ABSTRACT
Typological statements about French are often, unfortunately, couched in the confused and confusing terminology, of nineteenth-century origin, which distinguishes between 'analytic' and other varieties of language. Two provisos should be added into grammatical criteria. The first depends on the fact that there is no virtue in having a criterion, even a grammatical criterion, which leaves too much in doubt. The second proviso depends on what the ultimate object of the exercise. Bazell suggests replacing the criterion of occurrence in absolute position by occurrence in both initial and final position. Turning to 'genuine' word criteria it may first of all be observed that the widely acknowledged non-correspondence between phonological and grammatical 'word features' in French is, from a historical point of view, the result of an accumulation of apparently independent phonological changes at various times. 'Interruptability' is perhaps generally regarded as the most important word criterion in French. It is not open to the objections raised above against 'potential pause'.
