This volume is an introduction to the linguistic structure of the French language.  It illustrates the different ways to approaching and explaining issues of interest in French linguistics and looks at how the language is structured and varies depending on gender, medium, register, age etc. The earlier sections describe the basic 'facts' about phonology, phonetics, morphosyntax, the lexicon and semantics. Discussion of problematic issues, with contrasting different approaches to these issues then follow along with references to recent research.