Structures complexes du français moderne par Kyriakos Forakis (review)

League of Nations’Minority Treaties on the revival of regional identity movements in the 1920s, the annual reports of the DGLFLF. Amit shoehorns his case studies into several models—Ferguson’s of diglossia, Haugen’s of standardization, Hroch’s of nation-building, and Bakhtin’s chronotopes—none particularly convincing. That the connection of regionalism and linguistic revival to fascism’s discredited racial theories drove the“final nail in the coffin”(161) of regional languages is reasonable. Ultimately the long, slow death may have had as much to do with the aspirations of the“bottom” as with the impositions of the national and regional “tops.” University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign Douglas A. Kibbee Forakis, Kyriakos. Structures complexes du français moderne. Paris: L’Harmattan, 2014. ISBN 978-2-343-04671-6. Pp. 187. 19 a. This slim but thorough volume provides a detailed account of sentences with embedded clauses in French. The subject matter being quite specific, this volume is highly specialized. The analysis is not strictly syntactic but focuses more on the nature of the dependency relation, such as that of causality (as in the case of puisque), temporality (e.g., quand), and concession (e.g., bien que), among many others. Syntactic tree representations are used to highlight differences of interpretation or to justify the categorization of a particular structure. The discussion also touches on grammatical implications, reviewing the verbal tense or mood required by each structure. After the brief introductory chapter lays out the classification criteria for the numerous variations on embedded clause phrases, the bulk of the book discusses different types of embedded clauses that are overtly marked as such by a relative pronoun, a conjunction, or the like. The final two much shorter chapters discuss dependent clauses that lack overt subordinators but that are more subtly marked by either inversion (as in, fait-il beau, je sors) or a participle (as in, la séance (étant) terminée, il sortit). Each type of embedded clause phrase is illustrated through numerous examples and compared with related structures. The author makes liberal use of bolded text to emphasize key ideas; summary tables of major concepts or categories are included throughout the text. At the end of the volume, there is an extensive set of exercises that involve classification of the type of dependency relation, structural analysis, text commentary, and reformulation. The excerpts used in these exercises come from both literature (a few different genres are represented, although the vast majority date from 1975 or before) and newspaper articles.Answers are provided for but a few of the exercises , and some of these actually seem necessary to understanding how to approach the task, when all that is given in the way of instruction is, for example: “Vous étudierez les structures complexes de l’extrait que voici” (136). Perhaps the only thing lacking from this discussion of embedded clause sentences in modern French is the modern part. The author does very briefly mention that in nonstandard contemporary French, 256 FRENCH REVIEW 90.1 Reviews 257 the interrogative marker est-ce que is sometimes used in embedded questions, such as e me demande qu’est-ce que je pourrais faire. However, there is no mention of the possibility of a que passe-partout in the lengthy discussion of relative clauses. Given the title of the volume, one might expect more discussion of such nonstandard structures, and perhaps more contemporary example texts. This comprehensive volume will likely appeal most to linguists and graduate students but could also serve as a reference for the conscientious French teacher or motivated advanced learner. The volume does contain many useful tables, including one showing the distribution of tense concord in French, and another presenting a detailed explanation of relative pronouns, both illustrated with examples. The reformulation exercises that span several pages could also prove useful for language teachers and learners. Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis A. Kate Miller Forlot, Gilles, et Fanny Martin, éd. Regards sociolinguistiques contemporains: terrains, espaces et complexités de la recherche. Paris: L’Harmattan, 2014. ISBN 9782 -343-04614-3. Pp. 339. 35 a. Destiné en priorité à un public expert en sociolinguistique, ce volume constitue les actes des deux colloques du projet Terrains...