head in C0 (cf.  Zuckerman & Hulk 2001: 73, referring to: Rooryck 1994). The fact that it occured in yes/no questions and that it did not show any phonological effects of affixation to the wh-word are discourse syntax juxtaposition > syntaxization >

concatenative morphology morphologization >

morphology by fusion fusion >

fall

Figure 14.  Grammaticalization chain of est-ce que, according to Druetta (2003: 24), my translation



Chapter 5.  Interpretation and discussion of the results 

good indicators in favor of this assumption.29 It is further indirectly supported by the possibility of Complex inversion in wh-questions which is nonexistent in contemporary Quebec French. This is because the postverbal realization of a subject pronoun or of the question marker -tu in Quebec French is only possible if no whphrase overtly realizes the interpretable interrogative feature. In Middle French, however, these two possibilities are not incompatible, a circumstance which suggests a structural difference between these two diachronic varieties. 5.2.7 The interrogative system of late Middle French As the above discussion of the Middle French interrogative variants has shown, there are two fundamental properties which distinguish this diachronic variety from the more recent varieties analyzed here (i.e. from nineteenth and twentieth century Quebec French): first, est-ce que appears as an independent complementizer both in yes/no questions and in wh‑questions. This suggests that the interrogative system represented by the fifteenth to seventeenth century data still makes use of the CP-level to accommodate this question marker. However, the emergence of Complex inversion and the disappearance of Simple inversion indicate that already in this period, the inflected verb no longer moves to C0. Based on these observations, the structure of the Middle French interrogative system can be represented as follows (cf. (284)):

29. When parenthetical expressions occur, they often separate the wh-word from the est-ce que particle (cf. (i)). Yet, this is not always the case (cf. (ii)). In the latter example, the parenthesis actually splits up the est-ce que particle. Since this sentence involves the wh-word que, I consider it to be an indicator for the affixation of /εs/ to que, yielding the grammaticalized unit /kεs/, already in seventeenth century French. Such cases can be accounted for in the same way as contemporary French interrogatives such as example (169) on page 155. (i) Et comment doncques est ce qu’on rechasse les moynes de toutes bonnes compaignies, les appellans trouble-feste, comme abeilles cassent les freslons d’entour leurs rousches? “How is it, then, that they exclude the monks from all good companies, calling them feast-troublers, marrers of mirth, and disturbers of all civil conversation, as the bees drive away the drones from their hives?” (Rabelais.121, translation: Urquhart & Motteux, see above) (ii) Qu’est-ce donc qu’il y a? “What’s there then?” (Molière.204)

 Grammatical Variation across Space and Time CP C’

Spec [int] Co

TP TP

Spec [int] Spec

T’ T0 [uint]

vP Spec

v’ v0

VP Spec

wh-phrase ECQ

e

subject

verb

subject

verb

V’ V0

DP

verb

wh-phrase

Wh – Pronominal inversion (284) a. [CP comment[INT] [C' C0 [TP e[INT] [TP vous [T’ les trouvez-vous[uINT] [νP vous [ν’ trouvez [VP [V’ trouvez [AP comment]]]]]]]]]]? “How do you find them?” (Molière.108) Wh – Stylistic/Free inversion b. [CP qu’[INT] [C' est ce que[uINT] [TP [TP pro [T’ veut [dire [νP ce fol [ν’ veut dire [VP [V’ veut dire [DP que]]]]]]]]]]]? “What does this fool want to say?” (Rabelais.202) Wh – Stylistic/Free inversion (passives & unaccusatives) b’. [CP où[INT] [C' C0 [TP e[INT] [TP pro [T’ est[uINT] [escript [νP Ø [ν’ est escript [VP [V’ est escript [DP cela [PP où]]]]]]]]]]]]? “Where is this written?” (Rabelais.125)



Chapter 5.  Interpretation and discussion of the results 

Wh – Complex inversion c. [CP sous quel astre[INT] [C' C0 [TP e[INT] [TP ton maître [T’ a-t-il[uINT] [reçu [νP ton maître [ν’ a reçu [VP [V’ reçu [DP le jour [PP sous quel astre]]]]]]]]]]]]? “Under which star has your master seen the light of day?” (Molière.49.153) Wh – est-ce que d. [CP comment[INT] [C' est ce qu’[uINT] [TP [TP on [T’ peut [souffrir [νP on [ν’ peut souffrir [VP [V’ peut souffrir [DP la pensée de coucher contre un homme vraiment nu [AP comment]]]]]]]]]]]]? “How can one endure the thought of lying by the side of a man, who is really naked?” (Molière.103, source of the translation: David Moynihan, D. Garcia, Charles Franks, www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext04/8prtl10.txt, July 29, 2008) Wh – wh-fronting (subject DP) e. [CP Pourquoy[INT] [C' C0 [TP e[INT] [TP Nabuzardan, maistre cuisinier du roy Nabugodonosor [T’ feut[uINT] [entre tous aultres capitaines [esleu [νP Ø [ν’ feut esleu [VP [V’ esleu [DP Nabuzardan, maistre cuisinier du roy Nabugodonosor [InfP pour assieger et ruiner Hierusalem]]]]]]]]]]]]]? “Why was Nabuzardan, King Nebuchadnezzar’s head-cook, chosen to the exclusion of all other captains to besiege and destroy Jerusalem?” (Rabelais.165, translation: en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Fourth_Book /Chapter_XXXIX, July 18, 2008) Wh – wh-fronting (pronominal subject) e. [CP Où[INT] [C' C0 [TP e[INT] [TP il [T’ est[uINT] [νP il [ν’ est [VP [V’ est [PP où]]]]]]]]]]? “Where is he?” (Farce.513) Yes/no – Pronominal inversion f. [CP[INT] [C' C0 [TP e[INT] [TP je [T’ pourrais-je[uINT] [vous haïr [νP je [ν’ pourrais haïr [VP [V’ pourrais haïr [DP vous]]]]]]]]]]? “Could I hate you?” (Corneille.288.1207)

 Grammatical Variation across Space and Time

Yes/no – Complex inversion g. [CP[INT] [C' C0 [TP e[INT] [TP ta mère [T’ est-elle[uINT] [morte [νP Ø [ν’ est morte [VP [V’ est morte [DP ta mère]]]]]]]]]]]? “Is your mother dead?” (Cnn.329.57) Yes/no – est-ce que h. [CP[INT] [C' est ce qu’[uINT] [TP [TP on [T’ fait [νP on [ν’ fait [VP [V’ fait [DP d’autres choses]]]]]]]]]]? “Does one do other things?” (Molière.183.582) Yes/no – intonation i. [CP[INT] [C' C0 [TP[INT] [TP le cœur [T’ te tremble[uINT] [νP le cœur [ν’ te tremble [VP [V’ tremble [DP te ]]]]]]]]]]? “Does your heart tremble?” (Corneille.549.1126) The interrogative system displayed above accounts for the fifteenth to seventeenth century data analyzed here, or – more precisely – for that developmental stage in which est-ce que questions and Complex inversion have already made appearance and Simple inversion has vanished. (284)a. through (284)e’. show instances of whquestions and (284)f. through (284)i. instances of yes/no questions, respectively. It is important to emphasize that between the interrogative system displayed in (284) and the one of contemporary Quebec French (cf. (265) on page 323) are a few but decisive differences. First of all, the occurrence of a postverbal subject pronoun is much more widespread than in contemporary Quebec French (and reportedly also more widespread than in contemporary European French). Contrary to the nineteenth and twentieth century data, postverbal pronouns are not restricted to yes/no questions. They also occur in wh-questions. However, they are restricted to Complex inversion (cf. (284)c. and g.) and to Pronominal inversion (cf. (284)a. and f.). They are excluded from interrogatives making use of the question marker est-ce que (cf. (284)d. and h.). They also cannot stand in the thematic position of the subject, SpecνP, as in Stylistic inversion (cf. (284)b.). The structure displayed in (284) shows base-generation of the pronominal subject in SpecνP where I take it to be associated with the θ-role of the agent. It then moves to the inner SpecTP from where it attaches to the finite verb as a phonological enclitic in order to get associated with the uninterpretable interrogative feature in T0. At a later stage, the subject pronoun turns into a syntactic clitic and, ultimately, into a morphological agreement marker, serving as the spell-out of this interrogative feature. In that case, one would need to assume that the inner SpecTP is occupied by



Chapter 5.  Interpretation and discussion of the results 

pro. The occurrence of Complex inversion in late Middle French suggests that one would already need to assume the achievement of this later stage. Complex inversion occurs both in yes/no (cf. (284)g.) and in wh-questions (cf. (284)c.). As I have argued for above, this variant should be analyzed along the same lines as the contemporary interrogatives with the -tu question marker. Yet, the latter is restricted to yes/no questions only. I will briefly address the question as to why the subject DP of (284)b’. is located in the complement position of the verb (under the DP node) and not in SpecVP. (284)b’. is a passive construction. This entails that no external theta role is assigned to the subject position (SpecνP), cf. Burzio (1986). The DP cela is base-generated as the direct object of écrire and therefore as the internal argument of this verb. The situation is different in (284)b. where no passive (or unaccusative) construction is involved. The subject DP ce fol appears in its in situ position SpecνP. 5.2.8 SpecCP – SpecTP: An A’-chain The main difference between the interrogative system displayed in (284) and the one of contemporary Quebec French in (265) is the involvement of the CP level. In Classical French wh-questions, the wh-phrase is located in SpecCP. In yes/no questions, this position is arguably filled by an empty interrogative operator. C0 may optionally be occupied by the grammaticalized question marker /εsk(ә)/. Concerning the TP projection, I suggest that, just as in contemporary Quebec French, it realizes two specifiers: an outer A’-specifier containing a wh-variable which is bound by the wh-operator in SpecCP and an inner A-specifier hosting the subject. The idea behind postulating such a configuration is Rizzi’s (1996) whcriterion: the interrogative feature generated in T0 must be checked locally in order for the derivation to converge. In Classical French, this requirement may be fulfilled in two different ways. One possibility is that the (uninterpretable) interrogative feature stays in T0 and is phonetically realized by a postverbal subject pronoun. In this case, it is checked and deleted against the interpretable interrogative feature of the variable located in the outer SpecTP (cf. (284)a., c., f. and g.). The locality of this checking relation is ascertained via the operator-variable chain established between SpecCP and the outer SpecTP. In other words, although the wh-word is overtly realized in a position where it does not enter into a specifierhead agreement relation with the inflectional head bearing the uninterpretable interrogative feature, the necessity that the wh-criterion be (locally) satisfied at the TP-level is met by means of this chain. The interpretable interrogative feature [INT] percolates down to the variable. In (284), the assumption that the chain [CP wh[INT] [TP e[INT] … ]] contains just one interrogative feature which extends to both specifier positions is displayed by assigning both positions the superscript [INT].

