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‘chtileu qu'i m'freumereu m'bouque i n'est point coér au monne’: Grammatical variation and diglossia in Picardie

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 January 2013

ANNE-JOSÉ VILLENEUVE  and
JULIE AUGER
ANNE-JOSÉ VILLENEUVE*
Affiliation:
University of Toronto
JULIE AUGER*
Affiliation:
Indiana University
*
Addresses for correspondence: Anne-José Villeneuve, Department of French, University of Toronto, Carr Hall 322, Toronto, Ontario M5S 1J4, Canada e-mail: annejose.villeneuve@utoronto.ca
Julie Auger, Department of French and Italian, Indiana University, 1020 E Kirkwood Ave, Ballantine Hall 642, Bloomington, IN 47405-7103, USA e-mail: jauger@indiana.edu
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Abstract

In this article, we analyze French and Picard data, extracted from sociolinguistic interviews with four Picard–French bilingual speakers and four French monolingual speakers from the Vimeu (Somme) area of France, in order to determine whether the two closely-related varieties maintain distinct grammars or whether they now constitute varieties of the same language. Focusing on two linguistic variables, subject doubling and ne deletion, we argue that the variation observed in our French data results from variation within a single grammar, while our Picard data display markedly different patterns that can only be explained by a speaker's switch to a Picard grammar. We propose a model that schematises our results and attempts to reconcile the notions of diglossia and variation. In addition to providing empirical evidence in favour of an approach that recognises the structurally distinct status of Picard, our data indicate that resorting to a diglossic approach for French fails to capture the intrinsically variable nature of human language.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of French Language Studies , Volume 23 , Special Issue 1: L'hypothèse d'une diglossie en France , March 2013 , pp. 109 - 133
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2013 

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Footnotes

1

‘The one who will shut me up isn't born yet.’

2

We thank Kelly Biers and Melanie Elliott for their help with data collection, as well as the Department of French and Italian at Indiana University and the Department of French at the University of Toronto for their financial support. We are also grateful to three anonymous reviewers and to the editors of this special issue for their valuable comments.

References

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