ball-colloquial french grammar_a practical guide

5/25/2018 Ball-Colloquial French Grammar_A Practical Guide

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Colloquial French Grammar


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Blackwell Reference GrammarsGeneral Editor: Glanville Price

PublishedA Comprehensive French GrammarFourth EditionL.S.R. Byrne and E.L. Churchil lCompletely revised and rewri t ten by Glanvil le PriceA Com prehensive Russian Gramm arT erence WadeAdvisory Edi tor : Michael J . de K. HolmanA Com prehensive Spanish Gramm arJacques de BruyneAdapted, wi th addi t ional mater ia l , by Chr is topher J . Pounta inA Com prehensive Welsh Gram marDavid A. ThorneColloquial French Grammar: A Practical GuideRodney BallIn preparationA Comprehensive German GrammarJona than Wes tA Comprehensive Italian GrammarShirley VinallA Com prehensive Portuguese Gramm arSteven ParkinsonA Comprehensive Ancient Greek GrammarDavid LangslowA Com prehensive Latin Gramm arJonathan Powel lGrammar WorkbooksA Russian Gramm ar WorkbookT erence Wade


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Colloquial French Grammar:A Practical GuideRodney Ball


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Copyright R.V. Ball 2000The right of R.V. Ball to be identified as author of this work has been asserted inaccordance with the Copyright , Designs and Patents Act 1988.First published 20002 4 6 8 10 9 7 5 3 1Blackwell Publishers Ltd108 Cowley RoadOxford OX4 1JFU KBlackwell Publishers Inc.350 Main StreetMaiden, Massachuset t s 02148US AAll r ights reserved. Except for the quotat ion of short passages for the purposesof cr i t icism and review, no part of this publicat ion may be reproduced, s tored ina retr ieval system, or t ransmit ted, in any form or by any means, electronic,mechanical , photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permissionof the publisher.Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the conditionthat it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, orotherwise circulated without the publisher 's pr ior consent in any form of bindingor cover other than that in which i t is published and without a s imilar condit ionincluding this condit ion being imposed on the subsequent purchaser .British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A CIP catalogue record for this book is avai lable from the Bri t ish Library.Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication DataBall , Rodney, 1940-Colloquial French grammar: a pract ical guide / Rodney Ball .p. cm . (Blackwell reference gra m m ars)Includes bibl iographical references and index.IS B N 0-631-21882-3 ( a lk . paper ) IS B N 0-631-21883-1 ( a lk . paper )1. F rench lang uag e Gra mm ar . 2 . F rench languag e Textbo oks for fore ign

speak ers English. 3. Frenc h langu age Spo ken Fren ch. I . Ti t le . I I . Series.PC2112.B25 2000448.2 '421 dc21 00-0 289 14

Typ eset in 10 on 12pt Times


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Contents

Acknowledgements ix1 Introduction 11.1 Dim ension s of gram m atical variation 11.2 Sub-categories of stan da rd and colloquial Fre nch 21.3 Levels of lang uag e 41.4 Origins of the sta nd ard /no n- sta nd ard divergence 51.5 N orm ativ e and descriptivist app roa che s 61.6 Insecurity and hype rcorrec tion 71.7 G ram m atic al varia tion and the foreign learner 91.8 Fu rth er reading 101.9 Poin ts ab ou t this bo ok 112 Three Grammatical Processes 132.1 Fo rm ing negatives 132.1.1 Neg atives with and w ithou t ne 132.1.2 Fa cto rs govern ing the (non-)use ofne 162.1.3 Aucun and nul; (ne. . . ) queand (ne . . . ) p a s . . . que 192.1.4 Po tentia l am bigu ities 222.1.5 Re action s to develo pm ents 242.2 For m ing quest ions 262.2.1 Inversion, est-ce que and intonat ion 262.2.2 Inform al W H-q uest ions 292.2.3 Indirect que stions 342.2.4 Qu estions with ti 35

2.2.5 Statistical studies 382.2.6 Co mm ents and react ions 392.3 Fo rm ing relative clauses 402.3.1 Relative clauses in sta nd ard Fre nch 402.3.2 Po pu lar developm ents: le dcum ul du relatif 42


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2.3.3 Qui, que and o 442.3.4 'Re sum ptive ' an d 'defective' relative clauses 472.3.5 H ow speakers han dle relative clauses 513 Noun Phrases 563.1 N ou ns , art icles and mo difiers 563.1.1 G en der of no un s 563.1.2 De termine rs: som e colloquial aspects 583.1.3 Ad jectives and num erals 613.2 Pronouns: nous and on 643.2.1 Personal on 643.2.2 Th e versatility of on, nous and tu 663.2.3 Th e views of co m m en tato rs 683.3 O the r aspects of pr on ou n use 703.3.1 Im perso nal expressions 703.3.2 Ce/a/cela and il/elle 733.3.3 a in questions and a w ithout an antecedent 763.3.4 O bject pr on ou ns in com m and s; 'ethic ' uses;nous deux . . . ; -ziguepron oun s 784 Verbs 824.1 Tenses and m ood s 824.1.1 Pass simple 824.1.2 Pass surcompos 854.1.3 Fu tur e and condit ional 874.1.4 Indicative and subjunc tive 914.2 Pa st participles, agre em ent, auxiliaries 94

4.2.1 Past participle agreem ent 944.2.2 The views of com m enta tors 974.2.3 O ther agreem ent issues 974.2.4 Au xiliary verbs avoir an d tre 1004.3 Tr ans itive an d intransitive; active an d passive 1024.3.1 S tand ard and no n-sta nd ard t ransit ivi ty pat tern s 1024.3.2 Re cent developm ents 1054.3.3 Passives in colloq uial speech 1065 Conjunctions and Prepositions 1105.1 Su bo rdin ating con junc tions 1105.1.1 Co njunc t ions with and witho ut que 110


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5.1.2 Co lloquial con junc tions 112

5.3 Pre po sition s 1215.3.1 'Prepo sition stran din g' 1215.3.2 Co lloquial uses and inno vation s 1245.3.3 Som e traditio nal btes noir es 1276 Sentence Structure and Organization 1306.1 To pic structures and reprise 1306.1.1 V ariatio ns on th e basic sentence pa tte rn 1306.1.2 De tachm ent of objects;mu ltiple deta chm ent 1326.1.3 Previous m ention ; topic an d com m ent 1356.1.4 Lin ks between topic , discou rse an d situa tion 1376.1.5 Left versus right detac hm ent 140

6 .1 .6 Moi , j e . . . 1436.1.7 Indefinites an d pres enta tives 1466.1.8 C lefts an d pse udo -clefts 1486.2 Extending the range of gram m ar: 'macro -syntax ' 1496.2.1 Top icalization w ithou t reprise; bin ary sentences 1506.2.2 Prefix, nucleus an d suffix 1526.2.3 Par enth esis 1556.2.4 Struc ture and its absence in info rm al discourse 1577 Grammatical Effects of an Unreformed Spelling System 1637.1 Background: orthographe d'usage and orthographegrammaticale 1637.2 Sing ular an d plur al (especially no un s) 1647.2.1 Basic pa tter ns in writing an d speech 1647.2.2 A plu ral prefix, an d som e irregularities 1667.2.3 'Intr us ive ' -z- 1687.3 M asc uline an d fem inine (especially adjectives) 1707.3.1 W ritten and spok en pa ttern s 1707.3.2 Adding [a]and deleting a con son an t 1727.3.3 Varieties of Fre nch with 'no n- m ute ' -e 1747.4 C on jug atin g verbs 1757.4.1 The absence of nu m be r an d person endings 1757.4.2 Pr on ou ns , prefixes an d clitics 177

7.4.3 Suffixes indic ating tense 1787.4.4 Ve rbs with tw o stems 1817.4.5 Som e ano m alies 1848 Conclusions 1 8 7


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8.1 Interco nne ctions: verb structu re and other areas

8.1.3 Links with imperatives, co -or din atio n, relativesand topicalization 1918.2 Co lloquial Fre nc h in vario us guises 1938.2.1 Ev eryd ay discou rse 1948.2.2 Jo ur na lists ' colloq uial 1948.2.3 Po pu list fiction 1968.2.4 Pas tiche 1978.2.5 La ngu age gam es 1988.2.6 Lite rary use 200A pp end ix 1: An sw ers to Selected Exercises 202App endix 2: Exp lanat ions of G ram m atical Term s 217App endix 3: Using the Internat ion al Phon et ic Alp habe t 226References 231Index 237


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Acknowledgements

My indebtedness to others who have wri t ten about the French languagewill be obvious throughout this book. On a more personal level, I wouldparticularly l ike to thank the following for much-valued help, advice orinformat ion: Franoise Carr , Anthony Grant , Fabr ice Hauchecorne , J imMcGivney, Florence Myles. Also the series editor, Glanville Price, for hisencouragement and support . And last but not least , Donald Whit ton, whointroduced me to this subject many years ago. The responsibili ty for anyinaccuracies, om issions or o ther shortcom ings is, of course, entirely my ow n.


