There are increasing differences between the syntax

Syntax

In linguistics, syntax is the study of the principles and rules for constructing phrases and sentences in natural languages....

 used in spoken Quebec French

Quebec French

Quebec French , or Québécois French, is the predominant variety of the French language in Canada, in its formal and informal registers. Quebec French is used in everyday communication, as well as in education, the media, and government....

 and the syntax of other regional dialects of French

Dialects of the French language

Dialects of the French language are spoken in France and around the world. The francophones of France generally use Metropolitan French although some also use regional dialects or varieties such as Meridional French. In Europe outside of France there are Belgian French, Swiss French, and in Italy...

. In French-speaking Canada, however, the characteristic differences of Quebec French syntax are not considered standard despite their high-frequency in everyday, relaxed speech.

What follow are examples of the most common distinctive constructions in Quebec French syntax. For comparison, a standard French used throughout la Francophonie

La Francophonie

Francophonie is an international organization of politics and governments with French as the mother or customary language, where a significant proportion of people are francophones , or where there is a notable affiliation with the French language or culture.Formally known as the Organisation...

 (including Quebec and francophone Canada) is given in parentheses with the corresponding English translation given afterwards in italics. Note that some of the following constructions can also be found in other regional dialects of French such as Acadian French

Acadian French

Acadian French , is a regionalized dialect of Canadian French. It is spoken by the francophone population of the Canadian province of New Brunswick, by small minorities in areas in the Gaspé region of eastern Quebec, by small groups of francophones in Prince Edward Island, in several tiny pockets...

 and dialects in Western France

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

.

One far-reaching difference is the weakening of the syntaxic role of the specifier

Specifier

In X-bar theory in linguistics, specifiers, head words, and complements together form phrases. Specifiers differ from complements because they are not sisters of the head, but rather sisters of the phrase formed by the head and the complement...

s (both verbal and nominal), which results in many syntaxic changes:

• Positioning of the subject in an isolated syntag at the beginning (or at the end) of the sentence, with pronouns integrated with the verbal particule (see pronouns below):

Mon frère, yé dans police. (Mon frère est dans la police.) My brother is in the police.

Y a l'air fâché, le chien. (Le chien a l'air fâché.) The dog looks angry.

• Increased presence of complex sentence
  Complex sentence
  A complex sentence is a sentence with one independent clause and at least one dependent clause.-Examples:* I ate the meal that you cooked....
  
  s with main or dependent clause
  Dependent clause
  In linguistics, a dependent clause is a clause that augments an independent clause with additional information, but which cannot stand alone as a sentence. Dependent clauses modify the independent clause of a sentence or serve as a component of it...
  
  s using demonstratives:

Mon rêve, c'est de partir en Afrique. (Mon rêve est de partir en Afrique.) My dream is to leave for Africa.

• Relative clause
  Relative clause
  A relative clause is a subordinate clause that modifies a noun phrase, most commonly a noun. For example, the phrase "the man who wasn't there" contains the noun man, which is modified by the relative clause who wasn't there...
  
  s (1) using "que" as an all-purpose relative pronoun
  Relative pronoun
  A relative pronoun is a pronoun that marks a relative clause within a larger sentence. It is called a relative pronoun because it relates the relative clause to the noun that it modifies. In English, the relative pronouns are: who, whom, whose, whosever, whosesoever, which, and, in some...
  
  , or (2) embedding interrogative pronouns instead of relative pronoun
  Relative pronoun
  A relative pronoun is a pronoun that marks a relative clause within a larger sentence. It is called a relative pronoun because it relates the relative clause to the noun that it modifies. In English, the relative pronouns are: who, whom, whose, whosever, whosesoever, which, and, in some...
  
  s:

(1) J'ai trouvé le document que j'ai besoin. (J'ai trouvé le document dont j'ai besoin.) I found / I've found the document I need.

(2) Je comprends qu'est-ce que tu veux dire. (Je comprends ce que tu veux dire.) I understand what you mean.

• Loosening of the prepositions traditionally associated with certain verbs:

J'ai un enfant à m'occuper. (Standard correct French: s'occuper de; J'ai un enfant dont je dois m'occuper.) I must take care of a child.

