Per una classificazione ragionata delle irregolarità verbali nel francese

The article presents a model for the description of French irregular verb forms based on a diachronic approach, which is also applicable to grammar teaching, and which aims at redrawing the seemingly arbitrary boundaries of forms and paradigms. So–called irregular verbs belong to a closed set of Latin origin. Most of them form a “third group”. The model is based on the types of inflected forms, and on the consequent changes in verb endings or in the root vowel which explain the anomalies of diachronic phonetics. Thus exceptions can be identified and systematically analysed in terms of linguistic development.