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A L S O A V A I L A B L E .L.S.R. Byrne and E.L. Churchil l ' s A Comprehensive French GrammarFourth EditionCompletely revised and rewritten by Glanville PriceThis book has been the standard textbook of French grammar since its f irst publication in1950, and is still unrivalled. This fourth edition has been completely revised and rewritten byone of Britain 's most distinguished French-language scholars. This comprehensive textbookis furnished with full, clear explanations and numerous examples, and is now completelyup-to-date .Contents:Preface.Technical Terms and Abbreviat ions.Introduction.The Noun .Phrase.Verbs.The Structure of the Sentence.Adverbs, Preposi t ions and Conjunctions.Appendix.Index.600 pages0-631-18165-2 Paperback1993A French Gramm ar Workbookby Dulcie Engel, George Evans and Valerie HowellsDeveloping on the success of Byrne and Churchill's Comprehensive French Grammar revisedand rewritten by Glanville Price, this book is designed to be used either as a companionvolume to the reference grammar or independently. I t includes a range of exercises, fromsimple substitution drills and multiple choice to grammatical quizzes and translationexercises, with every important grammar point illustrated and explored. The workbookalso features a key for students working on their own and suggestions for following upparticularly difficult areas in more detail.A French Grammar Workbook covers all aspects of French grammar and incorporates therange of contemporary vocabulary, making it an ideal text for all English-speaking students.232 pages0-631-20746-5 Paperback1998This book can be bought through your local bookshop or you can order a copy by callingMarston Book Services on (0)1235 465500 for orders outside the Americas, or by calling(800) 216-2522 (toll-free in North America) if ordering from North or South America.Or visit our website at http://www.blackwellpublishers.co.uk
http://www.blackwellpublishers.co.uk/http://www.blackwellpublishers.co.uk/


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1 Introduction

1.1 Dimensions of gram m atical variat ionThe grammatical pat terns of languages often vary according to such factorsas the formality of the situation in which a discourse or conversation istaking place, the social background of the speakers, or the medium beingused (speech or writ ing). For example in English we weren't there, with notcontracted to n't, is characteristic of spoken language, where i t is appropri-ate in all but the most formal situations. We wasn't there is also 'colloquial ' ,but has strong associations with working-class or uneducated usage. Wewere not there is more characteristic of written texts, and usually creates a'stilted' effect in conversation (unless not is emphasized).Similar differences exist in French, and they are the subject of this book.Je ne comprends pas (with ne and pas) is normal in writing and occurs insome spoken usage too. But in much everyday conversation, negatives areform ed withpasonly(je comprendspas). Other colloquial forms are stigmat-ized as 'uneducated' or ' lower-class' :j'ai rentr(as opposed toje su is rentr),for example, is socially marked, just like we wasn't.These three dimensions of variation (speech versus writing, formality/informality of situation, social level of speaker) need to be carefully distin-guished, even though they do overlap to a considerable extent.Spoken language is not inevitably more informal than written language.Someone speaking in public, for example, might well feel i t appropriate touse features which would otherwise give a 'bookish' effect. Conversely,there are many novelists and journalists whose writing is characterized byits deliberately colloquial flavour (a number of examples will be given later,especially in 8.2).The formality/informality dimension is also in principle independent of


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as a regular part of their linguistic repertoire may well be capable of switch-ing to a more 'middle-class' style when the need arises (if drafting a jobapplication, for instance, or answering questions at an interview).Grammatical s t ructures can also vary from one geographical region toanother. For example: some southern French speakers use tre as its ownauxiliary (je suis t); the past historic occurs in everyday conversation insouthw estern F ranc e; speakers in the north -east use structures l ikej'ai achetun sandwich pour moi manger; in Belgium au plus . . . au plus is encounteredalongside p lus . . . p lus ( ' the more . . . the more ' ) ; in Switzerland demonstra-tives may be placed before infinitives (on peut a faire). See Sanders (1993),Tuaillon (1988) and Walter (1988) for more details.Striking though such uses may be, they are nevertheless rather exceptional,and should not obscure the very considerable extent of the 'core' colloquialFrench shared by all speakers, irrespective of their region of origin. Regionaldistinctivenessis in fact m ore app aren t in pronu nciation , and even in vocabul-ary, than in grammar. This dimension will therefore not be explored furtherhere. Instead, this book concentrates on features which, though typical ofeveryday usage in the Paris area, are widely encountered elsewhere in Euro-pean and for tha t mat ter North American French.

1.2 Sub -categor ies of stand ard andcol loquial FrenchIn whatfollows, a basic distinction will be drawn between 'standard' and 'col-loquial ' French gram m ar. W ithin the col loquial division, gram matical fo rm slike j'ai rentr, which have social class connotations, are sub-categorized as'popular' . (Popular/populaire in this context does not mean 'widely appreciatedor enjoyed' , of course, but relates to the 'usage of the (common) people' .)'Popular ' forms should be dist inguished from ' famil iar ' ones (je comprendspas, for example), which are usable by all speakers, irrespective of theirbackground. So familiar familier, unlike popular/populaire, is a formality-related not a class-related term: it need not imply 'used exclusively by upper-and middle-class speakers' . Note the term (franais) relch, which issometimes used as a general expression covering both these categories, andis equivalent to 'colloquial ' .Words, phrases and idiomatic expressions are also often categorized(e.g. in dictionaries) asfamilier o rpopulaire, though rather haphazardly andinconsistently. The distinction between the two is probably easier to draw


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1.2 Sub-categories of standard and colloquial French 3should be regarded as 'popular ' or not, and within each of these two categor-ies there are peripheral as well as more central items. Hence the need forqualifications: some familiar forms may be 'very' familiar, others only'slightly' so.

One further difference between the sociology of grammar and that ofvocabulary is that the so-called langage des jeunes (alternatively langage descits o r langage des banlieues), which is currently the object of so muchinterest and discussion, lacks distinctive grammatical features: the celebrateddifferences between the French of adolescents and that of their elders arealmost entirely lexical. Reports of the non-use of verb endings by teenagerson high-rise estates are misleading. Only newly coined slang verbs aresometimesaffected: je pachave, j'ai pachave,je vaispachave(pachave: 'sleep').And even these usually contain an erstwhile ending which has been displacedby the syllable inversion characteristic of verlan ( 'backslang ' ) : j'ai pcho(forj'aichop:'I stole '). One or two minor innovations located on the borderlinebetween grammar and vocabulary are none the less mentioned in 3.3.4and 5.1.3.Standard forms l ike je ne comprends pas (with ne as well as pas) arecharacteristic of writ ing and speech which adheres to the rules of approvedusage - the norm - drawn up by grammarians over the last three centuries(see below). But some standard features have particularly formal or l i teraryconnotations (the imperfect subjunctive is an example), whereas others areusable in a much wider variety of si tuations.Consequently, just as the colloquial range needs to be sub-divided, so tooit is customary to set up sub-categories within the norm: the term soign isapplied to features which are strongly marked for formality or ' l i terariness' ;courant to those which are more neutral (the ne . . . pas negative would fallinto the latter category). Again, there is a gradient rather than a sharp trans-it ion from one division to the other. Taken together,franais courant andfranais soign constitute le bon usage ( 'correct usage') - la norme, or'standard French' as the term is understood in this book.There is a profusion of alternative French terminology in this area.(Franais) soign is also known asfranais soutenu, franais cultiv, franaischti or (particularly when a hint of archaism is present)franais littraire.Instead of ranais courant, some writers refer tofranais comm un, or (some-what confusingly)franais standard.There are of course ma ny areas of French gram m ar in which no variat ionispresent and where informal and formal discourse follow the same patterns.To take one example: despite the many distinctive characteristics of collo-


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1.3 Levels of lang uageThe various sub-categories are often aligned in a continuum and referred toas registers or levels of language:

franais soign fr courant fr familier < -> fr populaireThis is convenient enough for the purposes of description and classification,as long as i t is remembered that the formal/informal and the social classdimensions are partly conflated here: 'popular ' , as was explained in 1.2, isnot simply a 'more colloquial ' or 'more informal ' extension of ' familiar ' .

The following table shows how the various dimensions combine. The arrowsin the section labelled 'medium' indicate that any register can in principlebe either writ ten or spoken, but that most examples of franais soign arewri t ten, whereas famil iar and popular features are predominant ly spoken.

N.B. Because of the co-exis tence of several parameters , and the lack of c lear-cutt rans i t ions be tween ca tegor ies , the re has been much deba te abou t these c lass i f ica -t ions , and var ious o the r schemes have been p roposed . For example , a number o faccounts o f F rench pub l i shed in the UK (Ager 1990 , Ba tche lo r and Offord 1982 ,Offord 1990) make use o f a th ree -way reg is te r d iv is ion cen t r ing on the ' degree o ffo rma l i ty ' d ime n s io n , w i th R (e g i s t e r )3 c o r r e sp o n d in g to ' f o rma l ' , R 2 to ' n e u t r a l ' ,a n d R 1 to ' i n fo rma l ' .

It is important always to bear in mind that, despite the use of terms like lalangue populaire orla langue littraire, i t is not the case that 'popular Frenchgrammar' , 'col loquial French grammar' or ' l i terary French' are complete ,well-defined and self-sufficient systems. For one thing, the number of spe-cifically popular features is actually fairly small . Moreover, as has alreadybeen pointed out, many grammatical features are common to all levels, andit will emerge in the following chapters that there can be fluctuation betweenalternatives within one and the same level.

degree of formality:register/social variety:medium:S T A N D A R D C O L L O Q U I A Lformal


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1.4 Origins of the standard/non-standard divergence 5also byfranais populaire speakers when no popular equivalents are avail-able); the outermost circle contains the standard features, some of whichalso occur in colloquial usage, again in the absence of alternatives. Of course,as there are no sharp transit ions, all the circles have fairly permeable or' fuzzy ' boundaries.1.4 Origins of the standard/non -stand arddivergenceAs the Table of Contents suggests, the points on which standard and col-loquial French grammar diverge are many and varied. Undoubtedly, thereare more of them than in the case of standard and colloquial English. Andsome very central areas of grammar are affected. The reasons for this needto be outlined, as the divergence has come to have important consequencesfor users of the language.The rift began to appear in the seventeenth century, under the centraliz-ing monarchies of Louis XIII and XIV. Much progress was made at thatt ime in standardizing language use at the royal court: the French Academy(the 'guardian of the language') was founded in 1634; uniformity was imposedin large num be rs of cases where usage h ad previously fluctuated (forexample,the obligatory use of both ne an d pas in negatives dates from this period);treatises on grammar began to appear in which the various rulings were pre-sented and explained. Gradually the conviction emerged that a perfect lan-guage was being created: by the end of the eighteenth century it was widelybelieved in cultured circles that French possessed a logic and clarity thatother languages lacked. Later generations of grammarians saw their taskessentially as on e of preserving the langu age in this pristine state; accordingly,the grammar of modern standard French has remained essentially unchangedover the last two to three hundred years.Now although the users of the aristocratic French of Versail les werepolit ically and economically dominant, their numbers were small: perhapsa few thousand out of a population of twenty mill ion. Even so, before the1789 Revolution, there was no attempt to spread the use of standard Frenchmorewidely:attention w as very m uch focused on the standard ization processitself. So millions of people in the sou th, in B rittany, in Alsace an d elsewhereknew li t t le or no French, and continued to speak various regional languages.M ore to the point, even in the Paris region and other 'Fren ch'-sp eak ing areasof northern France, the i l l i terate mass of the population were largely un-


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fact. Particularly important was the introduction in the 1880s of a nationalsystem of compulsory primary education, a central aim of which was tospread the use of standard French throughout the terri tory of the Republic .This was certainly effective in marginalizing regional languages. How-ever, as far as French itself is concerned, most of the non-standard featuresthat had developed were too firmly established by this time for it to bepossible to eradicate them entirely. Depending on their level of education,speakers approximate to the norm to a greater or lesser extent when mon-itoring themselves (especially when writing). But in unguarded moments,non-standard features 'creep in ' . The extent to which this is the casedepends very much on the individual: a schoolteacher's usage - even when'unmonitored ' - wil l contain far more bon usage fea tures than a manualworker 's . But there are a number of non-standard pat terns ( l ike the omis-sion of ne) which are extremely prevalent in informal usage, whoever thespeaker may be.