 Grammatical Variation across Space and Time

This [wh]-chain is a specific property of Classical French and it allows for the second possibility, namely the attraction of the uninterpretable interrogative feature from T0 to C0. Hence, the wh-criterion may optionally be fulfilled either at the TPlevel or at the CP-level. In the latter case, the grammaticalized interrogative complementizer /εsk(ә)/ is inserted into C0 as a phonetic realization of this feature which is (locally) checked and deleted against the wh-operator in SpecCP (cf. (284)d. and h.). The assumption of a [wh]-chain between the CP and the TP bears some similarities with the accounts made by Drijkoningen (1990) and de Wind (1995) arguing in favor of a tense chain, as well as with the non-local [Iota] feature checking relation proposed by Noonan (1989). All of these authors attempt to provide an explanation for an arguably non-local feature checking relationship. The non-occurrence of Complex and Pronominal inversion in embedded clauses may be explained by the fact that the embedded C0 is lexically selected by the matrix verb. This destroys the [wh]-chain between the operator in SpecCP and the variable in SpecTP. The inverted pronoun cannot check and delete its uninterpretable interrogative feature in these cases. A comparable account has been put forward by the authors who assume that the verb only moves as far as T0 (e.g. de Wind 1995). 5.2.9 Free and Stylistic inversion in fifteenth to seventeenth century French Among the variants which make use of neither an inverted subject pronoun nor the question marker /εsk(ә)/ is Stylistic (or Free) inversion, cf. (285). (285) Que me vient donc conter ce coquin assuré? “What has just told me this confident scoundrel?” (Molière.89.1027) This variant features a postverbal subject DP which follows participles and infinitives (as opposed to Simple inversion which features a postverbal subject DP which precedes these elements). Table 48 on page 159 shows that in the fifteenth to seventeenth century data, interrogative sentences containing a nominal subject virtually always realize this subject in a postverbal position. There are only some isolated exceptions in the texts by Rabelais (three instances of wh-fronting, and two instances of wh-est-ce que), Corneille (two instances of Complex inversion), and by Molière (nine instances of Complex inversion, and one instance of wh-est-ce que). Superficially, Stylistic and Free inversion look the same: the nominal subject occurs in an inverted position where it follows non-finite parts of the verb. Historically, Stylistic inversion is assumed to be the linguistically constrained residual heritage of once productive Free inversion which was a feature of Old French (Roberts 1993: 216–219). Old French was a null subject language (just like Modern French,



Chapter 5.  Interpretation and discussion of the results 

as I assume; but this is more controversial) and hence allowed for Free inversion as all other Modern Romance null subject languages do (except for Modern French, of course). The preverbal null subject was licensed by rich verbal agreement. The subject could remain in situ, i.e. in SpecνP. According to Roberts (1993: 219), instances of Free inversion could be found until the late sixteenth or the early seventeenth century. From that time on, this interrogative variant has supposedly been subject to the constraints which turned them into Stylistic inversion. Stylistic inversion is subject to several distributional constraints which de Wind (1995: 155–162) summarizes. I briefly refer to them here. In addition to interrogative contexts, Stylistic inversion may be found in relative, exclamative, and subjunctive clauses (cf. de Wind 1995: 155, citing Kayne & Pollock 1978: 596, examples below are taken therefrom). (286) La maison [où habite cet homme] est très jolie. “The house where this man lives is very pretty.” (287) Quels beaux visages ont ces jeunes femmes! what beautiful faces have these young women “These young ladies are so beautiful!” (288) Je veux que parte Paul. “I want Paul to leave.” The main difference between Free and Stylistic inversion concerns their distributional properties: contemporary Stylistic inversion is excluded from yes/no questions and from contexts in which the verb selects a direct object. (289)

* Est parti Jean? is left Jean “Did Jean leave?” (de Wind 1995: 156)

(290) a. * Quand a mangé la pomme Jean? when has eaten the apple Jean (de Wind 1995: 154) b.

* Quand a mangé Jean la pomme? when has eaten Jean the apple “When did Jean eat the apple?” (de Wind 1995: 154)

However, it does not necessarily yield ungrammatical results with other kinds of verbal complements. Licit structures are obtained when the postverbal subject DP is preceded either by an infinitival clause selected by the inflected verb (e.g. by a modal

 Grammatical Variation across Space and Time

or an auxiliary, cf. (291)), by object clitics or wh-objects (cf. (292)), by predicative adjectives (cf. (293)), or by VP-adverbs such as souvent and toujours (cf. (294)). (291) Où voulait aller ton ami? “Where did your friend want to go?” (Kayne 1972: 104, cited in: de Wind 1995: 157) (292) a. Qu’i a mange ti Jean? “What has Jean eaten?” (de Wind 1995: 160) b. ?? Quand lesi lira ti votre fils? “When will your son read them?” (de Wind 1995: 160) (293) ? Quand deviendra célèbre ce comédien? “When will this comedian become famous?” (Kayne 1972: 72, cited in: de Wind 1995: 161) (294) ? A qui a parlé souvent Jean? “To whom does Jean often speak?” (de Wind 1995: 161) Licit instances of Stylistic inversion also involve cases in which the subject DP is followed by subordinate (CP-)clauses (cf. (295)), by PP-complements of the verb (cf. (296)), or by sentence adverbs including temporal and place adverbials such as hier (cf. (297) and de Wind 1995: 155–162). (295) A qui a dit Jacques que Marie était venue? “To whom has Jacques said that Marie had arrived?” (Friedemann 1991: 158, in de Wind 1995: 158) (296) Qu’a dit Jean à Marie? “What has Jean said to Marie?” (de Wind 1995: 159) (297) A qui a parlé Jean hier? “With whom did Jean speak yesterday?” (de Wind 1995: 161) This picture is further complicated by Korzen’s (1983) generalization, according to which “[a] complement can follow the postverbal subject only, if this complement originates to the right of the canonical position of the Wh-phrase.” (de Wind 1995: 170, citing Friedemann 1991). This is the case in example (298), but not in (299). Kayne (1986) rephrases this condition in terms of a constraint on the



Chapter 5.  Interpretation and discussion of the results 

extraposition of a PP to the right: this extraposition must not cross the movement of the wh-constituent to the left. (298) Qu’a envoyé Jean à Marie? “What did Jean send to Marie?” (Friedemann 1991: 158, in de Wind 1995: 170) (299) * Quand a parlé Jean à Marie? “When did Jean speak to Mary?” (Kayne 1972: 71, in de Wind 1995: 159) Free inversion, on the other hand, does not appear to be subject to the same constraints as Stylistic inversion, as example (1)c. on page 3 (repeated here as (300)) shows. (300) Feroient pis et acte plus cruel les Gothz, les Scythes, les Massagetes en place ennemie, par longtemps assiegé, à grands frays oppugnée, prinse par force? “Could the Goths, the Scyths, or Massagets do a worse or more cruel act to any of the inhabitants of a hostile city, when, after the loss of many of their most considerable commanders, the expense of a great deal of money, and a long siege, they shall have stormed and taken it by a violent and impetuous assault?” (Rabelais.525, translation: Urquhart & Motteux, see above) The interrogative sentence in (300) is a yes/no question in which the verb selects a direct object (i.e. pis et acte plus cruel, ‘a worse or more cruel act’). These two properties would rule out this sentence from contemporary varieties of French.30 In the fifteenth to seventeenth century data, only three instances of this type could be found (all in Rabelais’ Gargantua). All three appear in a rhetorically highly marked context and feature a heavy subject. The remainder of the questions structurally qualifying for Free inversion are wh-questions and all follow the constraints presented above for Stylistic inversion. In other words, the data sources I have consulted did not provide evidence for the productive application of Free inversion. When discussing the instances of Stylistic or Free inversion in the fifteenth to seventeenth century data later, I therefore only refer to them as Stylistic inversion, assuming that by the time of late Middle and Classical French, the grammatical option permitting for Free inversion had already disappeared.

30. Sentence (300) involves a heavy subject NP which is generally known to weaken (or even abrogate) many of the distributional restrictions of contemporary Stylistic inversion. However, it has been shown that in cases where the verb selects a direct object or an NP-complement, even a heavy subject may hardly lift the ungrammaticality of the resulting interrogative sentence (de Wind 1995: 160).

 Grammatical Variation across Space and Time

5.2.9.1 Stylistic inversion: previous analyses.  In this section, I provide an overview of the previous accounts in the literature of Stylistic inversion before examining the tokens of this variant in the fifteenth to seventeenth century data. Kayne (1972), working in the framework of Extended Standard Theory (Chomsky 1972, Jackendoff 1972), states that subjects in French always consist of both a subject noun and a coreferential subject pronoun. He proposes an operation whereby two transformational rules apply: the first moves the subject complex into a clause final position and the second deletes the pronoun. In order to rule out Stylistic inversion from all non-wh or non-subjunctive contexts, Kayne & Pollock (1978) add a filter to this transformation which excludes it from all contexts where no respective trigger is immediately adjacent to the verb. Pollock (1986) claims that the inverted subject DP is derived by means of subject movement to SpecTP and subsequent adjunction to the right of VP, turning the trace in SpecTP into a variable. Kayne & Pollock (1978), Pollock (1986) (301) [CP Que [C' fait [TP la princesse [T’ fait [VP [V’ la princesse [V’ fait [DP que]]] la princesse]]]]] “What is the princess doing?” Contrary to these authors, Déprez (1990) assumes that in Stylistic inversion the subject DP stays in its base-generated verbal phrase internal position. Evidence for this hypothesis is provided by the following observations: if the subject appeared in an adjoined position, its trace would constitute an anaphor which needs to be bound by the subject in its own maximal projection. Hence the subject can only right-adjoin to the TP. This however would rule out (contrary to fact) interrogative sentences in which the wh-word combien is extracted from the subject constituent since the trace would remain ungoverned: (302) Combieni veut-il que soit dépensé [ti d’argent] “How much money does he want to be spent?” (adapted from: Déprez 1990: 52) Rightward adjunction of the subject would also leave the occurrence of Stylistic inversion in embedded clauses unexplained in which an expletive subject occurs just in front of the inflected verb in addition to the postverbal subject DP which has obviously not vacated its base position. (303) Le juge ne veut pas qu’il soit procédé a la révision de ce procès “The judge doesn’t want an appeal of this lawsuit to being carried out.” (adapted from: Déprez 1990: 52)



Chapter 5.  Interpretation and discussion of the results 

Finally, the fact that heavy NP shift occurs without a trigger demands for a structurally different account as opposed to Stylistic inversion. Déprez (1990) presents two arguments in favor of the VP-internal localization of the postverbal subject DP: she observes that individual level predicates are ruled out from Stylistic inversion (contrary to stage level predicates): Individual level predicate (304) ??Que comprennent les gens? “What do the people understand?” (adapted from: Déprez 1990: 54) (305)

Stage level predicate Qu’achètent les consommateurs? “What do the consumers buy?” (adapted from: Déprez 1990: 55)

Referring to Diesing (1988) and Kratzer (1995), the author states that only stage level predicates may occur in a VP-internal position. The restriction of Stylistic inversion to stage level predicates hence can be taken as an indicator for their localization in SpecVP. Another argument is provided by the incompatibility of Stylistic inversion with the subject-oriented floating quantifier tous. (306) *Qu’ont tous fait les enfants? “What have done all the children?” (adapted from: Déprez 1990: 56) Based on the assumption that this quantifier can be stranded in the subject’s base position (cf. Sportiche 1988), its non-occurrence in Stylistic inversion may be interpreted in terms of competition of both the quantifier and the postverbal subject DP for the same structural position, namely SpecVP.31 According to Déprez (1990), the specifier of the inflectional projection is occupied by an empty subject pronoun pro which is formally licensed by the verbal head in C0. Since Stylistic inversion is grammatical even in subordinate clauses, the author assumes that the wh-word occupies SpecCP and that the verb moves up to C0 here as well.

31. In Déprez’s (1990) account, SpecνP was not yet considered to be the position in which the subject was associated with its agent θ-role.

