ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the way words combine together in French and the phrases and sentences which they form, i.e. the syntax of the language. In French, then, words belong to a limited number of word categories and combine together in particular ways to make phrases, which in turn belong to a limited number of categories. These phrases combine together with other words and phrases until we reach the sentence, which is nothing more mysterious than a number of phrases joined together. Sentences come in several varieties which are worth looking at now, because the differences between them are important to an understanding of the way that French syntax operates. Sentences fall into one of four different types: declaratives, Interrogatives, Exclamatives and Imperatives. Although it has a lot in common with other languages, the syntax of French differs in many respects from that of English.
