Middle English influence on Late Anglo-Norman syntax: The effect of imperfect L2 acquisition

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B. Devan Steiner

Abstract

During the end of the thirteenth century and through the fourteenth century, French was a common second language in England. Many of these L2 speakers of French had little contact with continental varieties of medieval French and as a result the French spoken in England (Anglo-Norman) quickly diverged, both syntactically and phonologically, from the French spoken at the time. This paper examines the decline of verb second (V2) in this dialect of medieval French as compared to the decline in continental varieties. It appears as though V2 declined more rapidly in Anglo-Norman than in other varieties, and it is argued that this is due to interference from L1 speakers of Middle English and their imperfect acquisition, over several generations, of Anglo-Norman.

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