This study investigates variable positioning of adverbs in compound verb tenses in vernacular Quebec French using the sociolinguistic framework of Variation Theory (Weinreich et al. 1968; Labov 1969). While variable adverb placement is addressed in both the prescriptive and linguistic literature, whether their explanations for it hold in practice remains to be determined; quantitative research of this phenomenon in usage-based corpora is limited, and rare in French. The research objectives are therefore to determine the productivity of variable adverb placement in French in these verbal contexts, to uncover the linguistic and/or social factors which constrain it, and to evaluate the extent to which current treatments of this variable in the literature accurately reflect what occurs in speech. Data is thus extracted from a corpus of spontaneous discourse, is coded for several linguistic and social factors, and is quantitatively analysed using standard variationist methodology (Poplack & Tagliamonte 2001). Overall rates of variant use suggest that variable adverb placement is robust, with adverbs occurring just slightly more frequently after the past participle than between the auxiliary and the participle; placement at the beginning of the sentence is rare. The results of the distributional and multivariate analyses largely confirm the purported conditioning effects of the tested linguistic factors, suggesting that prescriptive and theoretical linguistic approaches are generally correct in their accounts of this phenomenon. However, closer investigation reveals these effects to be sensitive to the lexical identity of the adverb, namely, their particular placement preferences; once these positioning predilections are taken into consideration, the conditioning effects of the linguistic factors essentially disappear. Sociodemographic factors are also found to be mildly implicated in variable adverb placement, and these too are sensitive to the influence of the lexical identity of the adverb. Ultimately, it is argued that this variable is primarily lexically-constrained, a finding which can be only minimally and indirectly inferred from the relevant literature. Taken together, the results of this study provide new and vital insight into the mechanisms underlying variable adverb placement in French, and also highlight the importance of quantitatively investigating such variable language phenomena in corpora of vernacular speech.

This study investigates variable positioning of adverbs in compound verb tenses in vernacular Quebec French using the sociolinguistic framework of Variation Theory (Weinreich et al. 1968; Labov 1969). While variable adverb placement is addressed in both the prescriptive and linguistic literature, whether their explanations for it hold in practice remains to be determined; quantitative research of this phenomenon in usage-based corpora is limited, and rare in French. The research objectives are therefore to determine the productivity of variable adverb placement in French in these verbal contexts, to uncover the linguistic and/or social factors which constrain it, and to evaluate the extent to which current treatments of this variable in the literature accurately reflect what occurs in speech. Data is thus extracted from a corpus of spontaneous discourse, is coded for several linguistic and social factors, and is quantitatively analysed using standard variationist methodology (Poplack & Tagliamonte 2001). Overall rates of variant use suggest that variable adverb placement is robust, with adverbs occurring just slightly more frequently after the past participle than between the auxiliary and the participle; placement at the beginning of the sentence is rare. The results of the distributional and multivariate analyses largely confirm the purported conditioning effects of the tested linguistic factors, suggesting that prescriptive and theoretical linguistic approaches are generally correct in their accounts of this phenomenon. However, closer investigation reveals these effects to be sensitive to the lexical identity of the adverb, namely, their particular placement preferences; once these positioning predilections are taken into consideration, the conditioning effects of the linguistic factors essentially disappear. Sociodemographic factors are also found to be mildly implicated in variable adverb placement, and these too are sensitive to the influence of the lexical identity of the adverb. Ultimately, it is argued that this variable is primarily lexically-constrained, a finding which can be only minimally and indirectly inferred from the relevant literature. Taken together, the results of this study provide new and vital insight into the mechanisms underlying variable adverb placement in French, and also highlight the importance of quantitatively investigating such variable language phenomena in corpora of vernacular speech.

