Variational approach to the use of the preposition vu and the conjunction vu que in French

Resumen

Inspired by Erling’s abiding interest in variational linguistics, our contribution aims at exploring two interesting, yet rather unexplored, cases of grammaticalization processes – i.e. the grammaticalization and subsequent actualization (Andersen 2001a, 2008) of the preposition vu (‘since’) and the conjunction vu que (‘given’) in French. Our paper is intended to investigate these items, which are found in French from the Middle French period, in order to consider whether they are introduced “from above” or “from below”. Most frequently, innovations start from below, i.e. in unmarked contexts.1 In Modern French the preposition vu is mainly found in legal texts, whereas vu que seems to have spread from legal texts to other registers. This suggests a diachronic process starting from above. We intend to investigate this question by use of diverse corpora including administrative language, novels, historical texts, and web-language, focusing on the role of diachronic, diaphasic (text type), and diamesic variation parameters.