Contrasts from segmental parameter settings in loanwords: core and periphery in Quebec French

要旨

Chomsky (1986: 150) suggests that languages are constituted of a and a periphery: ''The language that.we then know is a system of principles with parameters fIxed, along with a of marked This paper aims at showing that the notion of periphery is essential to contrast prohibited segments, i.e. segments that are systematically and immediately adapted or eliminated as soon as they are introduced in a language, with tolerated segments, i.e. segments which are sometimes adapted and sometimes not, in Quebec French (QF). Following Ito and Mester (1993) on Japanese, our purpose will also be to show that the QF is more organized than it appears at fIrst sight, i.e. it is not only a bundle of marked exceptions. In this paper, we will maintain that the periphery, like the core, results from parameter-settings. In the periphery, however, parameters are set in such a way that they often yield constraint deactivation, a fact also hypothesized by Chomsky (1986: 147): ... it may be that peripheral constructions are related to the core in systematic ways, say, by relaxing certain condition of core grammar.

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