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Aidan Coveney, Variability in spoken French: A sociolinguistic study of interrogation and negation. Exeter, UK: Elm Bank, 1996. Pp. 271. Pb £24.99.

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 1999

William J. Ashby
William J. Ashby
Affiliation:
Dept. of French, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA 93106, [email protected]
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Abstract

Originating as a British doctoral dissertation, this work constitutes a meticulous, thoughtful, well-written, and sometimes critical application of variationist methodology to two domains of spoken French syntax: negation and interrogation. The work is of merit not only for the insights it provides into two key areas of French syntax, but also for the more general methodological issues it confronts, often with considerable originality. As is well known, the application of variationist methodology to syntax is controversial, but Coveney has made a convincing case that the Labovian paradigm can indeed be insightfully applied to the realm of syntactic variation.

Type
REVIEWS
Information
Language in Society , Volume 28 , Issue 1 , January 1999 , pp. 130 - 134
Copyright
© 1999 Cambridge University Press

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