A variationist perspective on discourse-pragmatic change in a contact setting

Abstract

AbstractThe emergence ofêtre commeas a quotative verb in Canadian French is easily construed as a case of contact-induced change by virtue of its superficial similarity to the rapidly diffusingbe likequotative (Tagliamonte & D'Arcy, 2007). We pursue the inference of contact-induced change by undertaking a quantitative analysis of French and English quotatives recorded from speakers in the bilingual city of Ottawa between 2008 and 2010. A series of real-time cross sections enables the longitudinal development of the quotative system of each language to be tracked. Analysis of the data confirms thatêtre commeis a change in progress, but not a wholesale replication of its English counterpart. Although the results do not refute the role of external causation in the emergence ofêtre comme, the available evidence suggests that an external source is neither the sole, nor even the preferred, motivation for the emergence of this innovation.