L'emploi variable de la particule négative ne dans le parler des Franco-Ontariens adolescents

Linguistic studies undertaken in majority Francophone communities of France, Belgium and Canada (Quebec) indicate that the maintenance of the negative particle ne plus a second marker of negation (i.e. aucun(e), jamais, pas, personne, plus, rien) in spoken French is on the decrease; speakers tending to delete ne in favour of solely maintaining the second marker of negation (ex. Je sais pas instead of the standard Je ne sais pas). Social, stylistic and linguistic reasons are offered to account for this phenomenon. The present study examines the variable usage of ne in the speech of 117 adolescents residing in one majority and four minority Francophone communities in Ontario, Canada; namely: Hawkesbury, North Bay, Pembroke and Cornwall. Variation in the adolescents' speech was coded, then analyzed by the GoldVarb 1.6 variable rules computer programme. Generally speaking, this study reconfirms the findings of previous research conducted on ne deletion in oral language--clearly, the negative particle is disappearing from Francophone speech. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)