1.5 Norm ative and descrip t ivist approachesTh ere are essentially tw o kinds of att i tude to da y to w ard s this state of affa irs.At one extreme is the normative view that divergences from standard usageare regrettable fautes de franais - that the only 'correct ' French is thearistocratic dialect perfected over the centuries by the grammarians andenshrined in the classic works of French li terature. The term purist is oftenapplied to those who believe that change in language can only be for theworse and is therefore always to be resisted. Their unflattering descriptionsof grammatical mistakes (,solcismes) give some insight into their feelings:'abominable faute ' , 'monstre authent ique ' , ' solcisme ignoble ' , 'outrage notre langue' , to quote but a few examples.To be contrasted with this is the descriptivist view that non-standardfeatures represent the 'natural evolution' of the language, unimpeded by theintervent ions of grammarians. Colloquial French, from this standpoint ,has its own system and its own logic. It is not to be rejected out of hand,but should be analysed and described objectively - on i ts own terms, not asthough it were some kind of degenerate version of the norm. It is character-ist ic of this approach that the posit ively oriented term franais avanc, withits hint of the 'French language of the future' , is sometimes used (notablyin Frei 1929) as an alternative to the rather disparaging franais familier/


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are unable or unwilling to recognize that languages inevitably change fromgeneration to generation.M any com m entator s of course take one of various intermediate posi t ions,accepting certain particularly widespread non-standard forms, or at leastacknowledging that the more soign areas of the standard language are notappropriate for all situations. A relatively liberal line of this type has beentaken by authors of major works of reference l ike Maurice Grevisse {Le BonUsage) or Joseph Hanse {Dictionnaire des difficults de la langue franaise).Even so, such works set out to make recommendat ions about usage, ratherthan simply to describe and analyse, and popular French in particular is notsomething with which they are concerned. Because such commentators seemstill to be 'steering' or 'directing' usage in a particular direction (however dis-creetly), this intermediate approach is often referred to as dirigiste.Among the more overt ly normative commentators are the authors ofnumerous books offering guidance to nat ive speakers of French who feeltha t their proficiency in the langu age leaves som ething to be desired. T ypicaltitles are Je conna is mieux le franais, o r Le Guide du franais correct. Theschool classroom also continues to be a place where bon usage is propa-gated, and examination syllabuses have an important part to play in thisprocess. Educationalists are influenced by the periodic pronouncements onquest ions of grammar {mises en garde) made by the French Academy, andthe views expressed in specialized jo ur na ls like the highly con serv ative Dfensede la langue franaise (sponsored by the Academy). A further platform isprovided by the chroniques de langage - regular columns in national andprovincial newspapers where matters of pronunciation, grammar and vocabu-lary are discussed - though these days the approach of most chroniqueursis less strongly normative than was the case thirty or forty years ago.

Descriptivists fo rm a m uch sm aller and m ore hom ogen eous g roup . Typic-ally, they are university specialists who see it as their business to apply themethods and principles of l inguistic theory not just to standard French, butto other varieties of the language. A number of comments by academiclinguists on particular issues are quoted in this book, and some of the resultsof their research are also presented. By way of contrast , various normativepronouncements of the more outspoken sort are also included, in order todemonstrate the kind of reasoning used by 'defenders of the language' andthe extent of their concern about developments.1-6 Insecuri ty and hypercorrection


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not just 'French ' : some of the best-known commentators are from outsidemetropolitan France, the Belgians Maurice Grevisse and Joseph Hanse beingcases in point).The ordinary speaker of French, however, is in the unenviable posit ionof making daily use of a range of forms which are officially proscribed or'blackl isted ' . Moreover, such prominent components of the standard lan-guage as the past historic, the imperfect subjunctive, the agreement of thepast participle, or even certain features of relative clauses, have little orno currency in contemporary colloquial usage, and are therefore to a greateror lesser extent unknown terri tory to a surprisingly large number offrancophones .The result, even among middle-class speakers, is a widespread sense offai lure to m easure up to the norm , a distinct uneasiness abou t gram m ar andgrammarians, and a belief that French is a difficult language which theydo not 'speak properly' - an odd belief on the face of it, given that thoseholding i t are nat ive francophones. Such preoccupat ions account , amongother things, for the continued viability of the chroniques de langage in thepress, for the proliferation on bookstalls of 'guides to correct usage' , and forthe fascination with the intricacies of spelling revealed each year in theannual international dictation contest 'Les Dicos d'Or' , with i ts televisedfinal.Another consequence of this sense of insecurity is that, in their struggle tospeak and write 'correctly ' , language users sometimes overshoot the mark,as i t were, and produce forms which are actually distortions of the norm atwhich they are aiming. Examples of hypercorrection exist in English: thelegendary Cockneys who pronounce the h in honest, or the large number ofspeakers who say 'between you and I ' instead of 'between you and me' (onthe assumption that, because 'you and me' is sometimes incorrect, i t mustalways be incorrect). An example of a hypercorrect form in French isje n'aipas rien vu, where eagerness to include ne, as required by the norm, leadsto the insertion ofpas as well - though this is not of course 'correct' whenrien is present.From time to t ime in the chapters that follow, examples will be givenillustrating various hypercorrections and other classic fautes de franaisof which linguistically insecure francophones are sometimes 'guilty ' , as thepurists would put i t . Meanwhile, here are two representative comments inwhich speakers give expression to the feeling that the language they habitu-ally use is 'not proper French' , or 'not good French':


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1.7 Gramm atical variation and the foreign learner 9(b) - Qu 'est-ce que vou s pensez de votre fa on de parle r le frana is?- O h, elle est sr em ent trs m auv aise [rires].- Pourquoi?- Ch pas . . . tous les Fra na is parlen t m al [rires], eh, c 'est com m etout le m ond e . . . on parle tou jou rs un fran ais qui n 'est pas t rspur, hein.- Vo us croyez?- Y a des fau tes de fran ais, oui, on fait des faute s. (33-year-olddoctor) (Fischer 1987: 101, 167)

The posit ion was aptly summed up by the l inguist Andr Martinet, when hel ikened standard French grammar to a minefield through which speakershave to pick their way:Les Franais n 'osent plus parler leur langue parce que des gnrationsde grammairiens, professionnels et amateurs, en ont fait un domaineparsem d'embches et d ' interdits. (Martinet 1969: 29)

1.7 Gramm atical variation and the foreign learnerAlthough brief reminders of standard usage are provided at various pointsin this book, it is in no way intended as a guide to bon usage, and in theevent of unc ertainty readers shou ld consu lt one of the gram m ars l isted in theRefere nces (Ha wk ins an d T o well 1996, Judg e an d Healey 1983, M ans ion1952, Nott 1998, Price 1993).Some general guidance can, however, be provided here for the foreignlearner of French who is unsure which, if any, of the many non-standardforms presented he or she should actually use - as distinct from simplybeing able to recognize (though this in i tself is an important part of com-petence in the language).It should be clear from the preceding discussion that the use or non-useof a particular form depends on the situational circumstances or sett ing: thefact that one may have 'heard French people say x' does not automaticallymake x appropriate at all t imes.In writing, it is advisable always to keep to the norm, unless a deliberatelycolloquial, probably journalistic, effect is being sought. (This can be a riskyundertaking for a non-native speaker, unless his/her proficiency in French isextremely high.) For example, ne should not be omit ted: francophones maywell not use it in con ver sation , b ut they a re unlikely to leave it out in w riting.


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their grammar (and pronunciat ion and vocabulary) is a lso impeccably'popular ' . The same appl ies tofranais populaire forms.But ' familiar ' features can certainly be used if the circumstances arerelaxed enough and the relationships between the speakers are appropriate:Do they belong to the same age group? Are they social equals or not? Aretheyfriends, acquaintances or strangers? Do they use thetuform or thevousform to one another? 'Ch pas' for ' je ne sais pas' would probably not behelpful in a job interview: it might well give an unwanted impression offlippancy or even insolence. But it would be perfectly acceptable in a cafconversation with friends. There is of course an unlimited range of possiblesituations. What if the non-francophone is not relaxing in a caf, but is aguest at a rather formal dinner given by a hierarchical superior? In this case,familiar features would probably be more acceptable later in the proceedingsthan earlier: but basically the best practice is to adapt to the usage of otherpeople who are present.To be in a position to do this, it is important to have a clear idea of thelevel of 'colloquialness' of the forms in question and of the way in which thevarious grammatical areas are organized at that level. Judgements relatingto particular si tuations should then follow without too much difficulty.Butit is also important to be consistent: for example, omitting ne while at thesame time forming questions by using inversion (see 2.2) would result insome extremely unnatural effects.

