The use of the QU-final interrogative structure in spoken French

Abstract

AbstractThe contextual and pragmatic motivations for the use of the QU-final interrogative structure are explored in a substantial corpus of spoken French, employing a variationist methodology. A number of categorical, or invariant, contexts, are identified, and the effect of several variable contextual and pragmatic constraints is examined. QU elements of three or more syllables and copulas are found to strongly favour the use of the QU-final structure, whereas rhetorical questions and monosyllabic QU elements disfavour its use. Certain discourse contexts effectively rule out the QU-final structure, and, except for a few categorical contexts, its use is always optional.