Valerie Knaus & Terry Nadasdi
Our study examines verbal auxiliary selection in the speech of French immersion students. According to the rules of Standard French, avoir cannot be used with so-called 'être verbs'. However, studies of spoken French show that a great deal of variation exists. As such, our study seeks to examine variation in auxiliary selection in the oral discourse of immersion students to determine to what extent it resembles that of native speakers. In our analysis, we examine this variation in terms of the social and linguistic factors that condition it. Our results reveal that in the immersion students' speech, the use of avoir with 'être verbs' falls between what is found in Standard French and in native speaker discourse.