Hostname: page-component-77c89778f8-5wvtr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-19T09:42:28.029Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Extension particles, etc.

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2008

Sylvie Dubois
Sylvie Dubois
Affiliation:
Université Laval
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The study of the 2700 occurrences of phrase-terminal extension particles (e.g., tout ça ‘all that’, des affaires de même ‘things like that’) in two large corpora of Montréal French reveals that they are typically formed of some combination of a quantifier, a generic and a comparative, and that the particle is optionally prefaced by a connector (the conjunctions puis, et ‘and’, ou ‘or’). The 76 particle types (not counting minor variations) also include a good number of fixed forms (e.g., et cetera) often having an onomatopoeic aspect (e.g., patati patata). Extension particles can be characterized through prosodic, syntactic, and semantic criteria. The analysis bears on the sociodemographic conditioning of overall rates of particle use; of choices within the quantifier, generic, and comparative categories; and of preference for each of four major classes of particle: those containing a universal quantifier, those containing an existential quantifier, those consisting of just a generic and a comparative, and fixed forms. The discourse insertion of the four classes is also analyzed in terms of connector, type of discourse transition, the complexity of the term(s) semantically “extended” by the particle, and the discourse genre. The clearest result pertaining to overall rates of use is an age-grading effect, whereby speakers use fewer particles as they grow older. Within the components, women use more quantifiers than men, and both generics and comparatives are sharply stratified by social class and age. The reconstituted particles tend to favor certain co-occurrence patterns and avoid others more than could be predicted from the component distributions, consistent with a stylistic concord effect. As for the four classes of particle, it is the presence and nature of the connector that have the strongest effects, where puis contrasts with both ou and the null connector, while the complexity of the extended term distinguishes among the classes both by virtue of the number of terms and their syntactic complexity. As is predictable from functional considerations the sociodemographic factors do not contrast the two semantically most distinct classes, involving universal versus existential quantifiers. The linguistic validity of the four classes is confirmed by the fact that their quantitative conditioning is not predictable from the strong sociodemographic conditioning of their component elements, but rather reflects their differential suitability for various discourse functions.

Type
Research Article
Information
Language Variation and Change , Volume 4 , Issue 2 , July 1992 , pp. 179 - 203
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1992

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Aijmer, K. (1985). What happens at the end of our utterances? The use of utterance-final tags introduced by and and or. Papers from the 8th Scandinavian Conference of Linguistics. Copenhagen: Institut for Nordisk Philologie, Kopenhaven University.Google Scholar
Dines, E. R. (1980). Variation in discourse and stuff like that. Language in Society 9:13–33.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dubois, S. (1993). L'usage et la formation de l'énumération en discours spontané. Analyse sociolinguistique du procédé énumératif chez les montréalais francophones. Ph.D. dissertation, Université Laval.Google Scholar
Emirkanian, L. & Sankoff, D. (1979). Coordination et effacement. In Thibault, P. (ed.), Le français parlé: Études sociolinguistiques. Edmonton, Alberta: Linguistic Research, Inc. 75–92.Google Scholar
Giacomi, A., Cedergren, H. & Yaeger, M. (1976). Pi, et pi … pis que à Montréal. In Recherches sur le français parlé. Aix-en-Provence: Groupe Aixois de Recherches en Syntaxe. 87–99.Google Scholar
Lemieux, M., Fontaine, C. & Sankoff, D. (1987). Quantifieur et marqueur de discours. In Sankoff, D. (ed.), Diversity and diachrony. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. 381–390.Google Scholar
Rand, D. & Sankoff, D. (1990). GoldVarb: A variable rule application for the Macintosh; version 2.0 [program and documentation]. Montréal: Centre de recherches mathématiques, Université de Montréal.Google Scholar
Sankoff, D. & Laberge, S. (1978). The linguistic market and the statistical explanation of variability. In Sankoff, D. (ed.), Linguistic variation: Models and methods. New York: Academic. 239–250.Google Scholar
Sankoff, D. & Sankoff, G. (1973). Sample survey methods and computer-assisted analysis in the study of grammatical variation. In Darnell, R. (ed.), Canadian languages in their social context. Edmonton, Alberta: Linguistic Research, Inc. 7–64.Google Scholar
Sankoff, D., Thibault, P. & Bérubé, H. (1978). Semantic field variability. In Sankoff, D. (ed.), Linguistic variation: Models and methods. New York: Academic. 23–43.Google Scholar
Thibault, P. & Daveluy, M. (1989). Quelques traces du passage du temps dans le parler des Montréalais: 1971–1984. Language Variation and Change 1:19–45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thibault, P. & Vincent, D. (1990). Un corpus de français parlé. Québec: Département de langues et linguistiques, Université Laval.Google Scholar