 Grammatical Variation across Space and Time

With regard to the ungrammaticality obtained by direct objects and NP-complements in Stylistic inversion, Déprez (1990) formulates a restriction on the number of constituents which can receive Case from the verb to only one. In Stylistic inversion with a transitive verb, either the subject or the object remains without Case. Déprez (1990) (307) [CP Que [C' fait [TP pro [T’ fait [VP la princesse [V’ fait [DP que]]]]]]] Friedemann (1991) agrees with Déprez (1990) when positing that the inverted subject DP occurs within VP. However, he derives the postverbal position of the subject by stating that the specifier hosting this subject branches to the right of VP. The author provides evidence in favor of this assumption from the language production of two-year-old children which contains inverted subject DPs, as well as from the clause-final localization of the stressed form of the subject-oriented floating quantifier tous (cf. Sportiche 1988)32. PPs that follow the inverted subject DP are analyzed as being extraposed. Extraposition to the right only yields a licit result, if it does not entail movement across the base position of the fronted whphrase (cf. Korzen’s (1983) generalization and Kayne’s (1986) Crossing Constraint). Instead of limiting the number of constituents which can receive Case by the verb to just one, Friedemann (1991) proposes a linear adjacency requirement between the Case assigner (the verb) and the Case assignee (the subject). An intervening object would be left without Case. An object which follows the subject would violate the Crossing Constraint by moving across the trace of the wh-phrase. Friedemann (1991) (308) [CP Que [C' C0 [TP pro [T’ fait [VP [V’ fait [DP que]] la princesse]]]]] Another analysis arguing in favor of a VP-internal subject DP is provided by Valois & Dupuis (1992). They suppose that SpecVP branches to the left and that all verbal complements necessarily follow the inverted subject. They derive the localization of heavy subject DPs in a rightmost position by positing a rightward adjunction of these subjects to the inflectional projection (after movement through its specifier). Direct objects and other lexical DP complements of the verb are 32. Friedemann (1991: 163) argues that participles move out of the lexical domain. The unstressed form of the quantifier tous appears in between the auxiliary and the participle (cf. (i)). Hence, it must also have abandoned the lexical domain. The stressed form, however, appears in sentence-final position (even following direct objects, cf. (ii)) and therefore in the right-branching SpecVP: (i) Il a tout dit à Marie. “He told Marie everything.” (ii) Les enfants ont vu ce film TOUS. “All the children have seen this film.”



Chapter 5.  Interpretation and discussion of the results 

excluded by means of a Minimality Condition on Case-assignment, whereby “an NP cannot be assigned structural Case if another potential Case-assignee intervenes between that NP and the Case-assigner.” (Valois & Dupuis 1992: 332) Valois & Dupuis (1992) (309) [CP Que [C' C0 [TP pro [T’ fait [VP la princesse [V’ fait [DP que]]]]]]] De Wind (1995: 183–195) provides some evidence that in Stylistic inversion the inverted subject DP is inside VP: first, the subject oriented floating quantifier tous binds a variable which coincides with the base position of the subject.33 Since Stylistic inversion is incompatible with this quantifier, the subject’s localization is most probably in SpecVP, hence preventing the establishment of the binding relationship (cf. Déprez 1990: 56). (310) *Qu’ont tous fait les enfants? “What have done all the children?” (adapted from: de Wind 1995: 184, citing Déprez 1990: 56) Second, the possessive pronoun son in the grammatical sentence (311)a. must be bound by a c‑commanding co-indexed PP-complement (à chaque garcon, which has moved somewhere into the functional domain). This requirement is fulfilled if son ami is located in SpecVP, but not if it is extracted and adjoined to the right (as Pollock (1986) proposes). Furthermore, the ungrammatical sentence (311)b. provides evidence that the subject DP is in a left-branching SpecVP (contrary to what Friedemann (1991) assumes). If SpecVP branched to the right, (311)b. would be predicted to be grammatical since extraposition of à chaque garçon to a VP-adjoined position would preserve the required binding relation. In an account where son ami stays in situ (i.e. in its base-generated argument position), (311)b. is correctly ruled out because the binder is structurally lower than the bindee and therefore does not c-command it. (311) a. Qu’a donné à chaque garçoni soni ami? “What has given to each boy his friend?” (adapted from: de Wind 1995: 188) b. *Qu’a donné soni ami à chaque garçoni? “What has given his friend to each boy?” (adapted from: de Wind 1995: 189)

33. Here, the author deviates in his argumentation from other authors (e.g. Déprez 1990) who explain the ungrammaticality of sentences such as (310) with the base position of the quantifier itself (and not with its variable).

 Grammatical Variation across Space and Time

Finally, de Wind (1995:  191–195) argues that syntactic derivations do not converge if the wh‑constituent is located in between its base position and its target, SpecCP (contrary to à chaque garcon in (311)a.). Based on this assertion, the grammaticality contrast in (312) should be the other way around if SpecVP branched to the right. Only a left-branching SpecVP account correctly predicts the grammaticality of (312)a. and the ungrammaticality of (312)b. (312) a. Qu’a dit qui à qui? “What has said who to whom?” (adapted from: de Wind 1995: 194) b *Qu’a dit à qui qui? “What has said to whom who?” (adapted from: de Wind 1995: 193) With regard to the problematic cases of Stylistic inversion with heavy NP subjects (compare (313)a. with an ordinary subject and (313)b. with a heavy subject), de Wind (1995: 195–200) presents arguments against accounts according to which the NP subject stays in situ and all other constituents move to the functional domain (and hence move across the subject). (313) a. Quand a dit Marie que Paul était malade? when has said Marie that Paul was ill “When has Marie said that Paul was ill?” b. Quand ont dit que Paul était malade tous les étudiants de la classe de Marie? when have said that Paul was ill all the students from the class of Marie “When have all the students from Marie’s class said that Paul was ill?” (adapted from: de Wind 1995: 196) Instead, he proposes (following Kayne’s (1994) account for right-dislocation) that the whole interrogative clause occupies the specifier position of a functional head, while the heavy NP subject is located in the complement position of this head (cf. (314)). The subject of sentences such as (313)b. is pro, generated in SpecVP, licensed in SpecAgrSP and formally identified by the heavy NP-subject. (314) [FP [CP quand [C' C0 [AgrSP pro [AgrS’ ont [AgrOP [AgrO’ ont dit [VP pro [V’ ont dit [CP que Paul était malade]]]]]]]]] [F’ F0 [NP tous les étudiants de la classe de Marie]]] (cf. de Wind 1995: 200)



Chapter 5.  Interpretation and discussion of the results 

In ordinary cases of Stylistic inversion (i.e. in which the subject-NP is not heavy), AgrS0 does not license a specifier, according to de Wind (1995: 201–203). AgrS0 checks the [wh] feature non-locally against the wh-phrase in SpecCP (cf. (315)). The author explains the ungrammaticality of Stylistic inversion in yes/no questions with the requirement that AgrS0 be bound by an overtly filled SpecCP specified for [+wh]. Whereas in wh-questions, the interrogative operator which binds the inflectional head is located in SpecCP, de Wind (1995: 217–218) assumes it to be in C0 in yes/no questions. A reason for this assumption is the position of wh-phrases and operators in embedded interrogatives, where they are lexically selected by the verb of the matrix clause. In these cases, wh-operators are supposedly located in SpecCP whereas yes/no operators are located in C0 (cf. (316) and (317)). Since the inflectional head (lacking a specifier) needs to be bound by SpecCP[+wh] in Stylistic inversion, this requirement cannot be fulfilled in yes/no questions where SpecCP is empty (and where C0 hosts the interrogative operator). (315) [CP Qu’ [C' C0 [AgrS’ a [AgrOP [AgrO’ a dit [VP Jean [V’ a dit [PP à Marie ]]]]]]]] (adapted from: de Wind 1995: 204) “What has Jean said to Marie?” (316) Je me demande [CP quand [C' C0 [AgrS’ est [AgrOP [AgrO’ est venu [VP Jean [V’ est venu]]]]]]] “I ask myself when Jean has come.” (317) Je me demande [CP [C' si [AgrSP Jean [AgrS’ est [AgrOP [AgrO’ est venu [VP [V’ est venu]]]]]]]] “I ask myself whether Jean has come.” (adapted from: de Wind 1995: 203) When it comes to checking the nominative [Case] feature, de Wind (1995: 204–207) states that under the influence of a C0 head specified for [+wh], this feature can optionally become weak, hence accounting both for Complex inversion (where the nominative feature is strong and the subject moves) and for Stylistic inversion (where this feature is weak and the subject stays in situ). This line of reasoning, however, is not very convincing. If the question as to whether the [Case] feature is weak or whether it is strong really depended on the specification of the complementizer as [+wh], one would expect subject movement to be absent from all clauses whose complementizer is specified as [+wh], and hence from all interrogative clauses. In other words, relating the strength of the subject’s [Case] feature to the feature specification of C0 does not solve the problem as to why subject movement is possible (as in Complex and Pronominal inversion), but need not apply (as in Stylistic inversion). In all of these cases, the feature composition of C0 appears to be the same.

 Grammatical Variation across Space and Time

De Wind (1995: 207–215) adapts Korzen’s (1983) generalization and Kayne’s (1986) Crossing Constraint to the Minimalist framework. Instead of making reference to rightward extraction, de Wind (1995: 209) states that the movement of the wh-phrase to SpecCP is blocked when it is preceded both by a subject DP and by an object DP situated themselves in their base position in the lexical domain (cf. (318)). As soon as either one of them moves up into the functional domain, the barrier is lifted and the wh-phrase can move to SpecCP (cf. (319)). (318) * [CP À qui [AgrS’ donne [VP Marie [V’ donne [DP le cadeau [PP à qui]]]]]]? “To whom does Marie give the present?” (319) [CP À qui [AgrS’ le donne [VP Marie [V’ donne [DP le [PP à qui]]]]]]? “To whom does Marie give it?” (cf. de Wind 1995: 208,210) Another proposal according to which the inverted subject DP remains in situ has been made by Alexiadou & Anagnostopoulou (2001, 2007). The authors propose a universal constraint (the Subject-in-situ generalization) which requires that “[b]y Spell-Out, νP […] contain only one argument with a structural Case feature.” (Alexiadou & Anagnostopoulou, 2007: 31). They discuss the effects of this constraint in several languages. With regard to French Stylistic inversion, they adopt the arguments previously presented by other authors (in particular by Déprez 1990) when assuming that the postverbal subject DP remains in its base-generated νP-internal in-situ position. The observation that contrary to PP-complements (cf. (321)) a direct object yields ungrammaticality in Stylistic inversion (cf. (320)) is interpreted as an effect of this constraint: the former receives Case from the preposition and not from the verb. The latter, however, receives structural Case from the verb which turns it into a competitor with the subject in terms of the single structural Case assignment relation which is possible within νP. (320) *Je me demande quand achèteront les consommateurs les pommes. “I wonder when the consumers will buy the apples.” (321) ?Quand écrira ton frère à sa petite amie? “When will your brother write to his girlfriend?” (adapted from: Alexiadou & Anagnostopoulou (2007), examples (7) and (9)) Mayr (to appear) presents an account along the same lines. Based on evidence provided by coordination structures in relative clauses and by quantifier stranding, he argues that the postverbal subject in Stylistic inversion neither abandons its base position nor topicalizes into a right adjoined position. He claims instead that the postverbal subject remains in situ. The ungrammaticality of both a postverbal



Chapter 5.  Interpretation and discussion of the results 

direct object and a postverbal subject in Stylistic inversion is accounted for by assuming that verb movement to ν0 makes these two constituents non-probeable in their in situ positions. One of them needs to externalize, i.e. abandon its in situ position. Only then can a proper relation between the probe and the goal, in this case between the verb and the remaining VP-internal subject or object constituent, be re-established. Contrary to the accounts presented so far, Kayne & Pollock (2001) claim that the inverted subject in Stylistic inversion is not situated low in the lexical domain but rather high in some functional projection of the left periphery. In order to derive the postverbal position of the subject DP in Stylistic inversion, the authors assume a movement of the remnant IP with the vacated subject position across the displaced subject DP. Kayne & Pollock (2001) make the following proposal with regard to the derivational steps of Stylistic inversion34: (322) [IP Jean-SCL lui a téléphoné cette fille quand]  wh-movement to SpecXP [XP quand [X’ X0 [IP Jean-SCL lui a téléphoné cette fille quand]]]  Stylistic inversion subject raising to SpecFP (leaving behind the silent subject clitic) [FP Jean [F’ F0 [XP quand [X’ X0 [IP Jean-SCL lui a téléphoné cette fille quand]]]]]  movement of the remnant IP to SpecYP [YP [IP Jean-SCL lui a téléphoné cette fille quand] [Y’ Y0 [FP Jean [F’ F0 [XP quand [X’ X0 [IP Jean-SCL lui a téléphoné cette fille quand]]]]]]]  second wh-movement to SpecZP [ZP quand [Z’ Z0 [YP [IP Jean-SCL lui a téléphoné cette fille quand] [Y’ Y0 [FP Jean [F’ F0 [XP quand [X’ X0 [IP Jean-SCL lui a téléphoné cette fille quand]]]]]]]]] Kayne & Pollock (2001) provide some evidence that the postverbal subject DP in Stylistic inversion is neither located in its νP-internal base position nor in object position, but that it situates itself rather high up in the functional domain (in SpecFP). At this point, I briefly summarize the authors’ arguments in favor of this assumption.

