Comparative grammar of the Mongolian literary language and the Khalkha dialect: Introduction and phonetics.

Сравнительная грамматика монгольского письменного языка и халхасского наречия: Введение и фонетика. [Comparative grammar of the Mongolian literary language and the Khalkha dialect: Introduction and phonetics.] By Борис Яковлевич Владимирцов [Boris Yakovlevich Vladimircov]. (LINCOM gramatica 125.) Munich: LINCOM Europa, 2012. Pp. xii, 436. ISBN 978-3862901906. $111.

Reviewed by Mikael Thompson, Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia
Boris Vladimircov’s work, originally published in 1929, is a classic of Mongolian studies that deserves reprinting. It was the most important study of the Khalkha dialect (the standard dialect of Mongolia) before Nicholas Poppe’s grammar of 1951, and it retains value to linguists today for its description of contemporary Khalkha pronunciation.

V’s book has three parts. The introduction (1–50) surveys the dialects of Mongolian and provides a historical overview. Part 1 proper (51–89) discusses the sound system of Khalkha and classical Mongolian script. As the modern Cyrillic alphabet was introduced in the early 1940s and a Latin script based on Turkic Romanization systems (widely used in the 1930s but never made official) was only developed around the time this work was published, comparison between the literary language and Khalkha required the citation of words in classical script. While the absence of standard Cyrillic forms renders this book less immediately accessible to linguists, its treatment of classical script is very good. Khalkha forms are transcribed in standard Cyrillic phonetic transcription.

Part 2 (91–421), a comparative study of literary Mongolian and contemporary Khalkha, makes up the bulk of the work. After a short section of general remarks (93–96) follow discussions of stress and vowel harmony (97–142), vowels (143–345), and consonants (346–421). While the focus is a comparison of the sound systems of the literary language and Khalkha, it includes much data from other dialects. As the number of pages suggests, V’s treatment of vowels is richer than that of consonants, and while changes in the Mongolian vowel system are extensive, the fact remains that V’s treatment of consonants lacks some detail. Finally, the end matter consists of an index of Khalkha roots (422–32), an index of Khalkha morphemes (433), and errata (434–36).

As a comparative and historical study of Mongolian, this book is a transitional work from the time the basic knowledge of the field was being collected and refined; rather, Nicholas Poppe’s introductory work in 1955 is the starting point for studies of Mongolian dialectology. On the other hand, for Mongolists interested in the development of the field, it is well worth reading. Moreover, much of the content is still useful. The section on stress (which includes a useful discussion of poetic meter) and the discussions of classical script generally hold philological interest even today: literary Mongolian is a written language whose monuments span eight centuries, and V’s discussions of the changes in the script and the development of loanwords at different periods are well worth reading. Nonetheless, the book is likely to be predominantly of interest to specialists, and the price makes it suitable primarily for university libraries.

A grammar of Savosavo.

A grammar of Savosavo. By Claudia Wegener. (Mouton grammar library 61.) Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton, 2012. Pp. xvi, 400. ISBN 9783110289473. $196 (Hb).
Reviewed by Michael W. Morgan, NDFN, Kathmandu

Savosavo, spoken on Savo Island in the Solomons, is the easternmost non-Austronesian (i.e. ‘Papuan’) language. Although three other non-Austronesian languages are also spoken in the Solomons, none are particularly closely related to Savosavo. In fact, Savosavo shares more vocabulary (about 20%) with neighboring Austronesian languages than it does with these ‘Papuan’ languages (3.7% and below). With 98% of the population of Savo Island being first-language speakers of Savosavo, it is a small (ca. 2,500 speakers) but ‘safe’ language (although that situation could well change, as almost all Savo Islanders, including young children, also speak Solomon Islands Pijin).

This excellent reference grammar consists of front matter (i–xvi), ‘The language and its speakers’ (1–12), ‘Phonology’ (13–42), ‘Word formation’ (43–47), ‘Word classes and phrase types’ (48–115), ‘Noun phrases’ (116–60), ‘The verb complex’ (161–95), ‘Independent basic clauses’ (196–246), ‘Complex clauses’ (247–97), ‘Nominalization with -ghu “NMLZ”’ (298–329), appendices (330–86), ‘Bibliography’ (387–93), and ‘Index’ (394–400).

The treatment of phonology is fairly straightforward, as Savosavo is not particularly exceptional phonologically. Especially appreciated is the section on intonation, for which audio files are available online. Although the chapter on word formation is short, this is due to the fact that suffixes and enclitics, as well as reduplication types, are simply listed here and crossreferenced to the chapter sections where they are dealt with in depth.