• Plural
  Plural
  In linguistics, plurality or [a] plural is a concept of quantity representing a value of more-than-one. Typically applied to nouns, a plural word or marker is used to distinguish a value other than the default quantity of a noun, which is typically one...
  
   conditioned by semantics:

La plupart du monde sont tannés des taxes. (La plupart du monde est tanné des taxes.) Most people are fed up with taxes.

• The drop of the double negative (a feature observed throughout Francophonie) is accompanied by a change of word order(1), and (2)postcliticisation
  Clitic
  In morphology and syntax, a clitic is a morpheme that is grammatically independent, but phonologically dependent on another word or phrase. It is pronounced like an affix, but works at the phrase level...
  
   of direct pronouns (3)along with non-standard liaisons to avoid vowel hiatus
  Hiatus (linguistics)
  In phonology, hiatus or diaeresis refers to two vowel sounds occurring in adjacent syllables, with no intervening consonant. When two adjacent vowel sounds occur in the same syllable, the result is instead described as a diphthong....
  
  :

(1) Donne-moé lé maintenant. (Donne-le moi maintenant.) Give it to me now.

(2) Dis-moé pas de m'en aller! (Ne me dis pas de m'en aller) Don't tell me I have to go.

(3) Donne-moi-z-en pas ! (Ne m'en donne pas!) Don't give me any!

Other notable syntactic changes in Quebec French include the following:

• In colloquial speech, the verb être is often omitted between je and un(e), with a t inserted: J't'un gars patient. A t is also often inserted after the second person singular: T'es-t-un gars patient.

• Use of non-standard verbal periphrasis
  Periphrasis
  In linguistics, periphrasis is a device by which a grammatical category or grammatical relationship is expressed by a free morpheme , instead of being shown by inflection or derivation...
  
  :

J'étais pour te le dire. (J'allais te le dire. / J'étais sur le point de te dire.) I was going/about to tell you about it.

Avoir su, j'aurais... (Si j'avais su, j'aurais...) Had I known, I would have...

J'étais après travailler quand ils sont arrivés. (J'étais en train de travailler quand ils sont arrivés.) I'd been working when they came.

M'as le faire. (Je vais le faire. / Je le ferai.); akin to "ahma" /ɑmə/ in Southern American English

Southern American English

Southern American English is a group of dialects of the English language spoken throughout the Southern region of the United States, from Southern and Eastern Maryland, West Virginia and Kentucky to the Gulf Coast, and from the Atlantic coast to most of Texas and Oklahoma.The Southern dialects make...

 - I'm a do it. (I'm going to do it.)

• Particle
  Grammatical particle
  In grammar, a particle is a function word that does not belong to any of the inflected grammatical word classes . It is a catch-all term for a heterogeneous set of words and terms that lack a precise lexical definition...
  
   "-tu" used (1) to form tag question
  Tag question
  A question tag or tag question is a grammatical structure in which a declarative statement or an imperative is turned into a question by adding an interrogative fragment . For example, in the sentence "You're John, aren't you?", the statement "You're John" is turned into a question by the tag...
  
  s ((2) and sometimes to express exclamatative sentences):

C'est-tu loin, ça ? "Is it far?"

Y'en a-tu d'autres ? "Are there any others?"

Ça vous tente-tu vraiment d'y aller ? "Do you [formal or plural] really want to go?"

Faut-tu être cave pas à peu près ! "How very stupid [that other person] is [to do such a thing]"

Although this construction strikingly resembles a formal question asked in the 2nd person singular, there is no evidence that the particle tu came from the pronoun tu in the first place:

J'ai-tu l'air fatigué ? "Do I look tired?"

"Tu" is actually more likely to come from the 3rd person pronoun il with a euphonic -t-, as using a particle ti in exactly the same way is a feature found in the Oïl languages (other than French) in France and Belgium. Still, its use is often seen as a redundancy in a question for those who defend a standardized French. In such case, either "Tu" (but not both) can be eliminated to form correct syntax.

Tu le veux-tu? (Le veux-tu? / Tu le veux?) "Do you want it?"

• Extensive use of litotes

C'est pas chaud! (C'est frais!) It's not that warm!

