The influence of linguistic and social factors on the recent decline of French ne

Abstract

In this article we present some results showing the decline in radio speech in the use of the French negative particle ne over the last forty years or so. These results derive from a comparison of two radio corpora: an archival corpus recorded by A Ê gren (1973) in 1960±61. The second, contemporary corpus was recorded and analysed by one of the present authors (Smith) in 1997. Having described the variable in question, we present these corpora in turn and analyse results deriving from them. We then examine some of the linguistic constraints that endorse the progressive decline of ne in some contexts while hindering the process in others. Finally we consider some elements of the social context within which the decline of ne has been occurring.

A Corpus Analysis of Intra- and Extralinguistic Factors triggeringne-Deletion in Phonic French

“…Sankoff/Vincent 1980), in Europe its realization varies according to the intra-and extralinguistic factors listed under (2) and (3). Second, as diagram 1 shows, the two radio corpora cited here (Moreau, 1986 andArmstrong/Smith 2002) exhibit rather high ne-realization rates, which have not been attained in corpora containing face-to-face data, since the early eighties (cf. Diller, 1983).…”

“…Ashby 1976, 2001, Armstrong 2002, Armstrong/Smith, 2002Coveney, 2002;Hansen/Malderez, 2004;Dufter/Stark, 2008). Diagram 1 sums up, in top down order starting with the most recent 2 study, the overall ne-realization found in previous corpus analyses during the last five decades.…”

“…The analyzed factors are the subject type (intra-linguistic) and the formality degree of the communication situation (extralinguistic) both seem to play a major role for ne-realization (cf. Ashby 1976, Armstrong/Smith, 2002Coveney, 2 2002;Moreau, 1986;Hansen/Malderez, 2004;Dufter/Stark, 2008). The results presented in this paper will demonstrate exemplarily the complexity and the importance of the co-variation of intra-and extralinguistic factors for linguistic variation in French.…”

“…The selection of this factor is motivated by the fact that the subject type shows a strong and stable influence on the realization of ne throughout earlier analyses (Ashby 1976, Armstrong/Smith 2002, Coveney, 2 2002Moreau, 1986;Hansen/Malderez, 2004;Dufter/Stark, 2008). The division into four subject types (cf.…”

“…Following the best practice of previous analyses (cf. Ashby 1976, 2001, Armstrong 2002, Armstrong/Smith, 2002Coveney, 2002;Hansen/Malderez, 2004;Dufter/Stark, 2008) and the additional considerations of Krötsch (2007), have been excluded all occurrences of negative elements that are not unambiguously expressions of sentential negation and offer a position for ne. The following expressions are or contain homonyms of forclusifs and have hence been excluded: pas mal ('beaucoup'), pas ('step'), pas vrai ('not true'), pas grand chose ('no big thing'), pourquoi pas ('why not'), de rien ('you are welcome'), si jamais ('if ever'), plus [plys] ('more'), plus grand ('bigger'), non plus ('neither') and all non restrictive uses of que, like alors que, bien que, parce que, pendant que as well as the relative pronoun, the conjunction and the interrogative pronoun que.…”