Ch. 4 is a mini-grammar of Savasavo, covering all ‘minor’ word classes and also presenting a very good overview for the chapters that follow on noun phrases and verb complexes. Savosavo has a number of features of note: e.g. the use of ‘seawards’ vs. ‘bushwards’ as absolute frames of reference rather than relative frames such as ‘right’, ‘left’, ‘front’, and ‘back’; flexible gender and especially its use to highlight discourse prominence; a morphologically marked nominative but an unmarked accusative; object-agreement rather than subject-agreement on verbs.

Noun phrases are strictly structured with regards to the order of elements (e.g. head final, except for emphatic and limiting markers such as ‘really’ and ‘only’). Verbs have independent inner and outer layers of morphology (inner marking includes object marking and transitivity-changing, whereas outer marking includes tense-aspect-mood (TAM), finiteness, and nominalization). Like most languages in the region, serial verbs—fully lexical verbs, aspectual verbs, and transitivity-changing verbs—are common in Savosavo.

Chapters on various clause types are too detailed to summarize here; presentation is organized according to both form and function and is very clear. The final separate chapter on the nominalizer -ghu is indicative of its prevalence in Savosavo discourse, both to derive nouns and also in a variety of verb and predicate constructions. Texts in ‘Appendix A’, in addition to narratives (standard for De Gruyter Mouton grammars), also include a number of locational descriptions elicited by the ‘Man & Tree game’, photos of which precede the texts.

The grammar under review is extremely well organized, and the various overviews are especially useful. The book will interest specialists in Papuan and Pacific languages and also language typologists. It is yet another in the growing number of excellent grammars of this linguistically diverse area of the world.

Konstruktionsgrammatik: Konzepte und Grundlagen gebrauchsbasierter Ansätze.

Konstruktionsgrammatik: Konzepte und Grundlagen gebrauchsbasierter Ansätze. By Alexander Ziem and Alexander Lasch. (Germanistische Arbeitshefte 44.) Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton, 2013. Pp. xii, 232. ISBN 9783110272949. $35.
Reviewed by Thomas Hoffmann, University of Osnabrück

Over the last twenty years, construction grammar has established itself as a successful theory of language that has spawned a large body of research, including lexical, morphological, and syntactic studies, in a wide range of languages in fields such as first and second language acquisition, psycholinguistics, and neurolinguistics. Yet, somewhat surprisingly, no construction grammar textbook had been published so far. This book by Alexander Ziem and Alexander Lasch now closes this gap by offering an introduction to usage-based construction grammar approaches.

After a short introductory chapter, Ch. 2 outlines basic constructionist assumptions and notions, including the view of grammars as cognitive and social phenomena, the definition of constructions as form-meaning pairings, and psychological evidence supporting constructionist approaches to language.
Ch. 3 first surveys the history as well as development of construction grammar as a linguistic school. After that, Ch. 4 discusses cognitive, usage-based, and typological constructionist approaches (namely cognitive construction grammar, cognitive grammar, and radical construction grammar), while Ch. 5 looks at more formal approaches (Berkeley construction grammar, sign-based construction grammar, embodied construction grammar, and fluid construction grammar). Ch. 6 then summarizes the major methods and data sources used in construction grammar (from introspection to corpus linguistic approaches to experimental approaches).

Chs. 7–8 focus on major aspects of usage-based constructionist approaches as cognitive linguistic theories, and introduce central construction grammar tenets (the lexicon-syntax continuum, taxonomic constructional networks and inheritance, and the role of frequency, productivity, and prototype effects in usage-based approaches). Finally, Ch. 9 provides an in-depth analysis of the internal structure of constructions and constructional meaning from a usage-based point of view.

The focus then shifts to constructionist analyses of selected phenomena of German. Ch. 10 outlines the potential of usage-based constructionist approaches for various types of linguistic research on German (from language change studies to work on interactional linguistics and language acquisition). This is followed by two sample studies, one on the lexically-specified Leonhard abgeholt construction in Ch. 11, and the other on the sound-as-motion-verb rumpeln construction in Ch. 12.

Finally, Chs. 13–15 consist of a short summary chapter as well as a glossary and solutions to all exercises, while Chs. 16–17 comprise the list of abbreviations, tables, and figures, as well as the reference section.

This book is not only written in German but its focus is also on the usage-based constructionist analysis of German phenomena. Nevertheless, since it is the first officially published introduction to construction grammar, it is a landmark publication that should inspire many future generations of German linguists to fruitfully adopt a constructionist approach in their own research.

