| Summary: | This paper deals with the linguistic mechanisms of contact induced language change in Acadian French as it is spoken in the Maritime Provinces and in Newfoundland as well as in Louisiana French. The fact that English has been the dominant language in these areas for a very long time has had severe consequences on the minority language, which is on the verge of extinction in Newfoundland and Louisiana. On the basis of recent studies on contact induced language change this paper analyzes the influence English has had on the grammatical and syntactic structures of Acadian and Louisiana French. The basic questions are: (a) what are the mechanisms of structural change (in what respect the concept of ‘grammatical replication’ in the sense of Heine / Kuteva is a helpful explanatory frame?) and (b) in what sense do external factors interact with internal ones like simplification, neutralization, tendency for analytic constructions, iconicity, analogy or other functional and cognitive principles of markedness? It will be shown that – on the one hand - there are cases of grammatical and syntactic changes that seem to exhibit both external and internal motivation of language change in the sense of multiple causation; on the other hand there are cases of clearly contact induced semantic or combinational copying. Cet article traite des mécanismes du changement linguistique en situation de contact pour ce qui est du français acadien, parlé dans les Provinces Maritimes et à Terre-Neuve, ainsi qu’en français louisianais. Le fait que l’anglais est depuis très longtemps la langue dominante dans ces régions a eu des conséquences profondes sur la langue minoritaire, en voie d’extinction à Terre-Neuve et en Louisiane. Sur la base d’études récentes sur le changement linguistique en situation de contact, cet article analyse l’influence de l’anglais sur les structures grammaticales et syntaxiques en français acadien et louisianais. Les questions de base sont les suivantes : (a) quels sont les mécanismes du changement structurel (dans ...
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