1.8 Further readingThe above is only a brief outline of the sociological aspects of grammaticalvariation. Several books are l isted in the References which provide moreinformation. Lodge (1993) gives afull account of the emergence of standardFrench. Chapter 2 of Sanders (1993) is a useful discussion of the advantagesand disadvantages of various approaches to register and language levels.Ager (1990), Ball (1997), Muller (1985), Offord (1990), Spence (1996) andWalter (1988) contain further information about the interact ion betweendiscourse situations and language structure.In recent years, several excellent books specifically about the grammaticalstructure of spoken French have been published in France, though noneis fully comprehensive. Gadet (1992), a handy paperback in the Que sais-je?series and written with the general public in mind, focuses on franaispopulaire specifically: pronunciation and vocabulary are analysed as well


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issues are raised relating to norm and variation, and a number of areas ofgrammar and pronunciat ion are explored. Blanche-Benveniste (1990) con-tains quite technical, in-depth discussion of several grammatical issues. Boththis and her 1997 book are informative about the findings of the group atthe University of Provence (GARS: Groupe aixois de recherches en syntaxe)which, over the last two or three decades, has carried out valuable researchinto spontaneous spoken French.To return for a moment to publications intended for the non-specialistreader, two books by Marina Yaguello (1991 and 1998) contain a series ofastute and entertaining observat ions about t rends in contemporary usage,including some that affect grammar. Leeman-Bouix (1994) is a lucid andspiri ted attack on the purist tradition by a convinced descriptivist .Not to be neglected either are the two classic pioneering contributions tothe study of colloquial French. Both appeared in the 1920s, though they arevery different in nature. Le Langage populaire, by Henri Bauche (a writer ofboulevard plays, not an academic) is straightforwardly but entertaininglydescriptive. Some of the features he mentions may no longer be current(particularly as regards vocabulary), b ut they are always picturesque. Baucheoperated w ithin a frame wo rk of t radi t ional assump tions. O n the other h and ,La Gram maire des fautes, by the Swiss linguist H en ri Freiis,as its title implies,a scientifically oriented attempt to present popular French as a coherentlinguistic system in its own right. (Frei 's account is based on a detailedanalysis of letters writ ten by soldiers during the First World War).1.9 Points about th is bookWhether or not you choose actually to work through the exercises, they willprovide you with a large number of additional examples of usage. Exercisesmarked with a dagger (f) have well-defined solutions, which are given inAppendix 1. Those not so marked are more open-ended and are mainlyintended as tasks or projects, or as material for commentary.Appendix 2 contains concise explanations of all the grammatical termsused(antecedent, indirect object, etc.). See Appendix3 for a guided introduc-tion to the International Phonetic Alphabet, as used for transcribing French.Quoted examples come from a number of different sources, notablycollections of unscripted conversations: port employees in Le Havre (codedFH), working-class and lower-middle-class residents of the Paris suburbsof Argenteui l (DF) and Ivry (IVR), youngsters contribut ing to a phone-in


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Oth er examples are fro m various publ ished descript ions of spo ke n F r e n c h .A key to all the codes will be found on pp. 234-6.Normally, colloquial vocabulary i tems in examples are translated only ifnot l is ted in the Coll ins-Robert French-English dict ionary. Unacceptable(ungrammatical) phrases or sentences are preceded by an asterisk (*). It isimportant to remember that sentences can be unacceptable in terms of thegrammar of col loquial French, just as they can be unacceptable in terms ofstandard usage.


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2 Three GrammaticalProcesses

2.1 Form ing negativesOne of the best-known indicators of formality difference in French is thepresence or absence of ne in negative sentences, already referred to in theIntroduction. But the situation is more complex than this bare characteriza-tion might suggest. This section explores the various intricacies of standardand non-standard negat ives.2.1.1 Negat ives w i th and wi tho ut neNe is an integral part of almost all negative expressions in standard French( n e . . . pas, n e . . . jamais, ne . . . rien, ne . . . plus, ne . . . gure, etc.). How-ever, it is conspicuous by its frequent absence in colloquial usage. Sentenceslike tu comprends pas?, 0 vient jamais, elle a rien mang, on te voit plus( 'we've not seen you for ages') are of frequent occurrence, with pas, jamais,rien performing - 'unaided ' - the same negat ing funct ion as the ne + pasIjamais/rien combinations of more formal levels of the language.At one t ime, by contrast , negation used to be expressed by means of anunaided ne. Literary French preserves a few relics of this in certain limiteduses of the verbs savoir, pouvoir, cesser an doser: il n'a cess de pleuvoir; nesachant o a l l e r . . . , and in occasional idioms likesi je ne me trompe. Need-less to say, such uses are impossible in colloquial French (and almost alwaysoptional even in formal discourse).

N e is also omit ted from negat ive commands: pleure pas , ferme pas laporte . In cases where the verb has one or more pronoun objects, the stand-ard language places the pronouns after the verb in the affirmative, butbefore it in the negative:


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Affirmative(standard and colloquial)vas-ymange-leregarde-moi

Negative(standard)n'y va pasne le mange pasne me regarde pas

In informal negatives,necan be deleted (as in statem ents an d qu estions) an dthe same word-order used as in standard negatives:Negative (familiar)y va pas le mange pas me regarde pas

But in popular French, the affi rmative word-order ( 'verb + pronoun') isretained, with pas simply ' tacked on ' afterwards:Negat ive (popular)vas-y pas mange-le pas regarde-moi pas

A few distinctive, and recent, idiomatic commands should be mentioned(the first two are entertainingly analysed in Yaguello 1998):pas touche t'occupe t'inquite

These correspond respectively to 'hands off ' , 'don't interfere ' and 'don'tworry ' . In each case, the word-order is unusual (either by formal or in-formal standards). And it is interesting that the 'pronoun + verb' word-orderin t'occupe and t'inquite causes the phrases to have negative meaning,even in the absence of any negative particle. (The order is the same as in net'occupe pas, whereas the affirmative order isoccupe-toi ) However, the par-allel laferme ( 'shut up ' ) is always to be interpreted as an affirmative.H eretoo the word-order is anomalous (compare the normal order in ferme-la orboucle-la ).The 'expletive' ne used in standard avant qu'ilnesoittroptard, orj'ai peurqu'un accident ne soit arriv is also very liable to be omitted. This is notsurprising: expletive ne is probably even more redundant than the ne whichoccurs with pas, given that it does not in fact make its clause negative, andwould simply remain untranslated in the English equivalents of the above


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ive gram ma rians) al ternates with sans qu'il n'ait ditaurevoir (felt to be m ore'correct ' by some): both variants mean 'without saying goodbye' .The hallmark of popular English is the 'double negative' found in I ain'tdone nothing, where not +nothing still equals nothing. Double negatives areoccasionally encountered in French (ayant pas encore rien reu), but theyappear to result from hypercorrection (see 1.6). They are not a regularfeature even o f fr a n a is populaire: normally, whatever the register,pas + rienequals quelque chose.

EXERCISES1f Add ne to the following colloquial structures (all used ina children's phone-in programme):

(a) a fait quand mme plusieurs annes que personne Tavu. (LFM66)(b) Il parat que a fait longtemps que Patrick Sbastien ilsoutient Jacques Chirac, avant qu'il soit candidat.(LFM60)(c) ils voudront plus jamais aller sur un bateau [ . . . ](LFM25)(d) parrainer un enfant qui a pas de quoi vivre [ . . . ]

(LFM57)(e) Ouais, mais ce type, il tait vieux, il tuait plus personneces derniers temps. (LFM11)(f) le vrai danger de l'alcool, c'est que a peut tre un plaisiret c'est dur de pas se faire plaisir. (LFM154)

2 f Say what is non-standard about the following remark (made bythe film star Catherine Deneuve in a televised chat-show):Mais comme on va pas citer ni les films ni les gens,


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3 f Arrange the sentences in each of the following groups indescending order of formality:(a) Je n'ose pas le croire.Je n'ose le croire.J'ose pas le croire.(b) Je ne peux pas vous aider.Je ne peux vous aider.Je peux pas vous aider.

4 | Give (i) familiar and (ii) standard equivalents of these popularcommands:(a) Casse-moi pas les pieds(b) Enerve-toi pas(c) Pas touche

5 f Which of the following are standard, which are colloquial, andwhich are unacceptable whatever the level of language?(a) Je l'ai vu juste avant qu'il n'est arriv.(b) M'attends(c) M'attends pas(d) Laisse-moi(e) Laisse-moi pas(f) Ne laisse-moi pas(g) Jamais il ne m'a parl.(h) Il a pas rien pay.(i) Nous en avons plus du tout, Madame,(j) On m'a aid plus que je n'ai demand.

6 f Distinguish between:(a) Gagner un million de francs au Loto, c'est rien.(b) Gagner un million de francs au Loto, c'est pas rien.

2.1.2 Factors go vern in g the (no n-)us e of ne


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Si tuveux pasest franchement vulgaire [ . . . ]D ans tousles cas,l 'absencedene confre au parler un e tonalit de mauv ais aloi. (Sauv ageo t 1972:140-1)4V ulga r' or n ot, the fa ct of the m atter is tha t speak ers fr om all walks oflifeare liable to omit ne (including, without the slightest doubt, the author ofthis quotation ). However, i t may well be the case that educated speakersmonitor themselves more carefully and therefore show more ' restraint ' inthis respect.Franoise Gadet 's analysis of recordings of her own speech shows verystrikingly how the usage of an individual can vary according to the situationhe/she is in. An hour's breakfast-t ime conversation at home yielded onlyone occurrence of ne in her speech. But later the same day, in a lecture toher students at the university, the proportion of negatives with ne cameclose to 100 per cent. Only when answering questions after the lecture didshe occasionally omit it (Gadet 1997: 102-3).In conversation, the omission of ne is in fact so widespread that speakersare hardly aware of i t - hence perhaps the tenacity of the myth that i t is afeature of working-class speech only. Its omission in written texts, however,has much more impact . The famous 1980s ant i -racist s logan 'Touche pas mon pote' owed not a l i t t le of i ts effectiveness to i ts grammatical structure.Advertisers, too, have taken advantage of the possibil i t ies of non-standardgrammar. Thus the slogan 'Mais pourquoi j 'a i pas achet une Mitsubishi? 'was to be seen on hoardings a few years ago (for the no less colloquialinterrogative used here, see 2.2.2).Social and stylist ic considerations apart , the use or non-use ofne can alsobe determined by phonet ic and grammatical factors.