34. SCL is the abbreviation for a silent subject clitic which supposedly always accompanies the subject DP. The authors do not consistently attribute the label YP to the functional projection which hosts the remnant IP in its specifier. Sometimes they refer to it as GP.

 Grammatical Variation across Space and Time

First, the postverbal subject DP is arguably not incompatible with a direct object, if this direct object is a bare quantifier, as the following relative clause demonstrates (cf. Kayne & Pollock 2001: 111 who regard this sentence as grammatical). (323) la fille à qui laissera sûrement quelque chose sa grand’mère “the girl to whom her grandmother will certainly leave something” (Kayne & Pollock 2001: 111, example (15)c.) This shows that the subject cannot occupy the object position. Second, extraction of the clitic en can only proceed towards a position from where it can c‑command its copy. This requirement is obviously not fulfilled in Stylistic inversion: (324) *A qui en ont téléphoné trois? “Whom have three of them called?” (Kayne & Pollock 2001: 112, example (19)b.) Third, the observation made in (324) that material in between the wh-phrase and the postverbal subject cannot c-command this subject is confirmed by the following (ungrammatical) sentence in which the quantifier peu cannot c-command the de-NP: (325) ?*Où sont peu partis de linguistes? “Where have few linguists left?” (Kayne & Pollock 2001: 114, example (27)b.) The same applies to negation particles: (326) *Quel livre n’ont pas lu de linguistes? “Which book have linguists not read?” (Kayne & Pollock 2001: 115, example (32)a.) Reflexive pronouns must be c-commanded by their antecedents. The previous examples have shown that the postverbal subject DP may not be c-commanded by its preceding lexical material. The converse, however, is possible, as the grammaticality of sentences in which the reflexive pronoun appears in between the relative pronoun and the postverbal subject DP shows: (327) le jour où s’est insulté Jean-Jacques “the day when Jean-Jacques insulted himself ” (Kayne & Pollock 2001: 116, example (36))



Chapter 5.  Interpretation and discussion of the results 

Another argument against the hypothesis that the postverbal subject is located in its base position stems from the fact that this subject has to be a third person subject if it is a strong pronoun: (328) a. Qu’a mangé LUI? “What has HE eaten?” (Kayne & Pollock 2001: 116, example (37)a.) b. *Qu’as mangé TOI? “What have YOU eaten?” (Kayne & Pollock 2001: 116, example (39)b.) As only third (and not first and second) person subject clitics may supposedly be phonetically silent, Kayne & Pollock (2001: 118) infer that Stylistic inversion involves a (preverbal) third person silent subject clitic in addition to the inverted subject DP35. The fact that the finite verb always agrees with the postverbal subject DP would be left unexplained if the subject remained in situ36: (329) Je crois que sont/*qu’est partis les linguistes “I believe that the linguists have left” (Kayne & Pollock 2001: 122, example (71)) Concerning the absence of Stylistic inversion from yes/no questions, Kayne & Pollock (2001: 126–127) state that the XP preceding the IP must be filled with lexical material (either by movement or by merge) before the subject can raise to SpecFP (i.e. the functional projection which precedes XP). In yes/no questions, XP remains phonetically empty which prevents subject movement to SpecFP. Another context which precludes the application of Stylistic inversion is clitic left dislocation (CLLD) into an IP-adjoined position: (330) *Ce livre-là l’a lu Marie “That book, Marie has read it” (Kayne & Pollock 2001: 133, example (124)b.)

35. Note that this clitic is not an expletive (cf. Kayne & Pollock 2001: 130–131). 36. With regard to this observation, Kayne & Pollock (2001: 123) state that “[…] this is straightforward since the postverbal S[tylistic ]I[nversion] subject in both types passes through [the] ordinary subject position prior to raising out of IP.[…]” However, this observation loses its explanatory value as an argument in favor of a structurally high position of the subject if one retains the assumption that Stylistic inversion contains a silent subject clitic. In principle, nothing would prevent the inflected verb from checking its agreement features against the silent subject clitic instead of the subject-DP.

 Grammatical Variation across Space and Time

Kayne & Pollock (2001: 133) interpret this finding by assuming that the topicalized phrase blocks subject movement to SpecFP. According to the authors, this account has the advantage of adequately describing the distributional patterns of Stylistic inversion without having to presuppose triggers such as the wh-word or the subjunctive mood. With regard to prepositional complements which may follow the postverbal subject DP without leading to ungrammaticality (cf. (331)a.), the authors adopt Korzen’s (1983) generalization and adapt it to their theoretical framework by assuming that the PP may be pied-piped by the wh-constituent on its first movement step to SpecXP, yielding the correct word order. They introduce a condition whereby this pied-piping is only possible if the wh-constituent situates itself in the initial position in the small clause which is pied-piped. This is the case in (331)a. where the small clause is que à Jean-Jacques, but not in (331)b. where it is à Marie quand (cf. Kayne & Pollock 2001: 137). (331) a. Qu’a avoué Pierre à Jean-Jacques? “What has Pierre confessed to Jean-Jacques?” (Kayne & Pollock 2001: 136, example (140)b.) b. ?Quand a parlé Jean à Marie? “When has Jean spoken with Marie?” (Kayne & Pollock 2001: 135, example (136)) The ungrammaticality of Stylistic inversion in sentences with direct objects is derived with reference to the assumption that “IP preposing [to SpecYP] results in a violation if IP contains a lexical argument [i.e. the direct object]” (Kayne & Pollock 2001: 141).37 In fact, this latter argument bears some similarities with de Wind’s (1995) account. The author stated that the simultaneous presence of both a direct object and a subject in the lexical domain constitutes a barrier for wh-movement. Abstracting away from the question as to whether the postverbal subject DP is located low (cf. de Wind 1995) or high (Kayne & Pollock 2001) in the clause structure, many analyses of Stylistic inversion hence converge on the statement that a lexical argument which is situated low in the structure may impede the movement of another constituent. 37. The authors account for the fact that the presence of an indirect object does not yield an ill-formed sentence (cf. (i)) by assuming that this indirect object may be topicalized in the course of derivation. The direct object, on the other hand, cannot topicalize. (i)

?Qu’a

donné à Marie Jean ? what has given to Marie Jean “What has Jean given to Marie?” (Kayne & Pollock 2001: 141, example (166))



Chapter 5.  Interpretation and discussion of the results 

Summing up this section about the previous accounts of Stylistic inversion in the literature, one may state that the majority of the studies assume that the subject DP stays in situ (in SpecVP or SpecνP, respectively, depending on the state of the theoretical framework) (cf. Alexiadou & Anagnostopoulou 2001, 2007, Déprez 1990, Friedemann 1991, Valois & Dupuis 1992, de Wind 1995); Kayne & Pollock (2001), however, depart from this assumption. All of the accounts discussed above face the difficulty of how to explain the ungrammaticality of Stylistic inversion with certain verbal complements, in particular with direct objects. The proposals range from simple filters which limit the number of potential Case assignees (cf. Déprez 1990) to more elaborate models (Alexiadou & Anagnostopoulou 2001, 2007). The analyses presented above all base their structural inferences on grammaticality judgments and crucially lack other empirical support. The role of Stylistic inversion in actual language use is addressed only marginally, if at all. In Section 5.1.6, it was shown that in contemporary Quebec French, most of the instances of Stylistic inversion are predicative questions, a phenomenon which has not been one of the major concerns of previous syntactic analyses although it has been acknowledged by experimental studies such as Zuckerman & Hulk (2001) who infer that Stylistic inversion can no longer be qualified as a productive syntactic option. As for late Middle and Classical French, the structural account of interrogatives provided in (284) on page 226 presupposes that the subject DP is localized in situ. In the next section, I discuss this assumption with regard to those instances of Stylistic inversion which were found in the data. 5.2.9.2 Stylistic inversion in fifteenth to seventeenth century French.  A look at the late Middle and early Modern French data from the fifteenth to the seventeenth century reveals that Stylistic inversion was clearly more productive at this time than in the nineteenth and twentieth century data38: Table 48 on page 159 shows that out of a total of 1,105 wh-questions (excluding from consideration those whose subject is the whphrase), 241 exhibit inversion of the subject DP which is more than one-fifth of the data (21.8%).39 235 tokens are instances of Stylistic inversion. I now address the question as to whether these cases of Stylistic inversion may already be considered as precursors of the present day situation in vernacular Quebec French. 38. As I mentioned earlier, the almost lack of unambiguous instances of Free inversion in the data (e.g. the occurrence of postverbal subject-DPs in yes/no questions and with direct objects) suggests that the relevant cases are for the most part already instances of Stylistic inversion. 39. Six tokens out of these 241 DP-inversions are instances of Simple inversion, cf. (i). (i) Comment seroit la folie antique abolie? “How would the ancient folly be abolished?” (Rabelais.266)

 Grammatical Variation across Space and Time

Let us first turn to the quantitative amount of predicative questions among the 235 cases of Stylistic inversion. There are no fewer than 109 instances of this question type (46.4%). This is almost half of the total (cf. (332) through (334)). (332) Où est ce livre? “Where is this book?” (Rabelais.405) (333) Quelle sera la fin de tant de travaulx et traverses? “What will be the end of so many works and crossing-overs?” (Rabelais.105) (334) Où sont vos maîtresses? “Where are your mistresses?” (Molière.102) The above examples show that contrary to nineteenth and twentieth century Quebec French, Stylistic inversion in predicative constructions was still possible in plural and singular contexts with verbs of various moods and tenses. In the more recent data sources, Stylistic inversion is restricted to the present tense and to third person singular subject DPs (cf. (247) through (263) on page 202). The remarkable number of predicative questions among all instances of Stylistic inversion, even in the fifteenth to seventeenth century French data, foreshadows the advancing linguistic restriction of this construction in later centuries. This is also a further argument justifying the comparison of the fifteenth to seventeenth century data with the (oral) RFQ and OH data. It is hence not the case that the literary data sources used here are only representative of a more formal, written variety of French (approaching the Standard). A further 31 instances of Stylistic inversion in the literary data sources co-occur with an unaccusative or a passive verb (13.2%), cf. (335) and (336). (335) d’où provient ma disgrâce? “From where does my disgrace stem?” (Corneille.265.597) (336) Sans elle comment seroit tirée l’eaue du puyz? “How would the water be pulled from the fountain without her?” (Rabelais.537) In the literature, it has been argued that the subject of an unaccusative or passive verb may appear in object position in inversion contexts since it is base-generated as the thematic object of the verb (cf. the “unaccusative hypothesis”, Belletti & Leonini 2004, Burzio 1986, Perlmutter 1978). Kayne & Pollock (2001) state that a considerable number of the constraints which they propose to characterize Stylistic