C'est pas laid pantoute! (Ce n'est pas laid du tout!) This is nice! (literally: This is not ugly at all).

Pronouns

In daily use, Quebec French speakers frequently use a substantially different set of subjective pronouns in the nominative case

Nominative case

The nominative case is one of the grammatical cases of a noun or other part of speech, which generally marks the subject of a verb or the predicate noun or predicate adjective, as opposed to its object or other verb arguments...

 from those traditionally used in standardized French:

je/ tu/ y [i], a/ on/ vous/ y [i] (instead of je/ tu/ il, elle/ nous/ vous/ il(s), elle(s))

with [a] --> [ɛ] when used with the verb and copula être

• In common with the rest of the Francophonie, there is a shift from nous to on in all registers. In post-Quiet Revolution
  Quiet Revolution
  The Quiet Revolution was the 1960s period of intense change in Quebec, Canada, characterized by the rapid and effective secularization of society, the creation of a welfare state and a re-alignment of politics into federalist and separatist factions...
  
   Quebec, the use of informal tu has become widespread in many situations that normally call for semantically singular vous. While some schools are trying to re-introduce this use of vous, which is absent from most youths' speech, the shift from nous to on goes relatively unnoticed.

• The traditional use of on, in turn, is usually replaced by different use of pronouns or paraphrases, like in the rest of the Francophonie. The second person (tu, té) is usually used by speakers when referring to experiences that can happen in one's life:

Quand té ben tranquille chez vous, à te mêler de tes affaires ...

Other paraphrases using le monde, les gens are more employed when referring to generalisations:

Le monde aime pas voyager dans un autobus plein.

• As in the rest of la Francophonie, the sound [l] is disappearing in il, ils among informal registers and rapid speech. More particular to Quebec is the transformation of elle to [a] and less often [ɛ] written a and è or est in eye dialect
  Eye dialect
  Eye dialect is the use of non-standard spelling for speech to draw attention to pronunciation. The term was originally coined by George P. Krapp to refer to the literary technique of using non-standard spelling that implies a pronunciation of the given word that is actually standard, such as...
  
  . See more in Quebec French pronunciation
  Quebec French pronunciation
  Quebec French has more phonemes than Metropolitan French as it retains phonemic distinctions between and , and , and and whereas the latter of each pair has disappeared in Paris and several other parts of France.-Vowels:...
  
  .

• Absence of elles - For a majority of Quebec French speakers, elles is not used for the 3rd person plural pronoun, at least in the nominative case
  Nominative case
  The nominative case is one of the grammatical cases of a noun or other part of speech, which generally marks the subject of a verb or the predicate noun or predicate adjective, as opposed to its object or other verb arguments...
  
  ; it is replaced with the subject pronoun ils[i] or the stress/tonic pronoun eux(-autres). However, elles is still used in other cases (ce sont elles qui vont payer le prix).

• -autres In informal registers, the stress/tonic pronouns for the plural subject pronouns have the suffix –autres, pronounced /o:t/ and written –aut’ in eye dialect
  Eye dialect
  Eye dialect is the use of non-standard spelling for speech to draw attention to pronunciation. The term was originally coined by George P. Krapp to refer to the literary technique of using non-standard spelling that implies a pronunciation of the given word that is actually standard, such as...
  
  . Nous-autres, vous-autres, and eux-autres are comparable to the Spanish
  Spanish language
  Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
  
   forms nos(otros/as) and vos(otros/as), yet the usage and meanings are different. Note that elles-autres does not exist.

Verbs

In their syntax and morphology

Morphology (linguistics)

In linguistics, morphology is the identification, analysis and description, in a language, of the structure of morphemes and other linguistic units, such as words, affixes, parts of speech, intonation/stress, or implied context...

, Quebec French verb

Verb

A verb, from the Latin verbum meaning word, is a word that in syntax conveys an action , or a state of being . In the usual description of English, the basic form, with or without the particle to, is the infinitive...

s differ very little from the verbs of other regional dialects of French, both formal and informal. The distinctive characteristics of Quebec French verbs are restricted mainly to:

• Regularization
  Regularization (linguistics)
  In linguistics, regularization is a phenomenon in language acquisition and language development, whereby irregular forms in morphology, syntax, etc., are replaced by regular ones. Examples are "gooses" instead of "geese" in child speech and replacement of the Middle English plural form for "cow",...
  
