How Auxiliaries Be/Have in Acadian French

Abstract

This article is concerned with auxiliary selection in varieties of Acadian French spoken in Atlantic Canada. Our results confirm those of earlier Acadian studies, i.e. use of avoir "to have" is near categorical. One exception is passive constructions, where être "to be" is the only auxiliary used, as in all varieties of French of which we are aware. Our research does reveal significant variation where competing constructions, rather than competing auxiliaries, are at issue: avoir mouri versus être mort "to die" and avoir été né versus être né "to be born". We show that these instances of variation do not reveal style shifting towards the standard, i.e. être mort and être né are shown to be vernacular variants, possibly of long duration.