Considers the socio-stylistic distinction of the French variable morpho-syntactic particle "ne." The interspeaker axes of variation in "ne" are summarized, and intraspeaker data deriving from a corpus of spoken French are considered. Examines intraspeaker variation in "ne" by focusing on the use of the variable by a single speaker in both speech…

Applies a theoretical framework that encompasses cultural and social regulation of mother-child speech to observations of discourse between three mothers and their two-year-olds. Maternal speech was semantically contingent in the sense that both partners in the conversation were jointly focused on a shared topic of concern. (Author/CB)