This study investigated interrogative structures most frequently used by native speakers of French, in an attempt to reconcile differences between language forms taught in the French as a foreign language classroom and those that are encountered in authentic input. Radio, television, and magazine interviews provided multiple examples of…

Acquisitionists generally assume a relation between code-mixing in young bilingual and trilingual children and language dominance. In our cross-sectional study we investigated the possible relation between code-mixing and language dominance in 122 children raised in Spain or Germany. They were bilingual, trilingual or multilingual, the latter…

This paper reports the results of an elicited production task of Long Distance (LD) "wh"-questions conducted with typically developing French- and Dutch-speaking children aged four and six, and adult control groups for each language. It is shown that besides input-convergent "wh"-questions, in both languages children use nontarget strategies to…

Suggestions are made for structuring taped listening exercises to promote careful attention to various elements of spontaneous speech (speaker, speaker characteristics, tone, etc.), and to sensitize students to the usage of "hein" or other specific expressions. (MSE)

Pronominalization of certain phrases in French is undergoing change. Anticipation that the newer forms will become dominant means that the rules governing /le/, /y/ and /en/ as substitutes for infinitive phrases must be rewritten. (MLA)

Appropriate uses of "des" and "les" in the description of individuals' physical attributes are outlined according to a grammatical model of sentence structure. Several examples of each usage are provided. (MSE)

An analysis of the sentence structure used in radiophonic French. Since the style of language used on the radio bears such a strong influence on the evolution of the French language, it is hoped that such analyses will be used in language teaching. (Text in French.) (TL)

Analysis of French-spoken constructions in which the superlative begins the utterance, rather than occurring within the sentence, suggests that instead of being variants of standard usage, these constructions leave substantial room for interpretation of syntactic relationships. (Author/MSE)

A general guideline is offered as a reference point to choosing the appropriate preposition (a or par) for French causative sentences with faire. Full noun phrase complements of infinitives are treated. (SW)

This article reports on a statistical study on the frequency of occurrence of different connectors between simple sentences as seen in texts written by elementary school children, as a function of parent education and occupation, social class and dwelling area of the child. (Text is in French.) (CDSH/CLK)

Investigates the determinants of adult usage of various syntactic and semantic cues in sentence interpretation. Native French speakers and advanced English/French bilinguals were tested for the strength of usage of word order, clitic pronoun agreement, verb agreement, and noun animacy cues in the assignment of the role in French sentences. (46…

This article discusses prepositive expressions, expressions whose meaning is equivalent to that of one single preposition, and preposition groups in French. (Text is in French.) (CLK)