In the case of il n'a pas crit, for instance, the speaker has the choice oftwo equally plausible options: to omit ne or to omit the 1 of il (this veryco m m on elision is discussed fu rth er in 7.4.2 and 8.1.1). O m itting bo th wou ldresult in an unwelcome hiatus between i and a: i' a pas crit. So sometimesone option is taken (il a pas crit), and sometimes the other(i' n'a pas crit).Here a speaker hesitates between the two possibil i t ies (and then opts for adifferent form ulat ion al together):(1) i ' n 'o nt pas, i 'z on t pas , i 'sont encore verts. (DF 778 )

Another speaker chooses to insert n(e) (je n'veux pas) rather than reduce jeto j' before a consonant (j'veux pas):


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Among the grammatical factors favouring the retent ion ofne is the p resenc eofrieno rpersonneas subject(rienne vachanger rather thanrien vachanger).It must be said that the phonetic difference between, say, r ien n'est . . . andrien est . . . verges on the imperceptible (similarly with personne). So it issometimes hard to say whether ne is actually present or not. This is one ofthe likely reasons for its demise in the first place.Ne, furthermore, has a higher probabi l i ty of being retained in commandsor when the verb is immediately preceded by a noun subject (mon frre nel'aime pasra ther than monfrrel'aime pas). Conversely, omission is particu-larly frequent with avoir, treo rpouvoir: j'ai pasn o tjen'ai pas, c'est pasnotce n'est pas, i(l) peut pas no t i(l) n(e) peut pas, etc. In general, ne is morelikely to be omitted from negatives with pas than from those with rien,personne, jamais o r gure.More details can be found in Gadet (1997) and Moreau (1986). The im-portant point is that, l ike many differences between formal and less formalusage, the retention or omission of ne is not a clear-cut, 'ei ther-or' matter:rather, i t takes the form of a continuum and results from the interaction ofvarious separate factors.

EXERCISES7 f In the light of the phonetic and gramm atical factors referred toabove, what are the chances of ne being omitted from thefollowing (very likely, fairly likely, less likely)?

(a) Il n'est pas venu.(b) Jean ne va pas participer.(c) Rien ne va plus.(d) Personne ne croit que c'est vrai.(e) Marie, elle ne va pas partir.(f) Tu ne peux pas refuser.(g) Pierre n'est pas l.(h) Je ne ferais jamais une chose pareille.(i) Ce n'est pas moi qui le dis.(j) Il n'est pas l, Pierre.

8 f In the chat-show excerpt from which the quotation in Exercise2 was taken, there were five negatives with ne (Bauer 1984:136-40):


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(c) Elle avait accept de faire un portrait de Malraux maiselle savait pas Pavance si ce sera deux heures ou deuxjours, alors Malraux n'a pas accept.(d) Vous savez l'amour que je vous porte -malheureusement vous n'rpondez pas mes efforts.(e) y a longtemps que l'mission n'existerait plus.And there were twenty-two negatives without ne, typicalexamples being:(f) a m'tonne pas la surenchre(g) i'faut pas le dire(h) c'est pas vrai(i) y a pas beaucoup de films que [ . . . ](j) on va pas faire l'historique complteTaking social/situational factors into account as well asphonetic/grammatical ones, explain the retention or omissionof ne in these examples.

2.1.3 Aucun and nul; (ne...) que an d (ne... ) pas... queN u l . . . n e , even in standard French, tends to be restricted to quite l i teraryset phrases (nulnele sait, nul n'est cens ignorer la loi) rather than to be usedin spontaneous utterances. In view of this, it is not surprising that it isabsent from the colloquial language, being replaced bypersonneor pas. Butnul continues to be used in nulle part ( 'nowhere ' ) :

(3) a m 'a mene nulle pa rt , de pas en poser, des ques tions. (IZ 23)And it has wide currency as a colloquial adjective meaning 'sans valeur' : ilest nul ce type.Aucun, too, is infrequent in colloquial usage. The ubiquitous pas tends to


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would be for alternative expressions l ike pas un seul bus, o r pas le moindrebus (n') a circul, or simply (il) ya pas eu de bus.N e . . . que ('only') is reduced to a solitary que in famil iar and popularFrench:(4) Le prsident il vient qu 'une fois pa r an [ . . . ] (LF M1 4 7 )(5) S'ils veulen t s'exp rim er su r la po litique , ils on t q u ' deve nir politiciens[they have only to become; all they need do is become] . (LFM60)

Whether ne is present or not, que in the sense of 'only' must occur immedi-ately before the word or phrase which it restricts: j'ai pay que mille francs,iladitquetrois mots.T his is different fromonly in colloquial English, whereintonation and stress patterns are relied on to identify the relevant i tem: Ionly paid a thousand francs (stress on francs).The negative expressionque dalle should be noted in this connection. It isa colloquial equivalent of rien, found for example in je comprends que dalle( ' I don ' t understand anything ' ) or on a gagn que dalle ( 'we won nothing ' ,'we won damn all ' ) . Dalle is believed to derive from the name of a medievalFlemish coin of small value - the thaler, 'we won only a thaler' . As it isrestricted to colloquial use, que dalle is never preceded by ne. An abbrevi-ation favoured by teenagers occurs in:

(6) J 'com pren ds keud . (TJ30)Grammarians used to f rown on ne . . . pa s que ('not only': the negative ofn e . . . que). But i ts use has become more and more acceptable even in quiteform al wri t ten usage. Examples are: il n'y a pasqueJeanquiboit ( 'John isn' tthe only one who drinks ' ) ; il ne boit pas que de l'eau ('water isn't the onlything he drinks' or 'he doesn' t just drink water').N e can of course be omitted from these expressions too: il boit pas que del'eau; (il) y a pas que Jean qui boit. (See 3.3.1 for the omission of il.) Andnote the phrase j'ai pas que a faire ( ' that 's not the only thing I've got todo', i .e. 'I'm too busy to bother about that ' ) .

EXERCISES9 f Rephrase these negatives in a more colloquial style:


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(d) Je l'ai dit sans aucune intention de Poffenser.(e) Je n'en ai nul besoin.(f) Il n'y a nul doute quant sa culpabilit.10t Distinguish between the sentences in each of thefollowing pairs:

(a) (i) Ils mangent du poisson que le vendredi,(ii) Ils mangent que du poisson le vendredi.(b) (i) Je travaille la nuit que depuis une semaine,

(ii) Je travaille que la nuit depuis une semaine.11f Give standard equivalents, and English translations, of:

(a) le maire d'une petite commune qui s'occupe que desvieux, des maisons de retraite [ . . . ] (LFM147)(b) a montre des jeunes obsds par l'amour, mais il ya pas que a dans notre vie. (LFM70)(c) T'avais qu' pas signer. (PB69)(d) si le prsident i' n'est pas content quand on dvoile savie prive, il a qu' se cacher (LFM48)(e) On comprend que ce qu'on veut. (IZ20)(f) Y a vraiment que ces cons de bourges[bourgeois] pourcroire que les artistes peuvent crer que dans lednuement. (EHA97)

12 f Can you interpret the following?(a) une vraie ruche avec quasiment que des filles (ACT)(b) on a le droit d'avoir des amis pas que franais (LFM18)(c) - Qu'est-ce que t'en dis, toi [ . . . ] des coquillages?


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(d) Heureusement qu'on en a pas que des comme a[remark made by aschoolteacherabout his leastfavourite pupils](Fl)13 t Distinguish between:

(a) Aujourd'hui Air-France assure que 75 pour cent de sesvols. (Fl)(b) Aujourd'hui Air-France assure que 75 pour cent de sesvols partiront.

2.1.4 Potential ambiguitiesAlthough no ' threat ' seems to be posed to communicat ion by this mostrecent addition to the already numerous uses of que, there are one or twocases where a risk of ambiguity caused by the disappearance of ne has ledthe language to resort to other devices in order to preserve clarity.

One concerns pairs of sentences like:(7) Il ne peu t pas gagner ( 'H e can no t win')(8) Il peu t ne pas gagner ( 'H e can not-w in' , i .e. 'he m ay lose')

which fall together colloquially as:(9) Il pe ut pa s gag ner .But the rhythmic and intonat ional pat terns of the spoken language aresufficient for the two acceptances to be distinguished:(9a) Il peu t-pas/g agn er (with an into na tion peak on gagner);(9b) II peu t/pas- gag ner (with a peak on peut and a very short breakafter it).

A second case concerns the phrase pas mal, which, when used without ne,has become a slightly understated equivalent of trs or beaucoup. Pas malcan modify verbs (j'ai pas mal dormi: 'I slept a fair bit '), be combined withde to modify a noun (j'ai pas mal de travail: ' I 've got quite a lot of work'),


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The extension of the meaning of pas mal is restricted to those registerswhich omit ne. Reinstat ing ne has the effect of either restoring the originalmeaning: je n'ai pas mal dormi (Tve not slept badly'), or of producing anungrammatical sentence:*je n'ai pas mal de travail. So there is potential forgenuine ambiguity in a (colloquial) utterance like:(10) O n parle pa s mal le fran ais en R ou m an ie. (RB)

This can be interpreted either as ' they don't speak French badly there' , or as' they speak a lot of French there' , which obviously do not amount to thesame thing. Rather as in the case of (ne) peut pas/peut (ne) pas, the twointerpretat ions are conveyed by different intonat ion pat terns, dependingon whether mal or franais has the highest pitch. (Or, of course, alternativeformulat ions could be used: on parle assez bien le franais. . . , e tc .)Another, perhaps more significant case involves ne . . . p l us . A colloquialsentence likeilya plus detravailpourles ouvriers can either mean ' there's nom o re w o rk . . . ' ( c o r r e sp o n d i n g t o il n'y a plus de travail), or else ' there'smore work . . . ' ( this , of course, being the meaning of ilya plus de travail instandard French).However, there is no ambiguity in spoken usage: plus would be pro-nounced [ply] in the first situation ('no more work') and [plys] in the second( 'more work ' ) . As a consequence no doubt , plus meaning 'more ' tends in-creasingly in informal speech to be pronounced with [s], even in clear cases:

(11) O n n'a pa s plus [plys] vu le prsid ent de la R p ub liqu e que le roiHassan II . (FI)However, this does not apply to the comparative of adjectives:plus clair isalways [ply k leR] , never *[plys kleR].

