Pronominal markers in Cajun French
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Francine Alice Girard Lomheim
Abstract
This article examines subject and object pronominal markers in Cajun French, a mainly oral variety of French spoken in Southwestern Louisiana. The data show that although Cajun shares a certain amount of features with other colloquial and dialectal French varieties, it cannot be analyzed along quite the same lines. I will show that it has come further than these varieties in the grammaticalization process of its pronominal markers towards affixal agreement markers, and that they are even in the process of being reduced to nothing and replaced by strong forms.
Abstract
This article examines subject and object pronominal markers in Cajun French, a mainly oral variety of French spoken in Southwestern Louisiana. The data show that although Cajun shares a certain amount of features with other colloquial and dialectal French varieties, it cannot be analyzed along quite the same lines. I will show that it has come further than these varieties in the grammaticalization process of its pronominal markers towards affixal agreement markers, and that they are even in the process of being reduced to nothing and replaced by strong forms.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Acknowledgements vii
- Why challenging clitics? 1
- Enclisis at the syntax-PF interface 27
- Clisis revisited 55
- Handling Wolof clitics in LFG 87
- Clitic placement and grammaticalization in Portuguese 119
- Diachronic source of two cliticization patterns in Slavic 135
- The Freezing Principle in Hungarian polarity, non-polarity and multiple wh -questions 159
- Pronominal markers in Cajun French 187
- The morphosyntax of -nde and post-verbal clitics in Cypriot Greek 209
- Acquisition of Italian object clitics by a trilingual child 233
- Clitic clusters in early Italo-Romance and the syntax/phonology interface 255
- Reflexive verbs and the restructuring of clitic clusters 283
- Language index 311
- Subject index 313
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Acknowledgements vii
- Why challenging clitics? 1
- Enclisis at the syntax-PF interface 27
- Clisis revisited 55
- Handling Wolof clitics in LFG 87
- Clitic placement and grammaticalization in Portuguese 119
- Diachronic source of two cliticization patterns in Slavic 135
- The Freezing Principle in Hungarian polarity, non-polarity and multiple wh -questions 159
- Pronominal markers in Cajun French 187
- The morphosyntax of -nde and post-verbal clitics in Cypriot Greek 209
- Acquisition of Italian object clitics by a trilingual child 233
- Clitic clusters in early Italo-Romance and the syntax/phonology interface 255
- Reflexive verbs and the restructuring of clitic clusters 283
- Language index 311
- Subject index 313
