This study of the variable use of ne in synchronous electronic French discourse follows the methodological guidelines and the theoretical framework proposed and subsequently elaborated by Labov for analyzing variable features of language. This thesis provides a quantitative variable rule (i.e., VARBRUL) analysis including age as a factor group (i.e., independent variable), thereby making a new contribution to this area of inquiry. The data (50,000 words from the vingtaine 'twentysomething' channel and 50,000 words from the cinquantaine 'fiftysomething' channel) are a subset of 100,000 words from a corpus of one million words collected in 2008 by the thesis director from the public chat server EuropNet. This study aims to answer the following overarching question: To what extent does age-compared to other factors-influence the variable use of ne in verbal negation in synchronous electronic French discourse? In order to answer this question, and possibly others, the VARBRUL analysis will include age, subject (e.g., noun vs. pronoun), type of second negative particle (e.g., pas 'not', jamais 'never', personne 'no one'/'nobody', and so forth), as well as verbal mood/tense.

Photograph of an engraving in the book "Les Chats" by François Augustin de Paradis de Moncrif. The engraving is a fold-out, full-page piece done by Anne-Claude-Philipe de Tubieres. Some of the cats in the engraving are dressed as humans would be during the time-period while others are in the posture of everyday cats. They are in a scene on the roof of a building. The pages are held open with a clear, plastic band.

Photograph of the title page of the book 'Les Chats' by François Augustin de Paradis de Moncrif. Beneath the title is a crest-like illustration, possibly by Anne-Claude-Philipe de Tubieres. Beneath that is text that reads "A Paris, Chez Gabriel-François Quillau; Fils, Imp. Lib. Jur. de l'Univesité, rue Galande, à l'Annonciation. M. DCC. XXVII. Avec Approbation & Privilege du Roy."

Photograph of the book 'Les Chats' by François Augustin de Paradis de Moncrif propped open on a cradle with one side's pages held with a clear plastic band. The left page is wholly text and includes footnotes at the bottom, while the right page is a full-page engraving print by Anne-Claude-Philipe de Tubieres.

Photograph of a page from the book 'Les Chats' by François Augustin de Paradis de Moncrif. The page is wholly text and includes footnotes at the bottom. On the next page, which is partially visible, is a full-page engraving print by Anne-Claude-Philipe de Tubieres.

Photograph of the book "Les Chats" by François Augustin de Paradis de Moncrif, resting in a cradle with the pages held open to a fold-out, full-page engraving done by Anne-Claude-Philipe de Tubieres. Some of the cats in the engraving are dressed as humans would be during the time-period while others are in the posture of everyday cats. They are in a scene on the roof of a building. The page next to it is in French and includes footnotes for the text.