Advanced French Grammar

Book excerpt: This 1999 reference grammar, written for advanced students of French, their teachers, and others who want a better understanding of the French language, combines the best of modern and traditional approaches. Its objective is not only practical mastery of the language, but familiarity with its structure. Taking into account modern linguistic research, Advanced French Grammar approaches the French language primarily through the study of syntactic structures, but without excessive emphasis on formalism. It provides a generous number of examples, based on the author's own experience of teaching French to English-speakers, to help the student to understand the different meanings of apparently similar syntactic alternatives. The norms of 'correct expression' are given together with current usage and deviations, and appendixes provide information on the 1990 spelling reforms and on numbers. A substantial index of French and English words and of topics provides easy access to the text itself.