Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-l7hp2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-03T13:20:44.088Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

The variable use on versus tu/vous for indefinite reference in Spoken French*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 October 2008

William J. Ashby
Affiliation:
Department of French 'Italian, University of California, Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, California, 93106, USA

Abstract

The subject clitic on has a surprising range of referential values, both indefinite and definite, that can be seen only when one examines the use of the pronoun in natural discourse. This paper proposes a partial typology of on derived from examples found in a socially-deverse corpus of Tourangeau French. The focus of the paper is on the variable use of on versus vous or tu as indefinite-genetic pronouns. The variation is partially constrained by a complex of linguistic, sociolinguistic, and partially discourse pragmatic factors. The saliency the speaker wishes to give to the referent apppears to be a key factor determining the probability of occurrence of the variants.

Type
Articles
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

REFERENCES

Atlani, , Françoise, (1984). On L'sillusioniste. In Grésillon, A. and Lebrave, J.-L. (eds.) La Langue au ras du texte. Lille: Presses Universitaries de Lille, pp. 1329.Google Scholar
Blanche-Benveniste, , Claire, (1987). Le pronom on: Propositions pour une analyse. In: Bannamour, J. (ed.) Mélanges offerts à Maurice Molho. 3 (Les Cahiers de Fontenay 46/47/48), pp. 1529.Google Scholar
Boutet, , Josiane, (1986). La référence à la personne en français parlé. Langage et Société, 38: 1950.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brunot, , Ferdinand, and Bruneau, , Charles, (1949). Grammaire historique de la langue française. Paris: Masson.Google Scholar
Chafe, , Wallace, (1980). The development of consciousness in the production of a narrative. In: Chafe, W. (ed.) The Pear Stories. Norwood, NJ: Ablex, pp. 950.Google Scholar
Chafe, , Wallace, (1987). Cognitive constains on information flow. In Tomlin, R. (ed.) Coherence and Grounding in Discourse Amsterdam: Benjamins, pp. 2151.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chafe, , Wallace, (forthcoming). Used of defocusing pronomial prefixes in Caddo. To appear in: Hardy, H. K. and Scancarelli, J. (eds.), Native Language of the Southwest. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.Google Scholar
Chambers, J. K. and Trudgill, Peter, (1980) Dialectology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Chevallier, Jean-Claude, , Blanche-Benveniste, , Claire, , Arrivé, , Michel, and Peytard, , Jean, (1964). Grammaire Larousse du français contemporain. Paris: Larousse.Google Scholar
Damourette, , Jacques, and Pichon, , Edouard, (19111940). Des Mots à la pensée: essai de grammaire de la langue française. Vol. 6. Paris: Editions D's Artrey.Google Scholar
Deshaies, , Denise, (1985). Références personnelles et types de discours en situation d'entrevue. In Léon, P. R. and Perron, P. (eds.), Le Dialogue. Ottawa: Diadier, pp. 7791.Google Scholar
Grevisse, , Maurice, (1964). Le Bon Usage. Gembloux: Duculot.Google Scholar
Hopper, , Paul, and Thompson, , Sandra, (1980). Transitivity in grammer and discourse. Language, 56: 251299.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Judge, , Anne, and Healey, F. G. (1983). A Reference Grammer of Modern French. London: Edward Arnold.Google Scholar
Laberge, , Suzanne, (1977). Etude de la variation des pronoms sujets définis et indéfinis dans la français parlé à Montréal. Ph.D. dissertation, Université de montréal.Google Scholar
Laberge, , Suzanne, (1978). The changing distribtution of of inderterminate pronouns in discourse. In: Shuy, R. W. and Shnukal, A. (eds.), Language Use and the Uses of Language. Washington: Georgetown University Press.Google Scholar
Laberge, , Suzanne, and Sankoff, , Gillian, (1980). Anything you can do. In: Sankoff, C. (ed.), The Social Life of Language. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, pp. 271297.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Labov, , Willam, (1972). Sociolinguistic Patterns. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.Google Scholar
Lambrecht, , Kund, (1987). On the status of SVO sentences in French discourse. In: Tomlin, R. (ed.) Coherence and Grounding. Amsterdam: Benjamins, pp. 217261.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Littré, , Paul-Emile, (1962). Dictionnaire de la langue française, vol. 6. Monte-Carlo: Editions du Cap.Google Scholar
Preston, , Dennis, R. (1989). Sociolinguistics and Second Language Acquisition. London: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Rand, , David, and Sankoff, , David, (1990). Gold Verb, Version 2: A Variable Rule Application for the Macintosh (obtained from the authors).Google Scholar
Rickard, , Peter, (1974). A History of the French Language. London: Hutchinson University Library.Google Scholar
Robert, , Paul, (1966). Dictionnaire alphabétique et analogique de la langue française. Paris: Société du Nouveau Littré.Google Scholar
Sankoff, , David, (1987). Variable rules. In: Ammon, U., Dittmar, N. and Mattjeier, K. J. (eds.) Sociolonguistics: An International Handbook of the Science of Language and Society. Berlin and New York: de Gruyter, pp. 984997.Google Scholar
Sankoff, , David, (1988). Sociolinguistics and syntactic variation. In Newmeyer, F. (ed.) Linguistics: The Cambridge Survey. Vol. IV, Language: The Socio-cultural Context. Cambridge: University Press, pp. 140161.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Searle, John, R. (1969). Speech Acts: an Essay in the Philosophy of Language. Cambridge: CUP.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thibault, , Pierette, and Blondeau, , HélÈne, (1991). Bad manners in Montreal French: on the weakening of the stylistic alternation between tu and vous. Paper read at NWAVE 20. Washington, D. C.: Georgetown University.Google Scholar
Waugh, , Linda, R. and Monville-Burston, , Monique, (eds.) (1990). Roman Jakobson on Language. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar