Use of restrictive expressions juste, seulement, and rien que in Ontario French, in Canadian Journal of Applied Linguistics

TL;DRAbstract

This work examines the social, geographic and syntactic distribution of the synonymous French restrictives SEULEMENT, RIEN QUE, and JUSTE in the speech of adolescent Franco-Ontarians, and compares its findings with two studies of Montreal French. The trends uncovered include: the increased frequency of the expression JUSTE favoured most by females, the working class, and infrequent users of French; the association of RIEN QUE with males; and the marginal use of SEULEMENT. Restriction of infinitives and circumstantial complements is associated with the use of JUSTE.

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