Chapter 5.  Interpretation and discussion of the results 

inversion do not apply to interrogative sentences containing an unaccusative verb. It thus makes sense to treat questions such as (335) and (336) apart from the remainder of the tokens featuring Stylistic inversion. In the fifteenth to seventeenth century French data, there are 95 cases of Stylistic inversion left (40.4%) which neither fall into the category of predicatives nor into the class of unaccusatives and passives. 63 tokens among these feature a whword which is the direct object of the verb (26.8% out of all tokens displaying Stylistic inversion and 66.3% out of all tokens displaying Stylistic inversion and not containing an unaccusative, passive, or copula verb), cf. (337). (337) Que me veut donc par là conter ce maître ivrogne? “What does this drunk master want to tell me by this?” (Molière.115.189) This is in agreement with what has been reported for Stylistic inversion in contemporary French, i.e. direct objects are compatible with this kind of inversion if they move out of the lexical domain either as an object clitic or in consequence of whmovement (cf. Alexiadou & Anagnostopoulou 2001, Kayne & Pollock 2001, de Wind 1995, among others). As was said above, the consensus in the literature is that the subject DP in Stylistic inversion is located in its in situ position in SpecVP (or SpecνP in more recent terms). Exceptions to this unanimous assumption are early accounts which suppose rightward movement of the subject (Kayne & Pollock 1978) and later accounts which rather suppose topicalization of the subject into the left periphery (Kayne & Pollock 2001). In the structure (284) which I proposed to account for the Middle French interrogative system (cf. page 226), I tacitly adopted this assumption. Kayne & Pollock (2001) present empirical evidence that the subject does not situate itself low in the structure. However, they also state that their generalizations apply to a formal variety of (Standard) French. Therefore the question arises as to whether my assumption of the νP-internal localization of the subject DP has to be revised or not. In the beginning of this section, I showed that most of the instances of Stylistic inversion found in the fifteenth to seventeenth century data fall into the classes of predicative, unaccusative, or passive constructions, a fact which has not received much attention by either Kayne & Pollock (2001) or by the other syntactic analyses. This might be an indicator that the patterns of actual usage of this variant are perhaps subject to different structural constraints from those which have been proposed and discussed by the authors. In the following, I therefore turn to the arguments presented by Kayne & Pollock (2001) in favor of a structurally high localization of the postverbal subject DP and against its localization in object or in situ position, and I evaluate whether the fifteenth to seventeenth century data comply with these constraints or not.

 Grammatical Variation across Space and Time

There are a number of questions involving both Stylistic inversion and a direct object of the verb which clearly show that the subject DP is not in object position. This confirms the authors’ assertion. (338) Qu’eût produit son éclat que de la défiance? “What else than distrust had his glossiness produced?” (Corneille.537.837) (339) Pourquoy en ce temps, non plus tard, print.fin l’antique folie? “Why did the old folly end now, and no later?” (Rabelais.266, translation: Urquhart & Motteux, see above) (340) Comment doncques eussent peu entendre ces vieulx resveurs le texte des loix, qui jamais ne virent bon livre de langue latine, comme manifestement appert à leur stile, qui est stille de ramonneur de cheminée ou de cuysinier et marmiteux, non de jurisconsulte? “How then could these old dotards be able to understand aright the text of the laws who never in their time had looked upon a good Latin book, as doth evidently enough appear by the rudeness of their style, which is fitter for a chimney-sweeper, or for a cook or a scullion, than for a jurisconsult and doctor in the laws?” (Rabelais.226, translation: Urquhart & Motteux, see above) (341) A quel propous luy departiroit le soleil sa lumiere? “For to what end should the sun impart unto her any of his light?” (Rabelais.366, translation: Urquhart & Motteux, see above) (342) Voire mais (dis-je), mon amy, comment a nom ceste ville où tu portes vendre tes choulx? “Yea but, said I, my friend, what is the name of that city whither thou carriest thy coleworts to sell?” (Rabelais.330, translation: Urquhart & Motteux, see above) Only the examples (338), (340), and (341) may count as true evidence against the incompatibility of direct objects with Stylistic inversion. Prendre fin (in (339)) and avoir nom (in (342)) are most probably fixed locutions (in view of their lack of an article). Whatever the exact mechanism of the constraint is which rules out such sentences from Modern French Stylistic inversion (cf. the different proposals in the literature outlined in Section 5.2.9.1), these cases seem to be residues of a state of the grammar which still allowed the co-occurrence of postverbal subject DPs with object DPs (hence cases of Free inversion).



Chapter 5.  Interpretation and discussion of the results 

The argument that a reflexive pronoun in a position preceding its antecedent (i.e. the postverbal subject DP) may be c-commanded by it seems to be confirmed. Seven such cases could be found in the fifteenth to seventeenth century data: (343) Où donc s’est retiré cet objet de mes vœux? “Where then has this object left from my wishes?” (Molière.165.290) (344) Comme est-ce que chez moi s’est introduit cet homme? “How did this man get into my place?” (Molière.181.400) (345) Et de quelle indiscrétion / Ne s’accompagne point ton ardeur déréglée? “And which indiscretion does not accompany your unbalanced ardor?” (Corneille.415.851) (346) A quoi se résoudra désormais ma colère, / Si ta punition te tient lieu de salaire? “Into what will my anger resolve, if your punishment serves you as salary?” (Corneille.400.401) (347) Comment se pourte la santé? “How is the health going?” (Farce.104) (348) Comment se porte marchandise? “How is the merchandise going?” (Farce.114) (349) Et comment (dist le moyne) se porte l’abbé Tranchelion, le bon beuveur? “And how (said the monk) is the abbot Tranchelion going, the good drinker?” (Rabelais.136) However, it is questionable whether such cases actually represent a true counterevidence against the application of the VP-internal subject hypothesis in these contexts. With regard to the discussion of Table 9 on page 86, I have referred to the literature which analyzes reflexives in analogy to unaccusative constructions: the reflexive pronoun absorbs the external argument of the verb. It would then in principle be possible to locate the subject DP in an object position where it would in any case be disqualified as a potential binder of the reflexive pronoun.

 Grammatical Variation across Space and Time

The inflected verb always agrees in number with the postverbal subject DP. The only apparent exception is the interrogative sentence in (350) which involves a verb inflected for the singular and a postverbal coordinated (hence plural) subject. (350) A quel propos, en voustre advis, tend ce prelude et coup d’essay? “Whereunto (in your opinion) doth this little flourish of a preamble tend?” (Rabelais.4, translation: Urquhart & Motteux, see above) Rinke & Meisel (2007) report that in Old French declarative clauses, coordinated subjects represent the only context in which the inflected verb may not show number agreement. The question as to whether and in what degree the late Middle French interrogative sentence in (350) bears potential structural similarities with coordinated clauses in Old French declaratives shall not be pursued here. In the majority of cases, Korzen’s Generalization is obeyed. However, there are three interrogative tokens which feature movement of the interrogative adverb comment to the front while containing a sentence final prepositional argument of the verb at the same time: (351) Sans elle comment seroient portez les playdoyers des advocatz à l’auditoire? “Without it, how could the papers and writs of lawyers’ clients be brought to the bar?” (Rabelais.537, translation: Urquhart & Motteux, see above) (352) Comment seroit sans elle porté le plastre à l’hastelier? “Without it, how would the plaster be brought to the workhouse?” (Rabelais.537) (353) Sans elle comment seroit tirée l’eaue du puyz? “Without it, how should the water be got out of a draw-well?” (Rabelais.537, translation: Urquhart & Motteux, see above) All three tokens stem from the same literary source (Rabelais) and from the same page. This indicates that structures like these are not productive in Middle French and should be analyzed as formulaic expressions. According to Kayne & Pollock (2001), the sentences in (351) through (353) should be ruled out since pied-piping of the PP is possible only if it follows the wh-constituent in the small clause. In these particular instances, however, the small clauses are PP-initial (i.e. à l’auditoire comment, à l’hastelier comment, and du puyz comment). Alexiadou & Anagnostopoulou (2001, 2007) state that prepositional complements and adjuncts of the verb constitute an exception to their Subject-in-situ Generalization since a prepositional phrase does not receive case from the finite verb but rather from the preposition itself. Whether or not the three cases displayed above constitute a



Chapter 5.  Interpretation and discussion of the results 

violation of some Crossing constraint depends on the structural analysis and is therefore a matter of debate. Since they are not representative of a larger set of tokens in the database considered here and as only a marginal number of cases of Stylistic inversion involving a lexicalized direct object could be found, I conclude that the fifteenth to seventeenth century French data follow the generalizations and observations made in the literature for contemporary Stylistic inversion. So far, most of the claims put forward by Kayne & Pollock (2001) can be confirmed, and the data comply with them. Yet a considerable number of arguments against a localization of the postverbal subject DP in situ remains unverified due to the non-occurrence of respective evidence in the data corpora. This includes the extraction of en or of a quantifier, such as peu, from the postverbal subject DP. No cases of Stylistic inversion feature negation preceding a postverbal de-NP. There is no empirical evidence either confirming that only strong third person pronouns may occupy the postverbal position, in contrast to first or second person strong pronouns. The following figure summarizes the findings discussed so far with regard to Stylistic inversion constructions in the fifteenth to seventeenth century French data. 15th-17th ct. data: Stylistic inversion 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0%

Predicatives

Stylistic inversion Predicatives Unaccusatives / Passives Others TOTAL N

Unaccusatives/ Passives

Others

%

N

46.4% 13.2% 40.4%

109   31 95 235

Figure 15.  Stylistic inversion in 15th to 17th century French (Distribution of verb types)

 Grammatical Variation across Space and Time

Figure 15 shows that more than half of the tokens featuring Stylistic inversion in the fifteenth to seventeenth century data sources are reserved for predicative, unaccusative, and passive constructions (already foreshadowing the present day situation in colloquial French). As for passive and unaccusative constructions, the postverbal position of the subject DP may be straightforwardly derived by stranding the subject in object position. With regard to predicative clauses, the postverbal position of the subject DP follows naturally if one assumes that the copula selects a small clause as its complement containing the subject and the predicate noun (or adjective). This account goes back to Stowell (1978). The two types of constructions (predicatives and unaccusatives) share an important structural property: they license the subject DP in its base-generated position while the structural subject position is occupied by a phonetically empty expletive subject which is Case-marked by the verb in a specifier-head configuration. Vikner (1995) proposes an expletive-associate chain for such cases whereby both the expletive pronoun and the co-indexed NP share a single [Case] feature and a single theta role. The NP is theta marked in its base position. A total of 60% of all instances of Stylistic inversion in the fifteenth to seventeenth century data can be accounted for along these lines (N=140/235). In these cases, the postverbal position of the subject DP is unlikely to be the result of topicalization and subsequent remnant IP movement or of any other derivational mechanism specific to Stylistic inversion. The following two examples illustrate the syntax of subject DP inversion in predicative and unaccusative/passive contexts. (354)

Predicatives [CP quel [C' C0 [TP [TP pro [T’ est [small clause ce mouvement quel] … ]]]]] “What is this movement?” (Molière.128.550)