Contrastive Study of the Lexicon of the French and the Quebec rap: songs of rappers Nekfeu and Koriass The thesis is concerned with the comparison of the lexicon of French in France and the Quebec French studied on lyrics of songs of the French rapper Nekfeu and the Quebec rapper Koriass. The theoretic part of the thesis attempts to outline the synthesis of lexicological findings which enable us to define the particularities and the differences of both variants. The aim of the practical part is to conduct an analysis of the lyrics of songs of both rappers and to compare the use of particular lexical expressions. These expressions are subsequently examined in referential but also in unconventional, French and Quebec dictionaries. The aim of the study is to conduct a lexical analysis of texts of the corpus and to compare the use of the lexicon between the official French language and its Quebec variant. KEYWORDS Lexicology, French, Quebec French, Rap, Diatopy

Marqué par l’afflux des emprunts d’origine anglaise jusqu’à « La Révolution tranquille », l’état de la néologie lexicale québécoise reste aujourd’hui à découvrir. C’est dans cette optique que cette étude cherche à situer la néologie lexicale québécoise à partir d’un corpus des mots récents dont l’analyse démontre que la néologie lexicale québécoise connaît des sources d’enrichissement variées et que sa productivité est différente suivant le type, procédé de formation, origine, etc. du néologisme. Afin de mesurer l’efficacité de la néologie lexicale québécoise, elle s’intéresse également à son actualisation, c'est-à-dire, à sa reconnaissance et fréquence d’usage dans la langue à travers un sondage linguistique réalisé au Québec.Ce travail ouvre des perspectives pour une étude comparée des susdits aspects de la néologie lexicale québécoise avec le français de France. / Marked by the influx of English borrowings until “The Quiet Revolution”, the state of the lexical neologisms in Quebec French today has yet to be researched. In this context, this study seeks to classify lexical neologisms in Quebec French taken from a corpus of words which was recently analyzed and shows that Quebec lexical neologisms have varied sources of enrichment and their difference in productivity dependent on their type, formation process, origin, etc. In order to measure the effectiveness of lexical neologisms in Quebec French, this paper is also interested in its actualization that is its recognition and frequency of use in the language monitored in a linguistic survey conducted in Quebec.This work provides news perspectives and ideas for a comparative study on the aforementioned aspects of lexical neologisms in Quebec French and the French language of France.

No description available.

Nous soutenons dans ce mémoire qu'il existe, en français québécois, deux sous-types de constructions exclamatives. Située dans un cadre théorique qui participe à la fois de la philosophie du langage (la théorie des actes de langage, Austin, 1962; Searle 1969, Searle, 1979; Searle et Vanderveken 1985) et de la linguistique (la théorie des types de phrase, Sadock et Zwicky, 1985; Reis, 1999), notre analyse porte sur un ensemble de constructions exclamatives en apparence synonymes qui impliquent respectivement les morphèmes -tu, donc et assez (1). (1) Elle est-tu/donc/assez belle! Nous démontrons que si ces exclamatives satisfont aux critères d'identification des constructions exclamatives donnés par Zanuttini et Portner (2003) (factivité, évaluativité/implicature scalaire, expressivité/orientation vers le locuteur et incompatibilité avec les paires de question/réponse), les actes de langage exclamatifs servis par les exclamatives en -tu/donc n'ont pas les mêmes conditions de félicité que les actes de langage exclamatifs servis par les exclamatives en assez. En effet, les exclamatives en -tu/donc imposent une contrainte sur leur contexte d'énonciation par rapport à la position épistémique de l'interlocuteur, lequel doit être en mesure de corroborer le jugement exprimé par le locuteur au moyen de l'exclamative. Les exclamatives en assez n'imposent pas de telle contrainte. Nous démontrons que cette distinction pragmatique peut être corrélée avec des distinctions sémantiques et syntaxiques et concluons qu'il existe bien deux sous-types de constructions exclamatives en français québécois. En ce sens, notre recherche ouvre de nouvelles perspectives empiriques et théoriques pour la description et l'analyse de la grammaire des actes de langage exclamatifs. / In this thesis, we argue that there are two subtypes of exclamative clauses in Quebec French. Based on the Speech Act theory (Austin, 1962; Searle, 1969; Searle & Vanderveken, 1985) and the Clause Type theory (Sadock & Zwicky, 1985; Reis, 1999), our analysis is concerned with a set of seemingly synonymous exclamative constructions respectively marked by the exclamative morphemes -tu, donc, and assez (1). (1) Elle est-tu/donc/assez belle! 'Isn't she pretty!/She's so pretty!' We show that despite the fact that exclamative constructions with -tu, donc, and assez all meet the criteria for the exclamative clause type given by Zanuttini and Portner (2003) (factivity, evaluativity/scalar implicature, expressivity/speaker orientedness and inability to appear in question/answer pairs), exclamative speech acts performed by uttering exclamative constructions with -tu/donc have different felicity conditions than exclamative speech acts performed by uttering exclamative constructions with assez. For an exclamative construction with -tu/donc to be uttered felicitously, the hearer must be in a specific epistemic state: she must be able to corroborate the judgment expressed by the speaker. Exclamative constructions with assez are not subject to such a constraint. We show that this pragmatic distinction can be correlated with syntactic and semantic distinctions and conclude that there are, indeed, two subtypes of exclamative clauses in Quebec French. Our research thus opens new empirical and theoretical perspectives for the description and analysis of the grammar of speech acts.

