French Morphology and Syntax

La suffixation en –eur agentif est l'un des procédés morphologiques considérés productifs en français. Pour rendre compte des noms construits à partir de ce procédé, la linguistique contemporaine a recours à plusieurs règles d'après des travaux récents dans ce domaine. Après avoir présenté les règles existantes qui sous-tendent la construction des noms issus dudit procédé, cet article postule une seule règle capable de rendre compte d'un nombre infini de constructions à partir de ce procédé. La règle proposée se justifie par la primauté accordée aux propriétés sémantiques des verbes qui sont à la base de la construction des noms d'agent en question. La prédominance des propriétés sémantiques rend donc facultatives les propriétés syntaxiques.

La suffixation en –eur agentif est l’un des procedes morphologiques consideres productifs en francais. Pour rendre compte des noms construits a partir de ce procede, la linguistique contemporaine a recours a plusieurs regles d’apres des travaux recents dans ce domaine. Apres avoir presente les regles existantes qui sous-tendent la construction des noms issus dudit procede, cet article postule une seule regle capable de rendre compte d’un nombre infini de constructions a partir de ce procede. La regle proposee se justifie par la primaute accordee aux proprietes semantiques des verbes qui sont a la base de la construction des noms d’agent en question. La predominance des proprietes semantiques rend donc facultatives les proprietes syntaxiques.

This work aims to show the diverse perspectives, mostly synchronic, when it comes to the factors that come into play to influence the choice of the use of either the synthetic (SF) or the
analytic (AF) forms of future (je vous attendrai vs. je vais vous attendre, "I will wait for you" vs. "I am going to wait for you") in certain spoken varieties of North American French (actually restricted to Canadian French in all studies considered here, and in the vast majority of studies carried out in general). Poplack and Turpin argue that speakers rarely select SF or AF in accordance with the values commonly attributed to them in either the descriptive or prescriptive literature because basically all reference to future states or events is made by AF, which "has ousted synthetic future from virtually all contexts of productive usage but one, while futurate present has made only incipient incursions into another" (1999, 135). The proposed underlying reasons for using SF, AF or both in any given situation in all these studies varies, ranging from the discoursive and modal to education level, contact linguistics phenomena, and bilingualism. The varieties of French considered here are:

a) Montreal French in Blondeau's (2006) study,

b) Three locations (northeast, northwest and southeast) in New Brunswick in Chevalier's (1994) study,

c) Three localities (St-Louis and Abram-Village in Prince Edward Island, and L'Anse-à-Canards, in Newfoundland) in King and Nasadi's (2003) study,

d) Quebec City French in Laurendau's (2000) and Deshaies and Laforge's studies, and

e) Ottawa-Hull French in Poplack and Turpin's (1999) study.

According to a summary of characteristics by Poplack and Turpin, AF is related to immediacy or proximity, intentionality, inception, imminence, conviction that the future eventuality will take place, a sense of the unavoidable, speaker involvement in the event, a present state preparatory of the future eventuality, and a psychological link with speech time, present relevance, or prospective aspect. On the other hand, SF signals neutrality, psychological detachment, conjecture, and conveys neither personal involvement nor a posterior link with an event taking place at speech time (1999, 137). This work will try to explore whether these notions hold true.
While all reasons for taking into account the aforementioned purely linguistic and sociolinguistic factors should be considered, understanding which are the most influential ones in Canadian French (and in French in general, to a certain, generalized extent) can definitely help establish a clearer characterization pattern for the use of spoken future referentiality in this particular context.