Awareness of linguistic constraints on variable ne omission

Many quantitative studies have shown that sociolinguistic variables, such as the variable omission of ne, are subject to several linguistic constraints, yet linguists have disagreed as to whether speakers themselves are aware of these constraints. This article reports on an Intuitions Elicitation Test designed to explore whether such awareness does exist, both for native-speakers and non-native advanced learners of French. It is suggested tentatively that the results of the test do indeed indicate some awareness of some linguistic constraints on the ne variable, and that some advanced non-native learners have a particular sensitivity to these constraints.