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Language Death and Subject Expression: First-person-singular subjects in a declining dialect of Louisiana French

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 September 2018

KATIE CARMICHAEL  and
AARNES GUDMESTAD
KATIE CARMICHAEL*
Affiliation:
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
AARNES GUDMESTAD
Affiliation:
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
*
Address for correspondence: e-mail: katcarm@vt.edu
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Abstract

Louisiana French is undergoing gradual language death. In such situations, it is common to find increased variability and rapid change, as speakers use the language less often and in fewer domains (Wolfram 2004; Palosaari and Campbell 2011). These processes have been observed in the pronominal system of Louisiana French (Rottet 1996; Girard 2013), with both phonological and morphological sources of variation leading to an exceptionally large inventory of first-person-singular forms in the French of the Pointe-Au-Chien Indians of Pointe-Aux-Chênes, Louisiana. Using data from a translation task, we examine the range of forms used by French speakers from this community varying in age and fluency. We note a sharp distinction in forms used by fluent versus non-fluent speakers, with the latter making use of the non-clitic form mon. To answer the question of why mon is so common amongst non-fluent speakers in this task, we apply insights from the field of second language acquisition, considering the systems of these non-fluent speakers as autonomous and systematic. We ultimately propose a potential interaction between the previously documented phonological and morphological patterns observed in this community, influencing in the forms observed.

Type
Article
Information
Journal of French Language Studies , Volume 29 , Issue 1 , March 2019 , pp. 67 - 91
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2018 

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Footnotes

*This work was supported by a grant from the Virginia Tech Institute for Society, Culture and Environment (ISCE). We wish to thank Andrea Lloyd, Nathalie Dajko and Rocky McKeon for their help in collecting and processing the data analysed in this article.

References

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