ABSTRACT

The Vocabulary of Modern French provides a fresh insight into contemporary French.
With this book, Hilary Wise offers the first comprehensive overview of the modern French vocabulary: its historical sources, formal organisation and social and stylistic functions.
Topics covered include:
* external influences on the language
* word formation
* semantic change
* style and register
In addition, the author looks at the relationship between social and lexical change and examines attempts at intervention in the development of the language.
Each chapter is concluded by notes for further reading, and by suggestions for project work which are designed to increase awareness of specific lexical phenomena and enable the student-reader to use lexicographic databases of all kinds.
The Vocabulary of Modern French is an accessible and fascinating study of the relationship between a nation and its language, as well as providing a key text for all students of modern French.

chapter 1|25 pages

Questions and concepts

chapter 2|19 pages

The lexical foundations of French

chapter 3|14 pages

Les racines nobles

Borrowing from Latin and Greek

chapter 4|20 pages

The Romance contribution

chapter 5|24 pages

English influence

Good neighbours or false friends?

chapter 6|29 pages

New words for old

The derivational processes of French

chapter 7|25 pages

Cognitive processes and semantic change

chapter 8|19 pages

Lexis in society

chapter 9|26 pages

Lexis in context

chapter 10|18 pages

Argot

From criminal slang to la langue des jeunes