This book provides a comprehensive introduction to the French language from the perspective of modern linguistics. Placing French within its social and historical context, the authors highlight the complex, diverse aspects of the language in a lively and accessible way. A variety of topics is covered, including the distribution of French in the world, the historical development of standard French, the sound system of French, its sentence patterns, and its stylistic and geographical variations.
Fully updated and revised, this new edition places a greater emphasis on sociolinguistics. To make the book more user-friendly, the following new features have been added:
* a further reading guide at the end of each chapter
* a glossary of linguistic terms
* an expanded bibliography and index.
Author(s): Adrian Battye; Marie-Anne Hintze; Paul Rowlett
Edition: Second Edition
Publisher: Routledge
Year: 2000
Language: English
Pages: 0
Cover......Page 1
Title......Page 4
Copyright......Page 5
Dedication......Page 6
Contents......Page 8
Preface to the second edition......Page 11
Preface to the first edition......Page 12
Acknowledgements......Page 15
1 La francophonie: How many French speakers are there in the world?......Page 16
2 The geographical distribution of French......Page 17
3 A brief survey of the external history of French......Page 24
4 The growth of Standard French......Page 34
5 The eighteenth century: a linguistic Garden of Eden or a hardening of attitudes?......Page 46
6 The nineteenth century and the affirmation of national French......Page 52
7 French in the twentieth century: protection from the Coca-Cola culture!......Page 57
8 Final remarks......Page 64
Further reading......Page 65
1 The point of reference......Page 66
2 The representation of sound......Page 67
3 The representation of sound through phonetic notation......Page 70
4 The physical production of speech sounds......Page 77
5 The classification of French consonants......Page 80
6 Consonants in contact: assimilation......Page 84
7 The pronunciation of double consonants and final consonants......Page 86
8 The classification of French vowels......Page 93
9 The special case of e-muet......Page 100
10 The mid vowels......Page 104
11 The nasal vowels......Page 109
12 Front [a] and back [\#0251\]......Page 112
14 The glides of French......Page 113
15 Syllables and sense groups......Page 119
16 Suprasegmentals: stress and intonation......Page 128
17 Final remarks......Page 132
Further reading......Page 133
3 French word structure......Page 134
1 Word classes and morphemes......Page 135
2 The morphology of French adjectives......Page 141
3 The morphology of the French verb......Page 147
4 Nominal morphology......Page 161
5 A brief introduction to derivational morphology......Page 165
Further reading......Page 174
4 The sentence structure of French......Page 175
1 Verbal structures......Page 176
2 Nominal structure......Page 183
3 Adjectival structure......Page 191
4 Proforms and clitics......Page 192
5 Reflexive clitics......Page 202
6 Subordinate clauses......Page 206
7 Sentence structures involving movement......Page 214
8 More on movement......Page 228
9 Infinitives with overt subjects......Page 236
10 Further types of complementation......Page 241
11 Adverbials......Page 245
12 Negation......Page 249
13 Coordination......Page 253
14 Impersonal sentences......Page 254
15 Use of verb forms......Page 259
16 Final remarks......Page 269
Further reading......Page 270
1 Linguistic diversity within France......Page 272
2 Regional varieties of French......Page 275
3 Les français régionaux in France......Page 280
4 Regional French outside France......Page 286
5 French-lexicon creoles......Page 293
6 Social variation......Page 298
7 Stylistic variation......Page 299
8 The stylistic continuum......Page 305
Further reading......Page 324
Appendix I: Dialects and regional languages......Page 326
Appendix II: French in the world......Page 327
Glossary......Page 328
Bibliography......Page 341
Index......Page 354
