the influence of linguistic factors on the expression of futurity

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THE EXPRESSION OF FUTURITY IN MARTINIQUE FRENCH 141 (3) a. Des fois on va rigoler avec le pr<strong>of</strong>esseur. [NOR] ‘Sometimes we’ll have a laugh with <strong>the</strong> teacher.’ b. Si par exemple tu sors avec la fille tu vas pas lui parler créole. [AUB] ‘If for example you are going out with a girl you wouldn’t speak to her in creole.’ c. Oui moi je vais voir si elle est là. [MAC] ‘Yes I am going to see if she is here.’ d. Va pas lui remplir la tête avec des bêtises. [JOU] ‘Don’t go filling his head with rubbish.’ e. Parce que si cela va recommencer peut-être on choisirait une autre formule. [ALB] ‘Because if that is going to happen again we’d perhaps choose ano<strong>the</strong>r option.’ Finally, tokens were excluded if <strong>the</strong>y had been primed by <strong>the</strong> interviewer; occurred in fixed expressions, reported speech or meta<strong>linguistic</strong> commentary; were interrupted, repeated or reformulated. In total, 513 tokens that made unambiguous reference to future time were retained for quantitative analysis. Each instance <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> variable was coded for a number <strong>of</strong> internal and external constraints. In order to facilitate cross-dialectal comparison, this was achieved by combining and refining <strong>the</strong> coding protocols developed in previous research on future temporal reference. These are outlined in section 3.2 below. 3.2. Linguistic conditioning <strong>factors</strong> The data were coded for a total <strong>of</strong> six <strong>linguistic</strong> factor groups: sentential polarity, temporal reference, adverbial modification, grammatical person, <strong>the</strong> <strong>influence</strong> <strong>of</strong> si ‘if’, and <strong>the</strong> presence or absence <strong>of</strong> quand ‘when’. 3.2.1. Sentential polarity The effect <strong>of</strong> this factor group has been largely ignored by prescriptive grammars (Poplack & Dion 2009). It is not operative in Acadian French (King & Nadasdi 2003, Comeau 2011) or in o<strong>the</strong>r Romance languages, such as Brazilian Portuguese (Poplack & Malvar 2007), Colombian (Orozco 2005), North American (Orozco 2007) or Peninsular Spanish (Blas Arroyo 2008, Osborne 2008). Never<strong>the</strong>less, <strong>the</strong> polarity <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> future eventuality has been identified in all Laurentian studies to be <strong>the</strong> greatest determinant <strong>of</strong> variant choice. It has been operative since at least <strong>the</strong> 19 th century (Poplack & Dion 2009) and has a near-categorical effect: affirmative contexts massively favour PF selection while negative environments are reported to be one <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> last strongholds <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> IF (Poplack & Turpin 1999, Blondeau 2006). Indeed, Wagner and Sank<strong>of</strong>f (2011: 285) report that in all 588 negative constructions identified in <strong>the</strong>ir combined 1971 and 1984 Montréal dataset, only two were realised as <strong>the</strong> periphrastic variant and both <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong>se involved false starts, hesitations and reformulations. Given <strong>the</strong> <strong>influence</strong> <strong>of</strong> this constraint, I coded all tokens as ei<strong>the</strong>r affirmative (4a) or negative (4b). (4) a. Il faudra faire un tour au Centre de Découverte de la Terre. [MAE] ‘You will have to visit <strong>the</strong> Centre de Découverte de la Terre.’ b. Ça ne va plus se reproduire. [MAN] ‘That is not going to happen again.’ In Roberts (2012), I identified a link between <strong>the</strong> type <strong>of</strong> negation and variant choice in Hexagonal French. I <strong>the</strong>refore also decided to operationalise polarity as a four-way
142 NICHOLAS S. ROBERTS constraint. This factor group consists <strong>of</strong> affirmative sentences, negative utterances with postverbal negation (5a), negative utterances with full bipartite negation (5b) and those contexts in which is it not possible to identify if <strong>the</strong> negative morpheme ne has been realised, such as in liaison contexts where on ‘we’ is followed by a vowel (5c). (5) a. Ça va pas être à cause de nous. [TEM] ‘That’s not going to be because <strong>of</strong> us.’ b. Même s’il veut partir je ne le suivrai pas. [MIP] ‘Even if he wants to leave I will not follow him.’ c. Qu’est-ce qu’on (n’) aura pas? [MYR] ‘What will we not have?’ 3.2.2. Temporal distance The principle <strong>linguistic</strong> factor hypo<strong>the</strong>sised by traditional grammars <strong>of</strong> French to condition variant selection is <strong>the</strong> temporal distance between <strong>the</strong> speech act and <strong>the</strong> future event (Grevisse & Goosse 1993). PF is viewed as referring to proximal events and states, in contrast to IF, which is preferred for distal time contexts. Variationist studies <strong>of</strong> Laurentian French report that this factor group exerts a small effect on variant choice (Poplack & Turpin 1999), whereas it is identified as <strong>the</strong> most influential <strong>linguistic</strong> constraint in Acadian communities (King & Nadasdi 2003, Comeau 2011). In order to capture any distinction between <strong>the</strong> two variants on <strong>the</strong> basis <strong>of</strong> temporal distance, I coded for a fine degree <strong>of</strong> possible outcomes on <strong>the</strong> continuum <strong>of</strong> temporal reference: whe<strong>the</strong>r <strong>the</strong> verbal action was set to occur within <strong>the</strong> day (6a), <strong>the</strong> week (6b), <strong>the</strong> year (6c), or a period longer than a year (6d), as well as those token with a continuous (6e) or an indeterminate future reference (6f). (6) a. Oui, viens voir je vais te montrer. [JOU] ‘Yes come see I am going to show you.’ b. Elle sera encore là samedi. [MAE] ‘She will still be <strong>the</strong>re on Saturday.’ c. Après en septembre il y aura les sénatoriales. [MAN] ‘Afterwards in September <strong>the</strong>re will be <strong>the</strong> Senate elections.’ d. Il ne sera pas réélu en 2012. [NOR] ‘He will not be re-elected in 2012.’ e. Il va toujours habiter le Nord-Caraïbe. [ELN] ‘He is always going to live in <strong>the</strong> Nord-Caraïbe.’ f. J’espère vraiment qu’ils vont aboutir. [MIP] ‘I really hope that <strong>the</strong>y are going to come to an agreement.’ 3.2.3. Adverbial specification The literature reports a link between variant choice and <strong>the</strong> type <strong>of</strong> adverbial modification (Emirkanian & Sank<strong>of</strong>f 1985, Poplack & Turpin 1999). Research indicates that, when treated as a ternary variable, <strong>the</strong> futurate present is preferred in <strong>the</strong> presence <strong>of</strong> a specific time adverbial, such as demain ‘tomorrow’. In contrast, <strong>the</strong> inflected future is associated with non-specific adverbials, such as plus tard ‘later’, while <strong>the</strong> periphrastic variant is favoured in contexts with no adverbial modification. To capture <strong>the</strong> potential effect <strong>of</strong> this factor group, I <strong>the</strong>refore coded for <strong>the</strong> type <strong>of</strong> adverbial specification, distinguishing specific (7a) and non-specific adverbials (7b) from <strong>the</strong> absence <strong>of</strong> any modification (7c).
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