Le développement des formes dans des contextes de l'infinitif par des apprenants suédophones du français L2

The aim of this study is to explore the development of the infinitive as a form and as a context in written and spoken production in L2 learners of French. Probably because one tends to conclude that this form is mastered from very early on, given its overuse in present tense contexts, the development of the infinitive has received little attention in the literature. However, the frequency of use of a specific form does not entail success in form-function mapping. In this study, the infinitive will be examined in contexts for such a form after a (semi-auxiliary) verb and within an adverbial phrase. The overuse of the infinitive in present tense will also be analysed. The analysis is based on 73 written and 33 oral L2 productions from two corpora with Swedish high-school learners of French at beginner to intermediate levels and from two control groups of ten native speakers of French. The results show differences in written versus spoken production and suggest that variation and frequency of forms influence the production in the contexts for the infinitive.