Unaccusatives / Passives (355) [CP d’où [C' C0 [TP [TP pro [T’ vient [νP [ν’ vient [VP [V’ vient [DP cette Boutade [PP d’où ]]]]]]]]]]] “Where does this witticism come from?” (Molière.191.1217) Still, a considerable 95 tokens (=40%) remain which display the syntactically productive use of Stylistic inversion. Most of the authors whose studies were presented in Section 5.2.9.1 propose the presence of an empty subject pronoun in the inflectional projection to be a distinct property of Stylistic inversion (e.g. Déprez 1990, Friedemann 1991, Valois & Dupuis 1992, de Wind 1995). Fender (2002) applies Vikner’s account of an expletive-associate chain to all instances of Stylistic inversion (and not only to



Chapter 5.  Interpretation and discussion of the results 

unaccusatives, passives, and predicatives, as I did above). Roberts (1993: 218) proposed that Stylistic inversion “[…] represents a residual case of free inversion with an expletive pro in subject position” which is typical for Modern Romance null subject languages such as Italian. In Old French, rich agreement could license a preverbal null subject. The author states that once this possibility has no longer been available, only non-referential null subjects have continued being licensed. Due to the loss of rich verbal agreement, C0 has henceforth assumed the role of the licenser. This accounts for the restriction of Stylistic inversion to wh-interrogative and relative embedded contexts. All in all, the presence of a preverbal null subject seems to be a crucial property of both Free inversion in Old French and Stylistic inversion in Modern French. Why is it then that Stylistic inversion is still so prolific in usage in the fifteenth to seventeenth century data and restricted to a few predicative clauses in contemporary Quebec French? I believe that the patterns of distribution of Stylistic inversion in the fifteenth to seventeenth century data are indicative of a change in time whereby this variant is becoming less and less productive in actual language usage. I proposed above that in contemporary Quebec French -tu questions and Pronominal inversion as well as in late Middle French Complex inversion, the inverted subject pronoun is an interrogative agreement marker. This analysis presupposes that a null subject occupies SpecTP. In Section 5.1.1.2, I showed that there is a good amount of evidence to treat clitic pronouns in contemporary French in analogy to the former rich inflectional agreement markers on the verb. What has changed, then, is not so much the null subject property of French since both Old and Modern French allow for SpecTP to be occupied by pro, but rather the morphological markers which license the null subject. From this perspective, the decline of Stylistic inversion becomes understandable. In Old French, rich agreement licensed the preverbal null subject and the subject DP could remain in situ, yielding Free inversion. In Modern French, rich agreement is no longer available. Hence a clitic pronoun is necessary to license pro in SpecTP. In Modern French Stylistic inversion, however, there is neither rich agreement nor a clitic pronoun in T0. As a result, pro in SpecTP remains unlicensed and Stylistic inversion is ruled out. The observation that in nineteenth and twentieth century Quebec French, this variant still marginally occurs might then indeed be interpreted in terms of some residual cases (as Roberts 1993 proposes). The fact that they are virtually restricted to predicative constructions is then related to the subcategorization frame of the verb in which the subject occurs in the copula’s complement position. In both predicative and unaccusative or passive contexts, the subject is an internal argument of the verb. The external argument position may therefore be occupied by an empty expletive pronoun. Other instances of Stylistic inversion which contain a postverbal subject DP as an external argument of the verb are absent from Quebec

 Grammatical Variation across Space and Time

French because SpecTP would necessarily be occupied by a referential, non-expletive, null subject. This is not possible due to the lack of the licensing agreement marker, i.e. the subject pronoun in T0. The distribution of Stylistic inversion in the fifteenth to seventeenth century data clearly points in this direction. Although a large number of tokens still features a postverbal subject DP which is the external argument of the verb, the majority of contexts in which this variant occurs features predicative, passive, and unaccusative verbs, hence foreshadowing the contemporary situation. I take these empirical findings as indirect evidence that the postverbal subject DP is indeed located in its in situ position, either in SpecνP or in the verb’s complement position. 5.2.10 Wh-fronting The variants (284)e., e.’ and i. on page 356 (repeated below) have the fact that the word order does not depart from an ordinary affirmative sentence in common. Wh – wh-fronting (subject DP) (356) e. [CP Pourquoy[INT] [C' C0 [TP e[INT] [TP Nabuzardan, maistre cuisinier du roy Nabugodonosor [T’ feut[uINT] [entre tous aultres capitaines [esleu [νP Ø [ν’ feut esleu [VP [V’ feut esleu [DP Nabuzardan, maistre cuisinier du roy Nabugodonosor [InfP pour assieger et ruiner Hierusalem]]]]]]]]]]]]]? “Why was Nabuzardan, King Nebuchadnezzar’s head-cook, chosen to the exclusion of all other captains to besiege and destroy Jerusalem?” (Rabelais.165, translation: en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Fourth_Book /Chapter_XXXIX, July 18, 2008) Wh – wh-fronting (pronominal subject) e’. [CP Où[INT] [C' C0 [TP e[INT] [TP il [T’ est[uINT] [νP il [ν’ est [VP [V’ est [PP où]]]]]]]]]]? “Where is he?” (Farce.513) Yes/no – intonation i. [CP[INT] [C' C0 [TP[INT] [TP le cœur [T’ te tremble[uINT] [νP le cœur [ν’ te tremble [VP [V’ tremble [DP te ]]]]]]]]]]? “Does your heart tremble?” (Corneille.549.1126) In all three cases, the SVO word order is maintained in spite of the interrogative reading of the clause and regardless of whether the subject is nominal ((284)e. and i.) or pronominal ((284)e’.). While in yes/no questions, the intonation variant is



Chapter 5.  Interpretation and discussion of the results 

very common (18.4%, N=315/1711, cf. Table 35 on page 127), wh-fronting, i.e. a fronted wh-phrase followed by SVO word order, is rare in fifteenth to seventeenth century French (1.2%, N=13/1105, wh-questions whose subject is the wh-phrase being excluded, cf. Table 48 on page 159). Its frequency only rises in the nineteenth and twentieth century. Three out of 13 instances of wh-fronting contain a subject DP (cf. (175)a. through c. on page 160). However, in consideration of their fixed formulaic status, these hardly indicate a productive usage of wh-fronting. It follows that in the fifteenth to seventeenth century French data, yes/no questions represent the only context in which the maintenance of the SVO word order seems to be productive. 5.2.11 Contemporary Standard French Contemporary Standard French is a normative variety promoted by prescriptive grammars and the educational system which closely resembles the Middle French interrogative system in that it disallows Simple inversion, but it allows Complex, Pronominal, and Stylistic inversion. Although est-ce que questions are often condemned by prescriptivists as too colloquial,40 they are not completely ruled out from Standard French. In fact, normative language varieties such as Standard French are often subject to arbitrary prescriptive constraints and repressions which have little to do with natural mechanisms of language change. This is one of the primary reasons why studies within the framework of variationist sociolinguistics try to obtain vernacular data from actual language use (cf. Labov 1972a). The vernacular is known to be much more regularly constrained than other language styles which receive more than the minimal amount of attention by the speakers. Applying the model of the Middle French interrogative system to Standard French, it appears that, contrary to the vernacular, the postverbal subject pronouns in Complex and Pronominal inversion have not grammaticalized into functional interrogative markers but have kept their status of syntactically independent pronouns. They hence feature a full set of referential values. This is not surprising given that certain phenomena of language change (including grammaticalization) are clearly confined to spoken varieties. Literary and written styles of the language feature only those grammaticalized items which have commonly been accepted by prescriptive linguistic authorities. These styles do not themselves undergo the evolutionary process of grammaticalization. The grammaticalization of subject pronouns into interrogative agreement markers as observed in contemporary Quebec 40. cf. Dauzat (1958) who states that “[c]e tour, créé par le langage parlé, s’est généralisé pour marquer l’insistance, plus encore dans le langage vulgaire, où il arrive à se superposer au c’est de présentation « est-ce que c’est lui qui vient ? » Il faut éviter ces redondances inutiles.”

 Grammatical Variation across Space and Time

French is obviously the outcome of a natural process which has proceeded well below the level of linguistic awareness. To my knowledge, no grammarian has ever prescribed that a pronominal subject should rather be used as an interrogative affix than as an independent syntactic item. The occurrence of both Complex inversion and est-ce que questions in Standard French suggests that the inflected verb only moves as far as T0 in this variety. 5.3 Interrogatives in Old French I now turn to the syntax of interrogatives in Old French. Since the database of the present study does not include Old French texts, I largely base this section on statements and observations made in the research literature, e.g. by Foulet (1921) and Roberts (1993). The consensus in the literature is that subject-verb inversion was the default interrogative form at this time (e.g. Foulet 1921: 246, Roberts 1993: 88–89). The occurrence of preverbal subjects was a virtually non-existent phenomenon (abstracting away from wh-questions whose wh-phrase is the subject). Complex inversion did not yet exist as a grammatical alternative to subject DP inversion. The grammaticalization of the est-ce que particle was still far ahead. The variable system of this diachronic variety was hence composed of the following variants: Pronominal inversion (357) a. Cuide tu, rois, que ge ne me demente? “Do you believe, king, that I don’t lament?” (adapted from: Roberts 1993: 92, example (21)a., Charroi de Nîmes, 1.93) b. que vex tu faire? “What do you want to do?” (adapted from: Roberts 1993: 92, example (19)a., Aucassin et Nicolette, III, 1. 7) Simple inversion (358) a. est vostre sire ancor levez? “Is your lord up yet?” (adapted from: Roberts 1993: 91, example (16)a., Tristan, 1. 8021) b. Mes ou fu cele espee prise..? “But where was that sword taken?” (adapted from: Roberts 1993: 89, example (12)a., Perceval, 1. 3640)



Chapter 5.  Interpretation and discussion of the results 

Free inversion (359) a. A vos ce dit Merlins? “Did Merlin tell you that?” (adapted from: de Bakker 1997: 141, example (63)b., Merlin 43, 30) b. Coment porroit estre prise tel ville par force, se Diex meismes nel fait? “How could such a town be taken by force if not by God himself?” (adapted from: de Bakker 1997: 141, example (64)a., Vill 77, 6) As examples (357) through (359) show, variation exists with regard to the localization of the postverbal subject DP. In the case of Simple inversion (cf. (358)), the subject DP is located immediately to the right of the inflected verb and precedes infinitives or participles. In the case of Free inversion, the subject DP is located in a postverbal position, following non-finite verbs and participles. 5.3.1 The interrogative system of Old French I take the observation that in Old French subject-verb inversion was obligatory as evidence for the involvement of the complementizer phrase as the projection which provides landing sites both for wh-movement and for verb movement. The structure I suppose to account for the Old French interrogative system is displayed in (360) below. CP C‘

Spec [int]

TP

Co [uint]

