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The Emergence of Emphatic ‘ne’ in Conversational Swiss French

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 October 2007

BONNIBETH BEALE FONSECA-GREBER
BONNIBETH BEALE FONSECA-GREBER
Affiliation:
Department of Romance and Classical Studies, 203 Shatzel Hall, Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, Ohio 43403-0215, USA e-mail: bfonsec@bgsu.edu
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Abstract

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This study explores ne use in a previously unexamined variety of French: Swiss French. Based on a corpus of conversation among friends and family recorded at home, the results of this study show the lowest ne use reported for adult, middle-class speakers of European French, 2.5%. It also shows that ne functions micro-stylistically to effect micro-shifts in register allowing speakers to enact the institutional talk of public discourse. Finally, a new function appears to emerge: the use of ne as an emphatic, where it tends to appear in foregrounded clauses often with other emphatics, functioning as speaker evaluation or involvement.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of French Language Studies , Volume 17 , Issue 3 , November 2007 , pp. 249 - 275
Copyright
2007 Cambridge University Press

Footnotes

I am most grateful to the Editor and the anonymous referees, as well as to Rhonda Yancey, Charles and Fayde Macune, and Dan Madigan. Their insightful comments and generous support on earlier versions of this article have improved it immensely. Any remaining weaknesses are mine alone. Je tiens également à remercier tous les participants dans mon corpus. Sans eux et leur aimable participation, cet article n'aurait jamais pu voir le jour.