The contributors of this book aim to present a broad spectrum of different theoretical approaches in French linguistics. Despite the apparent heterogeneity in the field, a deeper unity in the varous topics emerges demonstrating that French linguistics today is more and more characterized as a consistent framework for common research. This book gives credence to the claim that French linguistics stands at a crossroads where subdomains meet and feed one another.
The analysis of French verbs presented in this monograph is neither a synchronic nor a diachronic description, but rather a theoretical achronic analysis whose goal is the explanation of the historical phonetic development of the French verb in terms of changes in the underlying abstract morphological forms. One of the basic premises of this book is that the French superficial phonetic forms are not derived from the Latin superficial phonetic forms, but that both are derived from abstract etymological forms.