This handbook presents the first systematic account of corpus phonology - the employment of corpora for studying speakers' and listeners' acquisition and knowledge of the sound system of their native languages and the principles underlying those systems.

This book examines the variation found in modern spoken French, based on the research programme 'Phonology of Contemporary French' (Phonologie du Francais Contemporain, PFC). Extensive data are drawn from all over the French-speaking world, including Algeria, Canada, Louisiana, Mauritius, and Switzerland.