T‘

XP Spec

T‘ To

vP Spec

v‘ vo

VP Spec

wh-phrase verb (subject)

verb (subject)

verb

V‘ Vo

DP

verb

wh-phrase

 Grammatical Variation across Space and Time

Wh – Pronominal inversion (360) a. [CP que [C' vex [TP tu [T’ [T’ vex [faire [νP tu [ν’ vex faire [VP [V’ vex faire [DP que]]]]]]]]]]] Wh – Simple inversion b. [CP ou [C' fu [TP cele espee [T’ [T’ fu [prise [νP [ν’ fu prise [VP [V’ prise [DP cele espee [PP ou]]]]]]]]]]]] Wh – Free inversion c. [CP coment [C' porroit [TP [T’ [T’ porroit [être prise [νP [ν’ porroit être prise [VP [V’ porroit être prise [DP tel ville [AdvP comment]]]]]]]]]]]] Yes/no – Pronominal inversion d. [CP [C' cuide [TP tu [T’ [T’ cuide [νP tu [ν’ cuide [VP [V’ cuide]]]]]]]]] Yes/no – Simple inversion e. [CP [C' est [TP vostre sire [T’ [T’ est [ancor levez [νP vostre sire [ν’ est [VP [V’ est levez]]]]]]]]] Yes/no – Free inversion f. [CP [C' a [TP [T’ [T’ a [vos ce dit [νP Merlins [ν’ a dit [VP [V’ a dit [DP ce]]]]]]]]]]] The structure in (360) shows that in Old French interrogatives, the finite verb always moves to C0 and the wh-phrase to SpecCP. In other words, the wh-criterion (Rizzi 1996) is met at the CP-level. Complex inversion cannot take place since the subject DP never appears in a position where it precedes the finite verb. The est-ce que question marker is excluded, because the finite verb blocks its realization in C0. In addition to this, the question marker has not yet grammaticalized (a requirement for this being the structural change resulting in (284) on page 356). The pronominal subjects in (360)a. and d. are phonological clitics to the verb in C0 base-generated in the (external) argument position (cf. Roberts 1993: 120, Vance 1989: 81). This entails that they still constitute independent syntactic items. This is in contrast with the analysis proposed above according to which clitic subject pronouns in contemporary vernacular French are directly merged as syntactic clitics in the head position T0. I suggested a similar analysis for Complex inversion in Middle and Classical French. In Old French, subject pronouns start out as maximal projections, just like DPs, and phonologically cliticize to the finite verb. In the literature, evidence has been provided that postverbal subject pronouns were phonological clitics to the inflected verb already in Old French, contrary to preverbal subject pronouns which still retained properties of independent syntactic items (cf. Johnson 2000, Roberts 1993: 120). If it is true that subject pronouns did not abruptly turn from independent words into clitics (or from XPs into heads), but



Chapter 5.  Interpretation and discussion of the results 

that they rather underwent a gradual grammaticalization process ultimately turning them into affixal agreement markers attached to the finite verb, then it makes sense to assume that Classical French Complex inversion is the reflex of a system in which the postverbal subject pronoun has reached a state where it is no longer a phonological clitic, but an agreement marker base-generated in the head where it appears. Its primary function has changed from expressing the external argument of the verb into a phonetically overt realization of the interrogative feature, as was argued in Section 5.2.4 5.3.2 SpecνP as the subject’s A-position: an account following Barbosa (2001) Another important property of Old French shall be stressed here. In a way more or less similar to contemporary Romance null subject languages, Old French also was a null subject language (cf. Roberts 1993, Vance 1989, 1997). Null subjects supposedly were licensed by the rich agreement morphology of the verb (cf. Roberts 1993: 127). Once the language lost rich agreement, null subjects ceased to be sufficiently recoverable from the context and the overt realization of the subject became obligatory. The structure in (360) which I proposed for the Old French interrogative system incorporates Barbosa’s (2001) account of contemporary Romance null subject languages. According to the author, the argument position of the subject is in SpecVP and the subject may stay there (yielding Free inversion). The specifier of the inflectional projection hosts non-referential quantifiers, focused constituents, and wh-operators. It is an A’-position. When the subject moves into a preverbal position, it always occurs as a topic adjoined to the inflectional projection and therefore precedes SpecIP. The [EPP] and the [N] features of I0 are checked by means of rich agreement which dispenses from subject DP movement to SpecIP. The structure in (360) conveys this account with the exceptions that TP stands for the inflectional projection and that the subject’s in situ position is SpecνP. Unlike contemporary Romance null subject languages, Old French, however, also exhibits Simple inversion (cf. (360)b. and e.). Barbosa (2001) analyzes subject DPs which do not occur in their VP-internal argument position as IP-adjoined topics. If this analysis is adapted to Old French, the instances of Simple inversion indicate a movement of the finite verb into a head position higher up in the tree than the topicalized subject DP. The structure in (360) suggests the CP to be the target of this movement. This is the projection where the wh-criterion is met. The crucial difference between Old French and contemporary Romance null subject languages, therefore, is the involvement of the CP-layer; while in the latter, the finite verb and the wh-operator move only as far as IP, they move up to the CP in the former. This accounts for the fact that Free inversion is a grammatical option in all

 Grammatical Variation across Space and Time

of these varieties, while Simple inversion is only possible in Old and early Middle French. The finite verb in C0 is followed by two positions which are able to host the subject: the TP-adjoined topicalized subject and the νP-internal argument position of the subject. 5.3.3 Reanalysis of the multiple TP-specifiers Pursuing this line of reasoning, the Middle French interrogative system, which is characterized by the loss of Simple inversion and by the emergence of the grammaticalized question marker est-ce que, features not only a loss of verb-to-C0 movement as was argued above, but also a reanalysis of the structural positions preceding the inflectional head. The TP-adjoined topic position is reanalyzed as the argument position of the subject in the inner SpecTP, and the clause-initial position hosting wh-operators (SpecCP in Old French) is reanalyzed as the outer A’-specifier of TP.

chapter 6

Conclusion In the preceding chapters, I presented a study of the French interrogative system both from a variationist angle as well as from a generative perspective. I focused on corpora of twentieth and nineteenth century vernacular Quebec French. As a diachronic standard of comparison, data stemming from fifteenth to seventeenth century French literature and plays were added to the analysis. As an overall tendency, the frequently reported decline of interrogative variants exhibiting postverbal subjects can be confirmed. The assessment of yes/no questions with the tools and methods of variationist sociolinguistics has enabled a deeper insight into the mechanisms of this gradual process as defined by the independent variables. The application of variable rule analyses to the data corpora provided invaluable information about the patterns of conditioning and about the intra and extralinguistic contexts which favor the use of the respective variants. This enables us to answer the question as to why it is that Pronominal inversion is still in use in Quebec French, contrary to varieties of European vernacular French from where it has reportedly vanished. The most conspicuous finding with regard to the nineteenth and twentieth century data was the restriction of Pronominal inversion to second person subjects. In Quebec French, the advancing loss of productivity of subject-verb inversion thus seems to be reflected first and foremost by its being increasingly linguistically restricted, whereas varieties of European vernacular French have been claimed to feature an increasing lexical restriction on the use of inverted pronouns. However, the observation that in twentieth century Quebec French Pronominal inversion is clearly receding from all lexical contexts except for those featuring one of the high frequency verbs vouloir, savoir, voir, and avoir suggests that here as well lexical effects play an influential role with regard to the maintenance of this variant. The proceeding decline of Pronominal inversion is accompanied by a simultaneous increase of -tu questions and their establishment as the new default variant. Whereas in the nineteenth century, -tu questions were still conditioned by only a limited number of independent variables and factors, the twentieth century data feature a complex set of patterns of conditioning, among which two are the favored use of -tu questions together with rare lexical verbs and the preferential recourse to this variant as the first interrogative form in a discourse unit. These and the findings associated with the social factor groups suggest that the increasing use of the interrogative marker -tu is due to a change

 Grammatical Variation across Space and Time

from below; -tu questions turned out to be favored by young speakers from the middle class neighborhood Mont Bleu. Below the level of statistical significance, they are preferentially used by female speakers who belong to the central occupational class. This pattern is indicative of a form which increasingly prevails over the other contenders within the same variable system; it conforms with Labov’s (1990) second principle about the role of women in a change from below, namely their role as promoters of the more innovative forms. Pronominal inversion and -tu questions behave as antagonists in this change. Inversion questions are favored by old speakers and, below the level of statistical significance, speakers with a low occupational background. These observations strengthen the argument put forward that Pronominal inversion is gradually vanishing from the system. I have interpreted the observation that Pronominal inversion and -tu questions are part of the same diaphasic variety, casual style speech, as evidence that they are competitors within a single structural system. In this regard, they differ from est-ce que questions which have turned out to be indicative of a different diaphasic variety, namely the one which is used in soapbox speech and which hence indicates a careful style. They feature very specific and restricted linguistic, stylistic, and social patterns of conditioning which indicate that they are not part of the same grammatical system as the one featuring Pronominal inversion and -tu questions; est-ce que questions appear exclusively in the speech of speakers older than 34 years of age. They are favored by male middle class speakers from Mont Bleu with the highest occupational background. It therefore appears that they represent a prestige marker which might also be on its way to extinction as the age effect adumbrates. While in the speech of middle class speakers from Mont Bleu est-ce que questions appear to be the prestige variant, in the speech of working class speakers from Vieux Hull it is intonation questions which assume this role. Below the level of statistical significance, the latter are preferentially used in the careful style of male and old speakers with a low occupational background. In all other respects, intonation questions are a separate variant which does not participate in the complex and interwoven set of patterns of conditioning characterizing the other three variants. The late Middle and Classical French data already show a quantitative decline of Pronominal inversion between the sixteenth and the seventeenth century. At the same time, the number of interrogative variants with a preverbal subject, i.e. Complex inversion in wh-questions, est-ce que, and intonation questions, rises. Pronominal inversion is favored by verbs occurring with a high frequency in the late Middle and Classical French data. These are indicators of a beginning loss of productivity for the benefit of intonation questions which intrude into the vacated contexts.



Chapter 6.  Conclusion 

Interestingly, the nineteenth century Quebec French data exhibit some commonalities both with the fifteenth to seventeenth century data and with the more recent twentieth century OH corpus. In a number of respects, intonation questions show patterns of conditioning comparable to the late Middle and Classical French literature and plays; the disfavoring effect of cognitive verbs may serve as an example in this respect. At the same time, they have already become associated with a cultivated language style in being favored by careful speech. This goes in line with the statistically non-significant finding that intonation questions preferentially occur in the speech of speakers with a high occupational background. Contrary to the late Middle and Classical French data, -tu questions have made an appearance; however, they are not yet a serious contender for Pronominal inversion as can be observed in the OH corpus. The RFQ corpus hence constitutes a transitional step in between the interrogative systems represented by the Middle and Classical French data and the OH corpus. When it comes to the social and stylistic factors which condition the use of Quebec French interrogative variants in the nineteenth century, some harbingers of the present day situation can already be found; the eventual decline of Pronominal inversion is foreshadowed by its favored use in the speech of male speakers with the lowest occupational background. The later gain of importance of -tu questions as a default vernacular interrogative variant is already noticeable in the nineteenth century data as well. Their use is restricted to the casual style. -tu questions are favored by female speakers and, below the level of statistical significance, by speakers from the central occupational group who were born towards the end of the nineteenth century as opposed to speakers born earlier. Contrary to yes/no questions, Pronominal inversion is almost absent from the context of wh-questions in Quebec French. The most frequent variant by far is fronting of a wh-word followed by the est-ce que marker or one of its derivatives. The empirical evidence suggests that this marker forms a lexical and structural unit with the wh-word, hence turning it structurally analogous to simple whfronting. The interrogative system of wh-questions in Quebec French is very different from the one of fifteenth to seventeenth century French where the inversion of the subject is still virtually categorical. While in the domain of yes/no questions, the earlier data sources show a clear tendency of interrogative variants with preverbal subjects of gaining ground, no such tendency can be observed in wh-questions (with the exception of Complex inversion). I have attributed a common structural analysis to the interrogative system of Quebec French in the nineteenth and twentieth century since no major structural changes could be observed in this time period. Based on empirical evidence, I have argued that both the inverted subject pronoun in Pronominal inversion and the postverbal interrogative marker -tu are an interrogative suffix phonetically expressing the uninterpretable interrogative feature which is base-generated in the

