Acadian French in Time and Space: A Study in Morphosyntax and Comparative Sociolinguistics

Acadian French in Time and Space is concerned with varieties of French spoken in Canada’s four Atlantic Provinces and in parts of eastern Quebec, along with a close relative, Louisiana French. Ruth King triangulates from evidence for francophone speech communities past and present the grammatical history of these varieties, drawing on contemporary methodology and theory in quantitative and qualitative sociolinguistics and in generative grammar. Of particular interest to sociolinguists who focus on the study of grammatical variation and change and to dialectologists interested in the comparison of geographically dispersed but closely related language varieties, this book will also interest specialists in other North American varieties, such as Quebec French, along with specialists in sociosyntax and in language contact. King explores the preservation of rich verbal morphology and its consequences, mechanisms involved in the spread of particular instances of grammatical change, and the relationship between discourse phenomena and grammar. In addition to bringing to light new data and presenting new analyses, this volume also makes recent scholarship on the evolution and contemporary situation of French accessible to anglophone audiences. Ruth King is professor of linguistics at York University in Toronto. She has published widely on grammatical variation and change in contemporary French varieties and on the sociolinguistic history of the language. Her research areas include language and dialect contact, minority language varieties in the media, and language and identity.