The Syntax of French.pdf

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French is a syntactically interesting language, and various aspects of its word order

and clause structure have triggered a number of important developments in syntactic

theory over recent decades. The Syntax of French is a concise and accessible guide

to the syntax of the modern language, providing a clear overview of those aspects

of French that are of particular interest to linguists with cross-linguistic and

theoretical interests. A broad variety of topics are covered, including the develop-

ment and spread of French; the evolution of its syntax; syntactic variation; lexical

categories; noun, verb and adjective phrases; clause structure; movement; and

agreement. Developing the work of a wide range of scholars, it highlights the

important role of French in the development of syntactic theory and shows how

French challenges some fundamental assumptions about syntactic structure. An

engaging and in-depth guide to all that is interesting about French, it will be

invaluable to students and scholars of syntactic theory and comparative linguistics.

PAUL ROWLETT is Head of the School of Languages at Salford University, UK. He

is author of Sentential negation in French (1998) and The French language today:

a linguistic introduction (2000).

CAMBRIDGE SYNTAX GUIDES

General editors:

P. Austin, B. Comrie, J. Bresnan, D. Lightfoot, I. Roberts, N. V. Smith

Responding to the increasing interest in comparative syntax, the goal of the

Cambridge Syntax Guides is to make available to all linguists major findings, both

descriptive and theoretical, which have emerged from the study of particular

languages. The series is not committed to working in any particular framework, but

rather seeks to make language-specific research available to theoreticians and

practitioners of all persuasions.

Written by leading figures in the field, these guides will each include an overview

of the grammatical structures of the language concerned. For the descriptivist, the

books will provide an accessible introduction to the methods and results of the

theoretical literature; for the theoretician, they will show how constructions that

have achieved theoretical notoriety fit into the structure of the language as a whole;

for everyone, they will promote cross-theoretical and cross-linguistic comparison

with respect to a well-defined body of data.

Other books available in this series:

O. Fischer et al .: The Syntax of Early English

K. Zagona: The Syntax of Spanish

K. Kiss: The Syntax of Hungarian

S. Mchombo: The Syntax of Chichewa

The Syntax of French

PAUL ROWLETT