 Grammatical Variation across Space and Time

inflectional head position. This suffix still carries a residual set of referential [φ] features, hence accounting for the cases where no preverbal subject is present, i.e. Pronominal inversion. As for wh-questions involving the particle est-ce que, I have suggested that this particle forms a lexical and structural unit together with the wh-word both occupying a specifier position in the inflectional domain, namely in SpecTP. This distinguishes it from yes/no questions where the occurrence of est-ce que indicates the involvement of the CP-layer with est-ce que being the lexicalization of the uninterpretable interrogative feature in C°. This structural analysis accounts for the overwhelming prevalence of est-ce que in wh-questions and for its restricted use in yes/no questions. The structure of vernacular Quebec French interrogatives, as I have proposed, dispenses with the CP-layer. The interrogative operator is located in an outer specifier of TP. The inner specifier hosts subject DPs and tonic pronouns. Clitic pronouns are base-generated as inflectional agreement markers on the finite verb in T°. The wh-criterion (Rizzi 1996) is locally satisfied by means of specifier-head agreement between the uninterpretable interrogative feature in T° and the operator feature in the outer SpecTP. Interrogation may be phonetically expressed only once, either by means of the interrogative suffix on T° (/tsy/ or /vu/) or by means of the wh-word in SpecTP, but never by both at the same time. With regard to the interrogative system of fifteenth to seventeenth century French, I interpreted the loss of Simple inversion and the simultaneous rise of variants exhibiting preverbal subjects (Complex inversion, intonation questions, est-ce que questions) as evidence for the loss of verb movement to C°: as of the Classical French period, the finite verb had only moved as far as T°. The observation that both postverbal subject pronouns and the est-ce que marker occur in yes/ no as well as in wh-questions suggests that the CP-level is still involved in interrogative clause formation. The structural system accounting for this diachronic stage of the language hence features a CP in whose specifier the wh-operator is located and whose head is occupied by the est-ce que marker which is still a syntactically independent complementizer, contrary to Quebec vernacular French. Postverbal subject pronouns have already turned into syntactic clitics on the verb in T°. Therefore they assume the same role as in Quebec French, namely the phonetic expression of the uninterpretable interrogative feature. In spite of the fact that the wh-operator and the interrogative head involve two separate projections (SpecCP and T°), the locality of the checking relation required by the wh-criterion is fulfilled by means of an interrogative variable located in the outer specifier of TP and which is bound by the wh-operator in SpecCP. The uninterpretable interrogative feature in T° may be checked against the variable in SpecTP which receives the operator feature by percolation from SpecCP. In this case, a postverbal subject pronoun is realized. Alternatively, the uninterpretable interrogative feature may



Chapter 6.  Conclusion 

move to C° where it is checked against the operator feature in SpecCP. In this case, the est-ce que marker phonetically realizes the uninterpretable feature. As in Quebec French, the inner specifier of TP hosts subject DPs and tonic pronouns, thereby allowing for Complex inversion. The optionality between checking the interrogative feature at the CP-level or at the TP-level is a natural consequence of the late Middle French interrogative system since it represents a transitional stage between the Old French and the contemporary French grammar. Whereas in Old French, the reported virtual categoricity of subject-verb inversion is arguably due to the fact that both the whoperator and the inflected verb move to the CP, the contemporary French interrogative system is characteristic in so far as neither of them moves to the CP. Late Middle and Classical French both feature an innovation, in so far as verb movement to C° does not take place any more, as well as a retention of the old system by still projecting the CP-layer in order to accommodate the wh-operator. Once Complex inversion has disappeared from the system, there is no unambiguous evidence left which would require the involvement of the CP-level in interrogatives and, as a result of this, the contemporary system emerges. I have left the question open as to what exactly causes the proposed loss of verb movement from T° to C°. Several different proposals may be found in the literature which try to account for the structural changes which distinguish the Old French from the Modern French grammatical system. A commonly shared assumption is the loss of the V2-property of Old French and its interaction with a simultaneous loss of the null subject property (e.g. Adams 1987, Roberts 1993, Vance 1989). As I have argued for above, it is questionable if Old French was in fact a V2-language similar to prototypical Germanic V2-languages such as German (cf. Elsig & Rinke 2007, Kaiser 1996, 2002, Rinke 2005, Rinke & Meisel 2007). It is also questionable whether French has actually lost its null subject property (cf. Kaiser & Meisel 1991). The analysis of clitic subject pronouns as affixal agreement markers on the verb in T°, particularly in contemporary varieties of vernacular French, makes Modern French appear structurally analogous to other Romance null subject languages. The only real change then resides in the change of the licenser of null subjects: in Old French, it was rich verbal agreement by means of postverbal inflectional agreement markers. In Modern French, it is rich verbal agreement by means of preverbal pronominal agreement markers. As I tentatively asserted above, this change might account for the virtual absence of Stylistic inversion from Modern vernacular French versus its presence in earlier varieties of the language. The reanalysis of preverbal subject pronouns as inflectional agreement markers on the verb is in tight connection with the change of the licenser of null subjects. At some point during the diachronic evolution, preverbal subject pronouns have turned from independent XPs into phonological clitics and ultimately into syntactic clitics, as is obviously the case

 Grammatical Variation across Space and Time

in contemporary Quebec French. Following this line of reasoning, it is possible that there is some relationship between the change in the status of preverbal subject pronouns and the loss of verb movement to C°. In the present study, however, I have focused on postverbal pronouns rather than on their preverbal counterparts. For the time being, I will therefore have to leave the question unresolved as to what exactly this connection might be.

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Index Symbols θ-criterion  215, 219 θ-role  219, 228 A A-chain  215 adjunction  234, 236–237, 240 Afar  180 affix  179 dual position ~  180 interrogative ~  190 age grading  70, 99 agent  228 agreement ~ affixes  170 dynamic ~  181, 217, 219 ~ marker  172–174, 183–184, 200, 209, 220, 228, 265–266 rich ~  188, 231, 233, 265 specifier-head ~  218, 221, 229, 264 AgrP 165 apheresis  151, 224 apocopy  151, 192, 224 apparent time study of language change in ~  99 Atlas Linguistique de la France  153 B binomial step up/step down  36 biuniqueness constraint on checking  168, 217 bridge verbs  140 C case assignment  215, 240 Catalan  7, 222 c-command  237, 242, 249 change from below  100, 262 circumscription of the variable context  34 clitic  170–172, 183–184, 213–217, 219, 228, 242–243, 264–266

~ left dislocation  127, 144, 172, 243 phonological ~  173 ~ phrase  217 syntactic ~  173 coding  35 complementizer phrase (CP)  165 complementizer que  33 constraint hierarchy  36 constraint ranking  36 coordinated clause  173 copula  247 corrected mean  92 crossing constraint  236, 240, 251 cross-tabulation  37 D doubly-filled Comp filter (DFCF)  180–181, 193 E English  222 est-ce que questions  6, 11, 28, 31, 210 expletive pronoun  220–221, 234 Extended Standard Theory  234 external argument  249 extraction  237, 240, 242 extraposition  233, 236 F factor group  36, 261 factors  261 external ~  8 internal ~  8 linguistic ~  33 social ~  33 stylistic ~  33 factor weight  36, 77, 92 feature mismatch  185 features [Case]~  184, 239 [EPP]~  201

interrogative ~  199, 201, 209–211, 220, 228–230, 263–265 [Iota]~  167, 216, 218, 230 [N]~  200–201, 206 [NOM]~  216–217 [number]~  186 [plural]~  190, 209 [singular]~  190 [tense]~  168–169 [wh] ~  168, 180, 239 [φ]~  187, 189–190, 220, 222–223, 264 feature strength  239 Franco-Provençal  181 French European ~  7, 14, 178, 261 Late Middle and Classical ~ Literature and Plays  38 Middle ~  7 Old ~  7, 188, 211, 213, 215, 218 Pied noir  192 Quebec ~  7, 14, 178, 181, 193, 261 Standard ~  7, 14, 183–184, 191–193, 198, 246–247 Vernacular ~  7, 14, 38, 179, 183–184, 191–192, 198 functional domain  241 future temporal reference  9, 75 G German  211, 265 goal  241 GoldVarb  11, 37, 104, 137 government  215, 218–219 grammaticalization  172–173, 187–189, 213, 221, 223, 229–230 H heavy NP ~ shift  235 ~ subject  233, 238 homophony  178, 182 Huave  180

 Grammatical Variation across Space and Time I indicator (language change)  99 inflectional morpheme  171 inherent variability  8 interaction  37, 92 interrogative marker  175, 182 interrogative morpheme  177, 179, 187, 189–190, 221 intonation question  6 IP 165 inversion Complex ~  6, 28, 30, 127, 141, 144, 177, 189, 210, 222, 225 Free ~  5, 128, 215–216 Pronominal ~  5, 210 Simple ~  5, 29, 128, 200–201, 209, 215, 219, 222, 225 Stylistic ~  5, 201–202, 204–205, 209 Italian  8, 172–173 J Japanese  206 K Korzen’s generalization  232, 236, 240, 244, 250 L left periphery  241 lexical domain  241 M marginals  76 marker (language change)  99 merge  243 minimality condition on case assignment  237 multiple subject constructions  219, 221 N ne-deletion  9 null subject  168–169, 184–185, 188, 190, 201, 203, 209, 222, 229, 231, 235, 238, 265

O operator-variable chain  229 Ottawa-Hull French corpus  2, 38 P parallel processing  88 passive  229, 246–247 pied-piping  244, 250 Portuguese  7, 75 predicative  246–247 principle of accountability  33 pro see null subject probe  241 Q quantifier  242 R range  36, 92 real time study of language change in ~  38, 100 reanalysis  128, 162, 189, 210, 218, 265 Récits du français québécois d’autrefois  2, 38 reflexive  86, 242, 249 regression logistic ~  11 multiple ~  36 remnant IP movement  209, 217, 241 Romanian  222 S small clause  244, 250 sociolinguistic interview  38 Spanish  8, 222 specifiers, multiple  206, 217–218 stage level predicates  235 subject doubling  172 subject-in-situ generalization  240, 250

subject oriented floating quantifier  235–237 subjunctive  10, 244 T tense chain  217–218, 230 -ti/-tu questions  6, 30, 126, 182, 189 topicalization  244, 247 TP 165 U unaccusative hypothesis  246 unaccusative verb  86, 229, 246–247, 249 unergative verb  86 V variable  264 dependent ~  33, 36 independent ~  36, 261 linguistic ~  8 sociolinguistic ~  8 ~ context  6 ~ rule analysis  33, 36, 91, 120, 138, 261 variant  6, 8, 33, 36, 261 variation theory  33 verb second (V2)  211, 218, 265 VP 165 W [wh]-chain  230 wh-criterion  180, 181, 199, 201, 206, 211, 219, 229, 230, 264, 265 wh-in situ  6 wh-fronting  6 [wh]-operator  180, 195, 197, 199–200, 206, 211, 229–230, 239, 264–265 wh-questions  2 wh-variable  229 Y Yes/no questions  2

In the Studies in Language Variation Series (SILV) the following titles have been published thus far or are scheduled for publication: 3 2 1

Elsig, Martin: Grammatical Variation across Space and Time. The French interrogative system. 2009. xvi, 282 pp. Nevalainen, Terttu, Irma Taavitsainen, Päivi Pahta and Minna Korhonen (eds.): The Dynamics of Linguistic Variation. Corpus evidence on English past and present. 2008. viii, 339 pp. Hinskens, Frans (ed.): Language Variation – European Perspectives. Selected papers from the Third International Conference on Language Variation in Europe (ICLaVE 3), Amsterdam, June 2005. 2006. vi, 279 pp.