Tu lui les as donnés ?: Variation dans l’ordre des pronoms multiples en phrases déclaratives

Tuaillon (1983) claims that variation in the order of third-person multiple object pronouns is a “clear regionalism” from the lower Rhone valley. To investigate this phenomenon in Briançon, a small town in southeastern France, 41 participants from this area filled out an acceptability judgment questionnaire, evaluating sentences with such pronouns in different orders. The results of statistical tests show that, even though participants prefer the standard French order, they also accept the reversed order (standard ‘le lui’ vs. reversed ‘lui le’). The analysis also suggests a change in apparent time (which seems to coincide with economic and social changes in the region since WWII) as well as age grading.