EXERCISES14f Which intonation pattern corresponds to which meaning?

(a) Il peut/pas-tre d'accord.(b) Il peut-pas/tre d'accord.(c) J'ai pas/mal-travaill.(d) J'ai pas-mal/travaill.


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(a) J'ai mang pas mal.(b) J'ai pas mal mang.(c) Je n'ai pas mang mal.(d) Je n'ai pas mal mang.(e) Pas mal de gens ne sont venus.(f) Pas mal de gens sont venus.(g) J'ai parl pas mal de gens.(h) J'ai pas parl mal de gens.(i) Je n'ai parl pas mal de gens.

16f Indicate the likely pronunciation of p lus in the following ([ply]or [plys]):(a) Les voeux de Nouvel An du Prsident: Plus de justicesociale. (FI)(b) Plus de chances de gagner plus [lotteryadvertisement](c) Plus d'espoir malheureusement, aprs 48 heures derecherches, de trouver des survivants. (FI)(d) Plus que quatre kilomtres de bouchons sur l'autoroutede Normandie. (FI)(e) Ouf je commenais plus y croire. (PA155)

17+ In the following account by a mother of an argument withher teenage son, p lus would be pronounced [ply] on eachoccasion. When is it comparative, and when does it mean'no longer'?Une fois il a pris son sac d'cole, il m'a regarde enfronant les sourcils et il a dit: J'm'en vais, j'vais mechercher une autre mre, une plus jeune, j'en ai marre,t'es plus belle, t'es plus jeune. (DB127)

2.1.5 React io ns to developments


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Oubliant la valeur ngative du petit adverbe ne, de plus en plusnombreux sont les ministres, les parlementaires, les crivains, leshommes d 'affaires qui , ngl igemment , diront tant la radio qu ' latlvision: On sait pas, Personne leur avait dit, Vous croirezjamais, Il est pas du tout certain. Le dsir de faire peuple et des'affranchir de toute contrainte s 'exerce ici aux dpens du petitadverbe ne.Certes, la prsence du mot pas [... ] indique clairement que lesquatre phrases ci-dessus sont ngatives. Mais tant donn qu'i l ne t ientqu'en une syllabe, l 'emploi du petit adverbe ne n'exige pas un effortsurhumain. C'est pourquoi , se rfrant aux quatre exemples sus-men tionns, on dira deprfrence:On ne sait pas, Personne ne leuravait dit, Vous ne croirez jamais, Il n 'est pas du tout certain.(Capelovici 1990: 246)The linguist Pierre Guiraud, on the other hand, recalls that pas (un pas: 'astep') was originally simply an intensifying expression, like 'an inch' in 'Ididn' t move an inch' , but has become a negative particle in i ts own right. Inthe process the l ink with the original meaning 'step' has disappeared.

Etym ologiquem ent , la ngat ion estne; pas es t une m arqu e emp hat ique[...]: je n'avance [ . . . ] e t en ins is tan t [ . . . ] , ye n'avance pas (pasmme d 'un pas).Mais en se gnralisant cet emploi a confr pas une fonction etune valeur ngative. On dit trsbien: pas une seule geste, pas un nuage l'horizon , etc.Ceci a entran la dchance de ne dans la langue populaire o i lparat faire double emploi; et on ditje crois pas; forme cohrente etconforme aux tendances de l ' idiome dans la mesure o elle transfre langation sur un [suffixe]. (Guiraud 1965: 66)

[tetymologiquement: from a historical (etymological) point of view]This is echoed in Bodo Muller 's textbook on the French language:

II est [ . . . ] tonnant de consta ter avec quelle ampleur [ . . . ] le fran aispopulaire a fait dupas renforateur d 'autrefois une part icule ngat ive part entire: cette simplification qu' i l convient videmment de mettre


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EXERCISE18 How do the views and attitudes of Guiraud and Muller differfrom those of Capelovici?

2.2 Forming qu estionsEven in standard French there is more than one way of phrasing questions,and m any oth ers are encoun tered in colloquial usage. Tak en together, Fren chinterrogatives are an excellent example of the way in which different gram-matical structures correlate with different levels of formality.2.2.1 Inversion , est-ce que and intonationA ch aracteristic (thou gh no t exclusive) fea ture of ranais soign is the inver-sion of subject pronoun and verb in order to signal a question: vous fumez/fumez-vous?. In the rather unlikely event of fumez-vous? actually being usedin a conversation, i t would be pronounced with a rising intonation.If the subject is a noun, a pronoun is inserted for the purpose ofinversion: Pierre arrive-t-il demain?. This is known as 'complex inversion' .In yes/no questions, the 'simple' kind of inversion in which nouns andverbs are switched directly (*arrive Pierre demain?) is unacceptable inany variety of French. But i t does occur in some WH-questions: o habitePierre?.

There are perceptibledifferences of formality between one ' inversion-typeinterrogative' and another. As has just been suggested, fumez-vous? isquite 'st i l ted' . But third-person fume-t-il? is appreciably less so, especiallywhen fol lowed by further material : fume-t-il toujours autant qu'avant?Conversely, most inversions involving first-person je are distinctly morestilted: fum-je?, cours-je? and the like are nowadays felt to verge on thegrotesque, and are restricted to jocular, 'mock-li terary' use, in writ ten aswell as spoken French.Inversions (even a few involvingje) are still current in conversation when-ever pol i te and rather formal connotat ions are appropriate . They are mostcommonly encountered in set formulae l ike ds irez-vous. . .?, pourriez-vous . . . ?, p u i s - j e . . .?, que dis-je?, or else in more spontaneous questions


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But in most conversational use, other ways of signalling a question arepreferred.The formula est-ce que (literally 'is it that?') is one device: notcris-je?, bu t est-ce que j'cris?. Est-ce que contains an inversion withinitself (c'est est-ce), which makes further inversion unnecessary, andallows the question to retain the word-order of the corresponding state-ment, however long this may be: les bombardements effectus par les forcesallies ont cess > est-ce que les bombardements effectus par les forcesallies ont cess?.Even infranais soign the use of est-ce que is usually obligatory nowa-day s for first-person interrogatives. Infranais courant an dfranais familier,est-ce que has become a widely used device for other questions, both of theyes/no and the WH- kind (est-ce que vous partez?, quand est-ce que vouspartez?). Questions with est-ce que bridge the division between standardand colloquial French and are appropriate in a variety of contexts andsituations.In many ways, est-ce que has come to resemble the interrogative markerswhich in a number of languages are placed before (or after) statements inorder to turn them into quest ions: czy in Polish, for example. If Frenchlacked a writing system and was being analysed for the first time,est-ce quemight well be treated as an indivisible unit: [eska].The other favoured way of signalling the interrogative is simply to super-impose on to a statement the rising intonation typical of questions: vousfumez?. (In standard spelling, a question mark is the best that can be achievedby way of representing the pitch pattern.) Nowadays, even in franais couran t,the ' intonation interrogative' is as widespread in conversational yes/no ques-tions as the est-ce que type. In familiar and popular French, i t has becomealtogether dominant. Note that i t is not possible to omit the pronoun, ashappens in colloquial English (smoke?): there is no register of French inwhich *fumes?,wi thout tu, would be acceptable.The growing tendency to favour the intonation type of interrogative overthe inversion and est-ce que types is in part due to linguistic factors (ageneral movement away from inversion: see 8.1 for further discussion). Butthere are also sociological reasons, notably the current preference forusing informal language in situations where i t would have been consideredinappropriate a generation or two ago. This is captured in the followingobservation by the author of a crit ical account of the contemporary lan-guage, significantly entitled H la France, ton franais fout le camp :


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EXERCISES1 f Convert the following inversion questions into est-ce quequestions:

(a) Avez-vous bien dormi?(b) Reprends-tu un peu de gteau?(c) Marie est-elle venue dire bonjour?(d) Pierre travaille-t-il toujours aussi assidment?(e) Georges va-t-il bientt arriver?(f) Quand part-il?(g) Pourquoi suis-je fch?

2 f Say whether the following questions are (a)courant,(b) soign , (c) grotesquely archaic or (d) ungrammatical inany register:(a) Combien est-ce que tu as pay?(b) O vais-je?(c) Prenez-vous encore du caf?(d) Puis-je vous dranger?(e) Est-ce que Marie est au courant?(f) O va Pierre?(g) Rentre Jean bientt?(h) Vous gn-je?

3 f Arrange the questions in the following groups in descendingorder of formality:(a) Tu sors?Sors-tu?Est-ce que tu sors?(b) Est-ce que Pierre arrive?Pierre arrive-t-il?Pierre arrive?


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4 f Following the pattern in the previous exercise, make groups ofthree questions corresponding to:(a) Il ment.(b) Vous le connaissez.(c) Le prsident a dmissionn.(d ) L'Otan va dclarer la guerre.

