Explores the notion of lexical diffusion in relation to an ongoing change in modern French nasal vowels. Data are interviews with 42 Parisians. Reveals an independent lexical and grammatical conditioning, one not entirely explicable in terms of stress or phonetics. (Author/VWL)

Variation among tokens of enumeration in Montreal French are studied to explain how the constitutive processes interact in terms of Slobin's (1977) charges to language: be clear, processible in real time, quick and easy, and expressive. The contributions of six structural factors or processes to the fulfillment of these charges are examined.…

Reviews three theoretical problem areas in the field of research into phonological variation in children. Presents the results of a cross-sectional study of two groups of children, aged 6 to 7 years and 10 to 12 years, relating to the deletion of post-consonantal word-final /R/ in French. Examines the mechanism involved in learning words with a…

A study of utterances marked by exemplification particles ("par exemple, disons") in Montreal oral French attempted to describe constraints governing choice of discourse variant. Variables examined include position of particle in the utterance, extendibility and reality of the example, order of constituent elements in argumentation, and…

Studies palatization gestures in the production of /t/ and /d/ in standard Belgium French through the use of electropalatography. The articulatory results are compared with an acoustic study of the affricated realization of these consonants when followed by /i/, /y/, /j/, and /h/ in Quebec French. (Author/VWL)

Presents a variationist study in the speech of bilingual Cajuns in St. Landry Parish, Louisiana. Results show a complex interrelationship of age, gender, and social network. One major finding was a v-shaped age pattern (the young show a level of usage closer to the older generation) rather than the generational model that is expected. (Author/VWL)

Examines the pattern of variation of the auxiliary "avoir" and "etre" in the passe compose tense in Vermont French in 22 adult speakers who immigrated from Quebec or are first-generation Franco-Americans. The purpose of the study was to determine if the process of replacement of "etre" by "avoir" in progress…

Analyzes two variants of subject doubling in Ontario French: a non-doubled variant and a doubled variant containing a clitic agreement marker. It is proposed that the doubled variant is favored when the clitic's default features match those of the subject NP (noun phrase), while lack of matching favors the non-doubled variant.(Author/JL)

Examined a nonstandard pattern of agreement found in certain varieties of Atlantic Canada Acadian French. Quantitative analysis of subject-verb agreement patterns in Newfoundland French revealed consistent invariant behavior in this dialect, or, where there is variation, variation constrained according to specific linguistically based factors. (19…

Examines a pattern of end-of-word deletion in Faetar, a Francoprovencal dialect spoken in southern Italy, and considers synchronic variants. The article uses the word "deletion" as a synchronic description of the fact that speakers do not always phonetically produce everything in the input form. Optimality Theory accounts for such…