Topic description and stories

Winston Churchill’s famous Battle of Britain address, adapted here for a wartime poster, is one example of a remnant of the Verb Second constraint in English, which could hint at the existence of a universal grammar.

“Never was so much owed by so many to so few”: Could phrases like this hold clues about universal grammar?

16 Dec 2015

A new research project examining a linguistic construction called the Verb Second constraint could, academics believe, help to explain how people...

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“Doctoral students and postdoctoral researchers from CIMR and the Institut Curie meet during a three-day retreat at the University of Kent, co-funded by the French Embassy, Cambridge and PSL” Credit: Sudarshan Gadadhar

Cambridge and French research consortium mark a year of collaborative projects

14 Jul 2015

A year of collaborative projects involving Cambridge and a consortium of Paris-based universities proves the potential of international partnerships...

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Image from a 14th century manuscript of the Romance of the rose, one of the best-known texts of the Middle Ages

Conquering a continent: how the French language circulated in Britain and medieval Europe

22 Jan 2014

A 13th-century manuscript of Arthurian legend once owned by the Knights Templar is one of the star attractions of a new exhibition opening today at...

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Beckham 2

Becksistentialism

17 Jul 2013

A Cambridge lecturer has been imagining the inner monologue of David Beckham as he encounters the works of the great French philosophers during his...

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It's a rude gesture in the UK; in this French poster it advertises two pairs of sunglasses for the price of one

Rude, moi?

01 Nov 2012

The French and British are historic foes. The wars may be over but the rivalry continues. Tomorrow (2 November) Christophe Gagne from the French...

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Arrival of boat, Guernsey

Island language in a sea of change

07 Dec 2011

Norman languages spoken in the Channel Islands for a thousand years are now severely endangered. Cambridge linguist Dr Mari Jones has been analysing...

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Frontispace of Vaugelas's Remarques sur la langue française (1647)

Le bon usage: using French correctly

01 Jan 2010

The purity and linguistic correctness of the French language has been closely guarded by the French for centuries. Professor Wendy Ayres-Bennett is...

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