  

1. In the present indicative, the forms of aller (to go) are regularized as /vɑ/ in all singular persons: je vas, tu vas, il/elle va. Note that in 17th century French, what is today's international standard /vɛ/ in je vais was considered substandard while je vas was the prestige form.

2. In the present subjunctive of aller, the root is regularized as all- /al/ for all persons. Examples: que j'alle, que tu alles, qu'ils allent, etc. The majority of French verbs, regardless of dialect or standardization, display the same regularization. They therefore use the same root for both the imperfect and the present subjunctive: que je finisse vs. je finissais.

3. Colloquially, in haïr (to hate), in the present indicative singular

Grammatical number

In linguistics, grammatical number is a grammatical category of nouns, pronouns, and adjective and verb agreement that expresses count distinctions ....

 forms, the hiatus

Hiatus (linguistics)

In phonology, hiatus or diaeresis refers to two vowel sounds occurring in adjacent syllables, with no intervening consonant. When two adjacent vowel sounds occur in the same syllable, the result is instead described as a diphthong....

 is found between two different vowels instead of at the onset of the verb's first syllable. This results in the forms: j'haïs, tu haïs, il/elle haït, written with a diaeresis and all pronounced with two syllables: /a.i/. The "h" in these forms is silent and does not indicate a hiatus; as a result, je elides

Elision

Elision is the omission of one or more sounds in a word or phrase, producing a result that is easier for the speaker to pronounce...

 with haïs forming j'haïs. All the other forms, tenses, and moods of haïr contain the same hiatus regardless of register

Register (linguistics)

In linguistics, a register is a variety of a language used for a particular purpose or in a particular social setting. For example, when speaking in a formal setting an English speaker may be more likely to adhere more closely to prescribed grammar, pronounce words ending in -ing with a velar nasal...

. However, in Metropolitan French

French language

French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...

 and in more formal Quebec French, especially in the media, the present indicative singular forms are pronounced as one syllable /.ɛ/ and written without a diaraesis: je hais, tu hais, il/elle hait.

• Differentiation

1. In the present indicative of both formal and informal Quebec French, (s')asseoir (to sit/seat) only uses the vowel /wa/ in stress

Stress (linguistics)

In linguistics, stress is the relative emphasis that may be given to certain syllables in a word, or to certain words in a phrase or sentence. The term is also used for similar patterns of phonetic prominence inside syllables. The word accent is sometimes also used with this sense.The stress placed...

ed roots and /e/ in unstressed roots: je m'assois, tu t'assois, il s'assoit, ils s'assoient but nous nous asseyons, vous vous asseyez. In Metropolitain French

French language

French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...

, stressed /wa/ and /je/ are in free variation

Free variation

Free variation in linguistics is the phenomenon of two sounds or forms appearing in the same environment without a change in meaning and without being considered incorrect by native speakers...

 as are unstressed /wa/ and /e/. Note that in informal Quebec French, (s')asseoir is often said as (s')assire.

2. Quebec French has retained the /ɛ/ ending for je/tu/il-elle/ils in the imperfect (the ending is written as -ais, -ait, -aient). In most other dialects, the ending is pronounced, instead, as a neutralized sound between /e/ and /ɛ/.

3. Informal ils jousent (they play) is often heard for ils jouent and is most likely due to an old analogy with ils cousent (they sew).

In colloquial speech, the verb être is often omitted between je and un(e), with a t inserted: J't'un gars patient. A t is also often inserted after the second person singular: T'es-t-un gars patient.

• Some expressions that take the subjunctive in standard French take the indicative in Quebec French, or vice versa (bien qu'il est trop tard rather than bien qu'il soit trop tard). This is mostly colloquial spoken usage, since written usage tends to follow the usage of France more closely.

Number

On the other hand, many Quebecers in informal context will decide on the agreement with collective nouns based on semantics rather than morphology. That is to say, for instance, that a verb whose grammatical subject is le monde (people, folks) may appear in the 3rd person plural because le monde designates multiple people although it is singular: le monde là-dedans sont en train de chiâler (the people in there are complaining).