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Abstract

Abstract

This article provides new observations on (lit. ‘where is-it that’) in headed relatives (i.e. relatives with a nominal antecedent) in Quebec French from two different data sources (corpus research and acceptability judgements). These observations will be interpreted as an indicator for a more advanced stage of grammaticalisation of in this variety of French than in its European counterpart. Moreover, it will be shown that is more advanced in grammaticalisation in Quebec French than (lit. ‘what is-it that’). I will argue that this contrast is due to the adverbial function of , which leads to structural ambiguity between appositive and restrictive relative clauses. This ambiguity creates the possibility of structural reanalysis of clauses beginning with as headed relative clauses. I will support this analysis diachronically by comparison with other languages and with a related form , which is diachronically related to and has a distribution similar to that of , in that it is also used in headed relatives.

The article is structured as follows. In Section 1, I will describe the distribution of and related forms in French both synchronically and diachronically and present the steps of grammaticalisation that have been undergone by . In Section 2, I present new data from Quebec French that will show a more advanced stage of grammaticalisation of in Quebec French. In Section 3, I suggest an informal analysis to explain this new observation. Section 4 provides a detailed analysis of the informal suggestion based on a formal distinction between restrictive and appositive uses of relative clauses. Section 5 offers a summary and discussion.

© John Benjamins Publishing Company
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/content/journals/10.1075/rro.22012.kel
2025-11-25
2025-12-06

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/content/journals/10.1075/rro.22012.kel
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New observations on the grammaticalisation path of où est-ce que in Quebec French
John Benjamins ; https://doi.org/10.1075/rro.22012.kel
/content/journals/10.1075/rro.22012.kel
/content/journals/10.1075/rro.22012.kel
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  • Article Type: Research Article
Keywords: qu’est-ce que ; Quebec French ; où est-ce que ; headed relatives ; free relatives

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