Morpho-syntactic Change: 'On' vs 'Nous'

'On' vs 'Vous': 

• 'on' seems to dominate over 'nous'
• Syntactic because 'on' and 'nous' express a grammatical function
• Morphological because they can't exist independently of a sentence
• According to prescriptive norms, nous is the prestige form
• 'On' is less formal (when used to replace nous) 

History: 

• In Old French, 'nous' was the predominant form
• Since then, 'on' has emerged in modern French
• The morpheme has been undergoing change for some time 

Sociolinguistic Perspectives: 

• Söll 1969 - in a study that contrasted the variation of 'on' and 'nous' among children and police, children used 'on' categorically, while police officers tended towards 'nous'
• When language is used for professional purposes, prestige forms are used 
• Boutet 1994 - in a study on factory workers, discovered they favoured 'on' over 'nous' by and large
• Thomas 1971 - as a prescriptive grammarian, he emphasised the 'nous' form as correct
• Coveney 2000s - in a study in Picardie, the rate of use for 'nous' was 4.4%
• Meaning the 'nous' form hasn't vanished completely but it isn't common
• Laberge - in a study in Montreal, the rate of use for 'nous' was 1.6%
• Deshaies- in a study in Quebec City the rate of use for 'nous' was 0.5%
• Largely, the nous form is vanishing

Remaining uses:

• Uses which are unlikely to die out 
• Emphasis - e.g. 'c'est nous qui avons fait le travail'
• Imperative - e.g. 'sortons'

Reasons for change: 

• Simplification - with the 'on' form, there is no need to add the longer 'ons' morpheme to the verb
• Dialect contact - early in the 20th century, many different types of French existed, however increasing modernisation has lead to increased contact between dialects
• Redundancy - The 'ons' morpheme means the same thing as 'nous', so with the correct form, no extra meaning is added
• Cacophony - avoids ugly repetition with reflexive verbs, e.g. 'nous nous donnons' vs 'on se donne' 
• To the French ear, the 'nous nous' repetition sounds childish