The volume under review represents an important contribution to linguistic research based on the comparative method, as “a set of techniques, developed over more than a century and a half, that permits us to recover linguistic constructs of earlier, usually unattested, stages in a family of related languages” (Rankin, Reference Rankin2003: 183). For Jacques Ouellet, the author of this volume, the comparative method is a very useful tool to explore the conceptual (incidences) and the discursive (references) structures of language, in order to distinguish between grammar and logic. As the author himself notes in the Introduction, the book brings together updates to articles published on this subject over the last few decades to illustrate the practice of the comparative method in language systematics (p. 26). Following and developing the analysis started by Guillaume at the beginning of the twentieth century, Ouellet applies the comparative method to the study of concepts and sentences, and identifies two types of articulation that distinguish grammar from logic: incidence relationships, which structure conceptual units, and reference relationships, which structure discourse.

The volume contains 11 chapters, preceded by an Introduction générale and followed by a Conclusion générale. The opening chapter – État de la question – explores the evolution of language study, describing it as a continuous oscillation between science (focused on objective analysis of facts) and ideology (oriented toward social, political, or doctrinal supremacy). The author analyses how different linguistic currents, from antiquity to modern generative grammar, have defined the relationship between thought, concepts, and grammatical structure. For instance, the Modists tried to transform the study of language from an art into a science (p. 31), clearly distinguishing the object of grammar (“les modes de signification”) from that of logic. The conclusion of this comprehensive presentation is that scientific study of language should return to the analysis of the properties of concepts, abandoning formalism, which empties grammar of its meaning.

The next two chapters of the book – Analyse du syntagme substantival and Nom et pronom – represent a detailed linguistic study of the nominal phrases in French grammar, analysing the fundamental relationship between nouns, adjectives, and pronouns through the lens of morphology, syntax, and semantics. The author puts forward an innovative perspective based on the concept of extension which is a “paradigme qui oppose l’hyponyme à l’hyperonyme dans le plan de la morphologie grammaticale” (p. 105). In this way, he explains that terms function either as support (nouns) or as contribution (adjectives), depending on the definite or indefinite nature of their notional space.

Systématique de représentation conceptuelle is the title of the fourth chapter, and it focuses on the idea that concepts (especially numerals and articles) are not just tools for communication, but fundamental mechanisms through which the human mind organizes and understands experience. Through the use of the “monôme extensive” (p. 144), the relationship between mental space and numerical concepts is explained, highlighting the way in which language organizes human experience. In fact, this chapter emphasizes the idea that grammar is the foundation of all logical reference, transforming raw perceptions into structured symbols. This perspective positions linguistics as an essential pre-science for understanding mathematics and cognitive processes.

Based on his previous research (Ouellet Reference Ouellet1987, Reference Ouellet1988; Zhu and Ouellet, Reference Zhu and Ouellet2004), Ouellet dedicates the next three chapters to the analysis of the verbal domain. Classement des participes en français, Participe et verbe, and Syntaxe du verbe continue the linguistic exploration of French language structures, focusing on the participle, its relationship to the verb, and on the way in which syntactic functions are determined by the conceptual structure of words. As concerns the grammatical status of the participle, the author argues that although grammatical tradition often classifies participles as verbs in compound tenses, they actually constitute a distinct grammatical category, situated between verbs and adjectives.

Chapter 8, entitled Adverbe et preposition, explores Guillaume’s (Reference Guillaume1919) linguistic theory on the classification of parts of speech, focusing on the distinction between nature and function. The author explains that adverbs and prepositions are not simply invariable words, but conceptual structures defined by a specific “régime d’incidence” (p. 244). While nouns and pronouns refer to qualities or quantities, adverbs function as modal adjectives and prepositions as modal nouns, both serving unique functions in sentence structure. This analysis demonstrates that the identity of a word depends on the internal link between its lexical content and its immanent grammatical support.

The next chapter of the book is dedicated to the most important Principes et méthode d’analyse conceptuelle, defining language as an essential tool for rationalizing human experience. The author explains how the mind transforms sensitive impressions into structured concepts, thus enabling communication and scientific knowledge. Particular emphasis is placed on the distinction between language, as a theoretical system stored in long-term memory, and discourse, as the practical and momentary use of this system.

The last two chapters – Paradigme du genre and Personnes et cas en français – analyse the grammatical paradigms of gender, person, and case in French, challenging simplistic traditional definitions. The author demonstrates that gender transcends the biological distinction between sexes, being rather a method of subcategorizing nouns according to abstract characteristics, such as the opposition between animate and inanimate entities. With regard to person, the researcher puts forward a complex structure based on spatial location and extension, rejecting the classical division into three persons in the singular and plural. The analysis of the case system explains the role of the five forms in defining the relationship between pronunciation and the verbal event.

In conclusion, I fully appreciate the author’s effort to study most of the lexical and grammatical categories, covering both the nominal and the verbal domains, and presenting a significant number of examples in order to create and share a valuable source of information. A very strong point of this volume is the section entitled État de la question, in which Ouellet presents a review of the current situation in language science with a view to formulating critical considerations regarding contemporary ideology and the inadequacy of certain language teaching manuals in the field of grammar. This is motivated by the author’s intention to also give the volume a pedagogical purpose because language analysis has a strong impact on education. In the end, the volume convinces the readers that the comparative method is one of the “most stable and successful of all linguistic methodologies” although “it has remained essentially unchanged for over a century” (Rankin, Reference Rankin2003: 208).