Adrian Battye taught internationally and was Lecturer in Romance Linguistics at the University of York until his death in 1993. Marie-Anne Hintze is currently Senior Lecturer in French at the University of Leeds. Paul Rowlett has taught widely throughout the world and is now Head of French at the University of Salford.

• Preface to the second edition Preface to the first edition Acknowledgements 1. The External History of the French Language 2. The Sound System of French 3. French Word Structure 4. The Sentence Structure of French 5. Varieties of French Appendix Glossary Bibliography Index

'The authors can rightly claim in the preface to the second edition that The French Language Today is still unique in the market in providing undergraduate students with a comprehensive description of the linguistics structure of the modern language.' - - Glenn Ekambi, University of Auckland'This book is an excellent introduction to French linguistics.' - Joseph Reisdoerfer, The Linguist List