Clitic subjects in French text messages
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Elisabeth Stark
Abstract
This study investigates the graphical realization of clitic subjects in about 4600 French text messages taken from the Swiss corpus of text messages 〈www.sms4science.ch〉. It analyzses different spelling strategies against the background of the present debate concerning the (still) argumental or (already) purely morphosyntactic (as agreement markers) status of clitic subjects in contemporary French or in a non-standard variety of it (“European Colloquial French”, following Culbertson 2010). As none of three crucial phenomena correlated with the ‘agreement marker hypothesis”, i.e. absence of clitics in inversion structures, fusional spelling tendencies for more than one preverbal clitic element and subject doubling, are attested in a significant way in our data, French text messages from Switzerland do not document any linguistic change nor a norm change in the realm of subject marking.
Abstract
This study investigates the graphical realization of clitic subjects in about 4600 French text messages taken from the Swiss corpus of text messages 〈www.sms4science.ch〉. It analyzses different spelling strategies against the background of the present debate concerning the (still) argumental or (already) purely morphosyntactic (as agreement markers) status of clitic subjects in contemporary French or in a non-standard variety of it (“European Colloquial French”, following Culbertson 2010). As none of three crucial phenomena correlated with the ‘agreement marker hypothesis”, i.e. absence of clitics in inversion structures, fusional spelling tendencies for more than one preverbal clitic element and subject doubling, are attested in a significant way in our data, French text messages from Switzerland do not document any linguistic change nor a norm change in the realm of subject marking.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Introduction to deixis and pronouns in Romance languages 1
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Part I. Deixis and grammatical paradigms
- Deixis and person in the development of Greek personal pronominal paradigms 19
- First person strong pronouns in spoken French 33
- Preservation, modification, and innovation. Paradigmatic reorganisation of the system of personal pronouns – from Latin into Modern Italian 49
- On the grammar of kinship 69
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Part II. Deixis and impersonality
- Impersonality in Spanish personal pronouns 87
- The Spanish impersonal se -construction 109
- Diaphasic variation and change in French pronouns 125
- Clitic subjects in French text messages 147
- The use of personal deixis as an ideological instrument in Spanish political discourse 171
- Cognitive collages and other mental representations of address forms and strategies 189
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Part IV. Deixis and the verbal system
- The relevance of deixis in the description of the predicative relative clause 207
- The marking of person deixis in the French future system – a diachronic approach 227
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Part V. Deixis in a metalinguistic perspective
- Place deixis in the 16th century grammars of Italy 253
- Deixis and reference in the treatment of personal pronouns and demonstratives in Francesco Soave 273
- Name index 285
- Subject index 287
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Introduction to deixis and pronouns in Romance languages 1
-
Part I. Deixis and grammatical paradigms
- Deixis and person in the development of Greek personal pronominal paradigms 19
- First person strong pronouns in spoken French 33
- Preservation, modification, and innovation. Paradigmatic reorganisation of the system of personal pronouns – from Latin into Modern Italian 49
- On the grammar of kinship 69
-
Part II. Deixis and impersonality
- Impersonality in Spanish personal pronouns 87
- The Spanish impersonal se -construction 109
- Diaphasic variation and change in French pronouns 125
- Clitic subjects in French text messages 147
- The use of personal deixis as an ideological instrument in Spanish political discourse 171
- Cognitive collages and other mental representations of address forms and strategies 189
-
Part IV. Deixis and the verbal system
- The relevance of deixis in the description of the predicative relative clause 207
- The marking of person deixis in the French future system – a diachronic approach 227
-
Part V. Deixis in a metalinguistic perspective
- Place deixis in the 16th century grammars of Italy 253
- Deixis and reference in the treatment of personal pronouns and demonstratives in Francesco Soave 273
- Name index 285
- Subject index 287