5 Here is an excerpt from a novel (teenage son addressingfather). Can you translate this series of angry questions intoidiomatic English?O tu l'as pch ce mec? Et pourquoi il a un accentaussi con? C'est un arborigne ou quoi? Et pourquoi safemme elle est pas l? Il est veuf ou bien est-ce quec'est un divorc comme toi? (PA68)

6 Comment on the use of est-ce bien? and c tait bien? inthe following excerpt. It comes from the beginning of aconversation which the participants know is being recorded:- Ouais. Alors t'as all en Espagne?- Comment?- Tu es-z-all en Espagne?- Oui.- Heu. Est-ce bien?- Non, Franois, parle comme tu parles naturellement.- C'tait bien?- Oh oui mais, i'faisait pas trs beau temps hein. (CR80)

2.2.2 Informai WH-questionsAs was pointed out in 2.2.1, questions introduced by WH-words follow asomewhat more conservat ive pat tern than the yes/no type and are moreamenable to inversion. Even so, the following, from radio interviews orfrom advertising, are very typical of everyday usage:

(1) Qu elle tem p rat ur e il fait chez vous? (F I)


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(4) Et si on ne veut plus paye r no tre abo nn em en t l ' Intern et, tu disquoi? [


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This too has a somewhat less colloquial variant (see also 3.3.3):(14) O a qu e tu vas?

O que tu vas? is unlikely to be used by middle-class speakers, and accord-ingly can be classified as franais populaire. Not surprisingly, normativegrammarians dismiss interrogatives l ike (13) as irredeemably 'vulgar' .Here are the basic nine sentences again, arranged in descending order offormality (five of them are bracketed together, as they are differentiatedmore by the degree of emphasis placed on the WH-word than by subtletiesof register):O vas-tu?O est-ce que tu vas?' O c'est que tu vas?C'est o que tu vas? O est-ce que c'est que tu vas?O a que tu vas?Tu vas o?O tu vas?O que tu vas?

O que tu vas? is not to be confused with o que tu ai l les . . . (with thesubjunctive). This means 'wherever you go . . . ' , not 'where are you going?' ,and is a standard structure, with a different intonation pattern.A number of other permutat ions of the above pat terns are possible - intheory at least , as native speakers' intuit ions as to what is and what is notacceptable tend to become unrel iable when confronted with o que c'est quetu vas?, o c'est que c'est que tu vas?, and so forth.The variations just i l lustrated by reference to o recur with otherWH-words of course, though the possibi l i t ies vary from one to another.Lequel and quel, for example, do not allow the alternative with a (*queltrain a que tu prends?). One statistical survey (Behnstedt 1973) suggeststha t combien, quand and quel are more likely to be placed at the end ofthe sentence than o o r qui. In particular, questions l ike quand tu pars?,with quand at the beginning and no inversion, are rather unusual. On theother hand, pourquoi is very resistant to final position:pourquoi ellerit?and


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Que veux-tu?Qu'est-ce que tu veux?C'est quoi que tu veux?Qu'est-ce que c'est que tu veux?Tu veux quoi?Quoi tu veux? and quoi que tu veux?, with quoi in unstressed position, areunlikely (though quoi tudis? is occasionally en coun tered). Qu'est-ce que canbe reduced to qu'est-ce before tu. Note the attempt to spell this 'phonetic-ally ' in the following example of strip-cartoon dialogue:

( 15) K es tu gland es [fais] (TJ21)Finally, in the case of WH- questions with noun subjects, a pronoun isusually present as well as a noun in colloquial usage (see 7.1 for discussionof ' topicalized' structures like these). Thus o est-ce qu'il va, Jean?, Jean, ilva o?or o il va, Jean? rather than o est-ce que Jean va?, Jean va o? o r(extremely unlikely) o Jean va?.

EXERCISES7 f Give as many variations as possible on each of the following,in approximate descending order of formality.

(a) Quand part-il?(b) Comment t'appelles-tu?(c) Qui connais-tu?(d) Lequel veux-tu?(e) Quelle heure est-il?

8 f The following are typical excerpts from dialogues in novelswhich aim to reproduce franais familier orpopu laire.Rephrase them as inversion-type interrogatives.(a) O qu'est le malade? (RFC183)(b) Qui tu aimes le mieux? (PA37)(c) O que c'est qu'elle danse? (RS112)


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(f) Qui t'es? (PS40)(g) C'est quand qu'on va au cirque? (DB119)

9 f Arrange the questions in each group in descending orderof formality. One question (in just one of the groups) isunacceptable in any register: mark it with an asterisk.(a) comment que tu vas? comment vas-tu? comment tuvas?(b) qui vous tes? qui tes-vous? qui que vous tes? vous

tes qui?(c) comment va a? comment a va? comment que a va?10 f Give (i) familiar and (ii) popular variants of the followingquestions:

(a) Quand part le train de Paris?(b) Comment taient dguiss les voleurs?(c) Combien ce repas a-t-il cot?(d) Pourquoi prends-tu ta voiture?

11 The following dialogue was written for language learners.Make it more natural by altering the structure of thequestions, in ways which are appropriate to the situation.- Bonjour, mes lves.- Bonjour, monsieur.- Duclos, vous billez Etes-vous fatigu? Qu'avez-vousfait hier soir?- J'ai fait mes devoirs, Monsieur.- Et cela vous a-t-il rendu fatigu? A quelle heure voustes-vous couch?- A dix heures et demie, Monsieur.- Et quelle heure vous tes-vous lev aujourd'hui?- A sept heures, Monsieur.- A quelle heure avez-vous quitt la maison pour venir l'cole?- A huit heures moins le quart, Monsieur.- Combien de temps mettez-vous pour venir l'cole?


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2.2.3 Indirect questionsIn stan dar d Fre nch , direct and indirect questions a re clearly distinct in struc-ture. Inversion, as we have seen, is a characteristic feature of the direct type:pourquoi ris-tu?. But it never occurs in an indirect question: *je te demandepourquoi ris-tu. In colloquial French, on the other hand, inversion does notoccur in either type. This means that direct and indirect questions can havethe same form: pourquoi turis?; je te demande pourquoi tu ris.This is no doubt why a number of other colloquial direct question vari-ants also turn up in indirect questions, reinforcing the contrast betweenformal and informal st ructures in this area of grammar. Here are threeexamples. Note how the variations of the WH-word (in this case pourquoi)reflect those presented in 2.2.2 (o est-ce que, o que, etc.).

(16) Je te dem and e po ur qu oi c 'est qu e tu ris.(17) Je te de m and e po urq uo i est-ce qu e tu ris.(18) Je te de m and e po urq uo i que tu ris.Like the corresponding direct questions, (16) is familiar, whereas (18) isdistinctly popular. (17) comes somewhere between the two: it is certainly notacceptable infranais courant, even though its direct counterpart (pourquoiest-ce que tu ris?) would be: est-ce que, like inversion, is not possible instandard indirect questions.Very widespread too in familiar usage is the replacement of standard cequebyqu'est-ceque. T asked her what she thought ' , for example, is oftenjelui ai demand qu'est-ce qu'elle pensait ('I asked her what did she think'),instead of je lui ai demand ce qu'elle pensait. Once again, the indirect ques-tion follows the pa ttern of its direct cou nte rp art , w hich in this case wo uld ofcourse be:qu'est-ce que vous pensez?.

EXERCISES12f The following sentences are arranged in approximately

increasing order of colloquialness. Give the standardequivalent of each (making any other grammar or vocabularyadaptations that may be necessary).(a) Nicolas Poincar, vous pouvez peut-tre nous dire o


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(c) Tu sais pas quand est-ce qu'elle me l'a avou? (DF540)(d) mais je comprends pas pourquoi que tu . . . que tu

sortirais [ . . . ] (RL20)(e) on savait plus o qu'on tait, on tait perdus (IVR)(f) fais bien attention o que tu mets les pieds, je viens decirer (FCR56)(g) Y sait pas pourquoi qu'y bouffe, c'qu'y sont cons les

jeunes de maint'nant (RS48)(h) Je sais pas c'est qui. (GF0108)

13 The untypical inversions in the following may be attributedto 'hypercorrection' (see 1.6). Can you explain what hasgone wrong?(a) Je me demande quand part-il. (GF0108)(b) Explique-moi o est-il. (GFP100)(c) Monsieur le prsident, pourriez-vous nous dire commentconcevez-vous les relations entre la France et l'Irak?(TF1)

2.2.4 Quest io ns w i th tiOne further question-type occurs in French, but, in urban speech at anyrate, it is nowhere near as widespread as the est-ce que, intonation and eveninversion types. The considerable attention i t has attracted is out of propor-tion to its frequency, but its evolution is of some interest nevertheless. Sen-tences like the following show how this type is used:

(19) Je peu x-ti voir?[est-ce que je peuxvoir?](20) T u viens-ti? [est-ce que tu viens?]


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is placed after the main verb, not at the beginning of the sentence. (In thisrespect, i t has a close resemblance to the Russian interrogative marker / / .)Th e propert ies of ti can be readily understood if its origin is kept in mind.Only a few generations ago, the usual conversational interrogative of il vientwould have been vient-il?, and in the plural viennent-ils?. N ow the / of il was(and still is) frequently omitted in everyday speech: i' vient fo r il vient,i'viennentfo rUsviennent, and so on. Consistently enou gh, / was also om ittedin the interrogative form: vient-i'? fo r vient-il?. This led to the t-i' sequence(the liaison t plus the vestigial vowel of 0) being reinterpreted as a separateuni t marking the quest ion: vien(t) + ti, veu(t) + ti. So t-i' came to be addeddirectly to declaratives like il vient, giving the interrogative il vient-ti? (ormore likely i'vient-ti?). What is more, the pattern was extended to first- andsecond-person forms, where of course no liaison t or contracted il had everbeen present:je peux je peux-ti?,tuviens tuviens-ti?. In this way a newinterrogative marker came into being.In the 1920s and 1930s the view was quite often expressed that the inter-rogative with ti could well become the most common form in conversat ion,perhaps even passing into the standard language. Commentators were struck,in particular, by the neat parallelisms that seemed to be developing:AFF/DECL: je viens tu viens il vientNEG: je viens pas tu viens pas il vient pasINTERROG: je viens ti? tu viens ti? il vient ti?

