Agreeing to Disagree: Variable subject-verb agreement in Immersion French

This study presents a variationist analysis (cf. Sankoff, 1988) of subject/verb agreement in the third person plural, using data from students enrolled in secondary school French immersion in Ontario. The analysis considers both social and linguistic factors that may influence the use of either the syncretized (without agreement) or nonsyncretized (with agreement) variants and compares the behaviour of this variable in the speech of immersion students to that observed in research based on native speakers of French. In so doing, the study aims to contribute to an understanding of the similarities and differences between the grammars of these two groups of speakers. The principal research questions addressed in this study are: a) do the immersion students use syncretized forms to a greater degree than do native speakers?; b) do the immersion speakers share the same linguistic and social constraints as native speakers whose use of French is restricted (cf. Mougeon and Beniak, 1991)?