Research on multilingual acquisition has investigated various combinations of languages to identify the factors determining how learners express motion. Our research examines the semantics of motion expression in learners whose first language (L1) exhibits more variation than their foreign language (L2/L3). The present study compares upward motion…

This study investigated French and Spanish EFL (English as a foreign language) learners' preferred use of three-word lexical bundles with discourse or stance-oriented function with a view to exploring the role of first language (L1) frequency effects in foreign language acquisition. Word combinations were extracted from learner performance data…

Learning to talk about motion in a second language is very difficult because it involves restructuring deeply entrenched patterns from the first language. In this paper we argue that statistical learning can explain why L2 learners are only partially successful in restructuring their second language grammars. We explore to what extent L2 learners…

The variety of English spoken by about half a million people in the Canadian province of Quebec is a minority language in intensive contact with French, the local majority language. This unusual contact situation has produced a unique variety of English which displays many instances of French influence that distinguish it from other types of…

Because many of the forms participating in inherent variability are not attested in the standard language, they are often construed as evidence of change. We test this assumption by confronting the standard, as instantiated by a unique corpus covering five centuries of French grammatical injunctions, with data on the evolution of spontaneous…

If it is immediate, definite anaphoric reference of an indefinite syntagm "'un'+noun" in French (e.g., "un chien...l'animal") seems appropriate for an "unfaithful anaphor" (e.g., "un chien...l'animal") but not a "faithful" anaphor (e.g., "un chien...le chien"). This rule helps to identify…

Implications of the "new grammar" approach to teaching French are examined, including the issues of nomenclature, definition, rules and generalizations, and native language use in the second language class. Grammar itself has not changed, and the principal concern is still good usage. (MSE)

This paper describes certain metonymies that are often employed in the daily French press. In such metonymies, a human being or a set of individuals are referred to by means of the name of an institutional location (i.e., a capital city, a ministry in a western country, the name of a country). These metonymic patterns do not seem to be used by…

Discussion of the languages" that comprise living French, including sociolects, technolects, regional dialects, literary vocabulary, and argot. (RS)

This article examines the role of the subjunctive mood in spoken and written French. (Text is in French.) (CLK)

Explores the relational aspects of speech and markers which point up relational aspects according to the pupil's adjustment to his peer group and its activities and to institutional aspects of school life. (Text is in French.) (CDSH/CLK)

Explores unformalized problems arising from different linguistic representations and non-representations of the categorical distinction between the real and unreal in French and in English. Because the different sensitivities to these oppositions are not acknowledged by manuals and not formalized by dictionary examples of usage, the differences…