In the event, however, usage came to prefer the even more straightforwardintonat ion type. Th e form s with tibecam e increasingly associated with rura lspeech, and today they are rarely used by urban dwellers. If indeed they everwere: there is a quite pervasive 'mythology' according to which ti is anarchetypal feature of popular Parisian French (see some of the quotationsbelow). Ti does survive in jocular contexts, however: mock surprise can besignalled by voil-ti pas (voil-ti pas que le facteur arrive), and a hearty,back-slapping a va-ti? is a quite commonly encountered greeting.Ti interrogatives are also used from time to time in dialogues in novels inorder to create a rural or proletarian effect. Note that, since ti is a non-standard form, there is no agreed way of spelling i t (t'y, ty, ti, t-i, t-y .. . ?)

and it is not included in dictionaries. An incomprehensible y in a colloquialtext may have nothing to d o w ith the pron ou n y mea ning ' to i t ' , but be par tof the author's way of representing ti . Or of course i t may represent il with/ deleted - or even be a contraction of lui (see 8.1.1) In (21) th efirsty is thepronoun ('will you be coming to it [i.e. the funeral]?'), the second y is part of


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EXERCISES14f Convert the following t i interrogatives into est-ce q ueinterrogatives:

(a) te voil parti sur les routes: je sais t'y seulement o?(FCR56)(b) Et o c'est-y que vous allez, comme a? (FCR27)(c) mais les coles chez vous, elles sont-i gratuites? (BT26)(d) Alors, Honor, c'est-y que tu me connatrais plus?(CE27)(e) Qu'est-ce qu'il en sait celui-l si je suis folle? Il est-ydans ma tte? Il y est-y dans la vtre? Faudrait qu'il ysoye pour savoir... Foutez donc le camp tous les deux(LFCV326)

15 Comment on the conflicting views expressed in the followingquotations collected by Behnstedt (1973):(a) Dans les tournures interrogatives ou exclamatives,la langue populaire se sert surtout de la particule ti.(Grevisse)(b) mais ce qu'il faut reconnatre, c'est que ce 'ti' est lemoyen auquel le peuple recourt le plus volontierspour interroger quand la question ne contient pas demot interrogatif. (Le Bidois)(c) De nos jours l'aire d'extension de l'interrogationparticulate est considrable et le 'ti' s'insinue dans de

nombreux recoins de la langue. (Renchon)(d) Cette particule, pourtant, n'a jamais dpass leslimites du parler campagnard ou d'une littraturefaussement populaire. Elle a eu plus de succs


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22.5 Stat is t ic al s tu diesVarious rather impressionistic indications were given above about the rela-tive frequency ofdifferent types of interrogative. Several statistical investi-gations have been conducted, some of the results of which are summarizedbelow.

1 Po hl (1965). M iddle-class Belgian fran cop ho nes .Yes/no quest ions Into nat io n type: 698est-ce que type : 114

Inve rsion type: 4Various written sources.Yes/no ques tions Inversion type: 94O ther types: 1

2 Cove ney (1990). Interviews with wo rkers at holiday cam p.Ye s/no question s Int on atio n type: 77.4%est-ce que type: 29.6%W ith inversion: 0.0%W H-quest ions W H-w ord a t s ta rt : 47 .3%est-ce que type: 51.1%W H -w ord at end: 29.8%

W ith inversion: 4.9%3 Ga de t (1997). Telep hone conv ersations.

Y es/no ques tions In ton atio n type: 136est-ce que type : 16Inve rsion type: 2W H -ques t ions W H -w ord at s tart : 16est-ce que typ e: 11W H -w ord at end: 9W ith inversion: 5


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EXERCISE16 What conclusions can be drawn from these figures? How

consistent with one another are the three investigations?

2.2.6 Comments and reactionsBefore the Second World War, a regular chronique de langage was contrib-uted to Le Temps (the leading Paris newspaper of the day) by a particularlyconservat ive though entertainingly outspoken commentator who wroteunder the pseudonym 'Lancelot ' . Here he answers a reader 's enquiry bytell ing a somewhat implausible anecdote:

Pou rquoi, me deman de un correspo ndan t, certaines personnesaffectesinterrogent-elles de la mme faon qu'elles affirmeraient ou qu'ellesrpondraient, comme si la langue franaise ne possdait pas de formeinterrogative? Je suis bien aise que l 'on me donne une fois l 'occasionde dire ce que je pense de cette m od e. Elle est [ . . . ] ridicule et irritante,[ . . . iJe me souviens que l 'autre t, dans un htel de la cte basque, jefaillism efaireu neaffaireavec unefamillebourgeoise de trois personnes,le pre, la mre et leilsunique - naturellement - qui djeunaient unetable voisine de la mienne, parce que la dame dit aux deux mles:Po urqu oi vous tes descendus sans m 'at tendre? Et puis pourq uoi voustes pas venus la plage ce matin? Je ne pus m'empcher de dire trshaut, en m'adressant au matre d 'htel , mais en jetant ces gens derien un regard de furieux mpris: Pourquoi vous m'apportez pas lasuite? J 'attends. Et puis, pourquoi vous m'avez pas donn le moulin poivre et la moutarde?Ce qui est peine croyable et qui passa mon esprance, c 'est qu' i lseurent posi t ivement l 'a i r de comprendre que je me moquais d 'eux. Jepensai un moment qu' i ls allaient le prendre trs mal; mais aprs unbref conciliabule voix basse au cours duquel je dus tre vilipend,D ieu sait en quel frana is, ils se con tentre nt d 'encaisser. [ . . . ]

Pourquoi vous tes pas venus? au lieu de Pourquoi n'tes-vous pasvenus?ne traduit rien du to ut q u'u n besoin pervers, trange pass un


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A year or two earlier, the author of one of the first systematic studies ofpopular French had had this to say:Dans la langue parle, la phrase interrogative semble aujourd'hui,de par le pullulement des formes concurrentes, extraordinairementcomplique: Qui est-ce qui est ven u? Qui c'est qui est venu ? Qui cest-iqui est venu? Qui que c'est qui est venu?, etc. Si la phrase interrogativetraverse une crise, tout ce dsarroi s'explique cependant par les essaismultiples que tente le langage avanc pour supprimer l ' inversion, c 'est--dire po ur obtenir la mme squence que dans l 'aff irmative. [ . . . ]Dans la phrase interrogative traditionnelle, la place[des]prono ms e tadverbes [interrogatives] ne concorde pas avec celle qu'ils occupentdans la phrase affirmative:O est-ce qu'il habite?/Il habite l, tel endroit.Or le franais avanc a cherch, et peu prs russi, crer un typed'interrogatives o la squence est interchangeable avec celle del 'affirmative:Il habite o? (= Il habite l). (Frei 1929: 158)

EXERCISE17 Compare and contrast the viewpoints of these twocommentators.

2.3 Form ing relative clausesThe organization of relative clauses in standard French is quite complex- and, in the view of many commentators, fairly incoherent, given the pro-liferation of relative pronouns that i t involves. The more colloquial theregister, on the other hand, the more straightforward, even logical, thesystem becomes.2.3.1 Relat ive c lauses in s tand ard French


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examples of noun phrases modified in this way are: les soldats que nousavons a t ta q u s . . . ,le trainque j'ai p r i s . . . , la dame dontle chien a b o y a i t . . . ,l'ami qui j'ai envoy le m e s s a g e . . . , le bureau o je travaille.Relat ive pronouns l ike qui, que or dont cannot be omit ted in French -standard or non-standard. This contrasts with the situation in English, wherethe train that I caught was delayed an d the train I caught was delayed areboth possible.Standard French has a further set of relative pronouns, which are notnormally used for reference to humans, occur typically after prepositions,and are variants of the basic form lequel. Thus : les raisons pour lesquelles ila dmissionn, le problme auquelje rflchis,( quiorpour qui would not bepossible in such cases, as they are restricted to nouns denoting people: 1'ami q u i . . . , e tc . ) .Taken together, the standard French relat ive pronouns make qui te a var-ied array:qui, que, dont, o, lequel, laquelle, lesquels, lesquelles, plus variouscombinations of the last four with and de (in most cases written as singlewords: duquel, auxquelles, etc.).The characteristic feature of this system is that each relative pronoun hasa dual function, providing two crucial kinds of information (the lequelseriesspecifies number and gender as well). Firstly, the start of a relative clauseis signalled: 'some information about the antecedent is about to follow 5.Secondly, the relative pro no un specifies the relationship between the anteced-ent and the verb or other elements in the relative clause. In les soldats quipatrouillaient taient amricains, it is the soldiers who are doing the patrol-ling (subject relationship - les soldats patrouillaient - therefore qui); in lessoldats que nous avons attaqus taient amricains it is the soldiers who getattacked (object relationship - nous avons attaqu les soldats - thereforeque); in les soldats dont les uniformes ont t vols, the uniforms belong tothe soldiers (possession, thereforedont);inles soldatsqui le colonel a parl,it is the soldiers who are spoken to, soqui is the object of the preposition .This pr olifera tion of differ ent for m s is a good exam ple of the influence ofthe seventeenth- and eighteenth-century grammarians (see 1.4), with theirfondness for the complexities of Latin grammar and their insistence onclarity and explicitness. In popular usage, ever since the Middle Ages, thetendency has been to use fewer relative pronouns - the lequel series in par-ticular has long been of restricted occurrence.However, the standard system has had a considerable effect on the usageof norm-conscious middle-class speakers in particular, with the result thatrelative-clause formation is an area where differences of social background


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populaire beloved of many journalists and novelists. Nevertheless, evenmiddle-class speakers use non-standard relatives in their more unguardedmoments. Conversely, standard forms can occur in working-class speech.

EXERCISE1 t To check your familiarity with the standard system, insertsuitable relative pronouns into the sentences below. Identifythe antecedent in each case and say what grammaticalrelationship (subject, object, etc.) is indicated by the relative

pronoun.a) Les solda

ball-colloquial french grammar_a practical guide

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