Patterns of analogy in the Canadian French verb system

Abstract

Study of a number of abberrant verb forms (écart de la norme) in Canadian French reveals a variety of pressures, paradigm levelling, markedness reduction and iconcity particular, affecting the inflectional structures. These verb forms, when seen in the light of theorectical proposals of natural morphology, permit a ranking of naturalness priniciples within that approach and contribute to proposals for the resolution of 'naturalness conflicts'.