Le présent mémoire de type recherche-création a comme objectif de se pencher sur les lieux de manifestation de la vulnérabilité linguistique dans les œuvres de l’autrice d’expression allemande Aglaja Veteranyi (1962-2002), dont la singularité linguistique découle d’une jeunesse analphabète et apatride. Dans un premier temps, nous cernerons le caractère composite de la vulnérabilité telle que définie dans les recherches en sciences sociales et en littérature, après quoi nous en observerons les manifestations dans le vécu de l’autrice, puis dans ses œuvres. Nous proposons de parcourir son œuvre selon une trajectoire non linéaire, afin d’y repérer les manifestations de la vulnérabilité et de faire une relecture positive de la notion en contextes littéraires. À partir d’un corpus composé de quatre œuvres littéraires et de documents d’archives, nous dresserons un portrait des manifestations de la vulnérabilité dans les œuvres de Veteranyi au regard 1) des thématiques 2) de la structure narrative 3) de la voix narrative et 4) de l’expression plurilingue. La situation du français québécois au sein de la francophonie témoigne elle aussi d’une vulnérabilité sur le plan linguistique. Nous proposons de faire dialoguer les deux vulnérabilités afin d’observer le lieu d’inspiration qu’elles constituent dans l’écriture créative. Pour ce faire, nous proposons, dans la partie création du travail, la traduction d’un extrait du roman Das Regal der letzten Atemzüge de l’allemand vers le français québécois, en vue de créer un dialogue de type expérimental inspiré de la posture de recherche du « vulnerable writing » (Page, 2017). / This research-creation thesis focuses on the expression of linguistic vulnerability observed in the work of Aglaja Veteranyi (1962-2002), a Swiss German-Speaking author marked by an illiterate youth and a long period of statelessness. The first research part aims to identify the composite nature of vulnerability as defined in social science and literature research. Then, we will observe how it manifests itself in the biographical experiences of the author. Finally, we will analyze the reflection of vulnerability in the selected works. We propose to explore Aglaja Veteranyi's literary work according to a non-linear trajectory, in order to trace the apparitions of vulnerability. Based on a corpus composed of four literary works and archival documents, we will draw a portrait of the vulnerability in Veteranyi's work with regard to 1) the themes 2) the narrative structure 3) the narrative voice and 4) the multilingual expression. The situation of Quebec French within the Francophonie also reflects a linguistic vulnerability. We propose to bring the two vulnerabilities into dialogue in order to observe the source of inspiration they constitute in creative writing. To do this, we attempt, in the creation part of the thesis, the translation of an excerpt from the novel Das Regal der letzten Atemzüge from German into Quebec French, in order to create an experimental dialogue inspired by the research posture of “vulnerable writing” (Page, 2017).