Orthographies in early modern Europe

Orthographies in early modern Europe. Ed. by Susan Baddeley and Anja Voeste. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton, 2012. Pp. vi, 383. ISBN 9783110288179. $140 (Hb).
Reviewed by David Elton Gay, Bloomington, IN

The orthographies of many early modern European languages are well-known to students of these languages for their often difficult and misleading spellings. The languages have, typically, shifted from the middle to early modern stages of their development, yet the orthographies often fail to reflect that changes have occurred. Other languages are just being written, and these orthographies often pose puzzles of their own. This book looks at both languages with long histories of writing and some that are only just coming into writing in the early modern period, offering a guide to the complexities of the early modern orthographies of these languages.

The book opens with a general essay on the orthographies and their problems by the editors.’ After the introduction to the problems of early modern orthographies, the book moves to studies of orthographies of selected Romance, Germanic, Slavic, and Finno-Ugric languages. The essays of the first section look at Romance languages. Elena Lamas Pombo writes about ‘Variation and standardization in the history of Spanish’. Andreas Michel then takes up ‘Italian orthography in Early Modern times’, which is followed by Susan Baddeley’s essay, ‘French orthography in the 16th century’. The book’s second section deals with early modern Germanic languages. Terttu Nevalainen describes ‘Variable focusing in English spelling between 1400 and 1600’. Anja Voeste then offers a study of ‘The emergence of suprasegmental spellings in German’, and, finally, Alexander Zheltukhin describes ‘Variable norms in 16th-century Swedish orthography’. The third section then takes up the Slavic languages. Daniel Bunčić looks at ‘The standardization of Polish orthography in the 16th century’. Tilman Berger then examines the intersection of religion and orthographies in ‘Religion and diacritics: The case of Czech orthography’. It is followed by Roland Marti’s essay, ‘On the creation of Croatian: The development of Croatian Latin orthography in the 16th century’. The book’s final section examines two Finno-Ugrian languages. Klára Korompay’s essay is on ‘16th-century Hungarian orthography’, and Taru Nordlund’s essay, ‘Standardization of Finnish orthography: From reformists to national awakeners’, then closes the book.

Although the essays in the book are somewhat inconsistent in their quality, the book does an important service for historical linguists in highlighting the importance of orthography and other philological and textual issues in the study of early modern languages. The essays remind historical linguists and others about the importance of editing and textual criticism in the interpretation of early modern texts. The texts that historical linguists use are typically the regularized editions of modern scholars, which sometimes differ in linguistically significant ways from the manuscript and early printed versions that are the basis for the editions. This book is a very useful guide back to the originals of these texts.

Semitic languages: Features, structures, relations, processes

Semitic languages: Features, structures, relations, processes. By Gideon Goldenberg. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013. Pp. xix, 363. ISBN 9780199644919. $135 (Hb).
Reviewed by Peter Freeouf, Chiang Mai University

This book presents a state-of-the-art overview of the field of Semitic linguistics, both comparative and historical. It is not a book for beginning students but instead requires some familiarity with the languages and the research. It is a comprehensive guide to the research in the field with wide-ranging reference to the corpus of research over the past century.

The work is divided into sixteen units, beginning with an ‘Introduction’ (1–9), setting out the author’s approach, methodology, and transcription, and glossing conventions. The next unit, ‘Languages’ (10–20), gives an overview of the Semitic languages, both ancient and modern. Next is a unit on the ‘Distribution of the Semitic languages’ (21–29) with several detailed maps showing the areas where the languages were or are spoken. ‘Writing systems and scripts’ (30–43) briefly discusses the several writing systems employed for Semitic languages from ancient times to the present.

The next unit,‘Genetic classification’ (44–57), sets out the approaches and problems with the internal classification of this language family, with its long history of intimate contact between the languages involved. Of particular interest here is the author’s discussion of the vexing problem of the position of Arabic in the family. The following section, ‘Special achievements of Semitic linguistic traditions’ (58–63), is a discussion of the medieval traditions of Arabic and Hebrew grammatical analysis. The first six units form the background for the rest of the work (units 7–16), which deals with the phonology, morphology, and syntax of the Semitic languages, with reference to both the older and the modern languages.

Of note in the section on ‘Phonology’ (64–80) is the brief discussion of irregular or ‘sporadic sound changes and lexical diffusion of sound change’ (70) that interfere in the regularity of sound correspondences. Of interest here, too, are the discussions of issues in modern South Arabian phonology (76–77) and in the phonology of Ethiopian languages (77–80). The characteristic features of Semitic nominal, pronominal, and verbal morphology are extensively treated in the next three units (81–139). The remaining sections (140–311) discuss, in considerable detail, syntactic issues and how they relate to the morphological structures of the languages.

Throughout the book there are well-organized and useful comparative paradigmatic tables and extensive glossed example sentences in transcription. The clear glossing conventions are given at the beginning of the work (xvii–xix). There is an extensive bibliography (313–50) followed by detailed index (351–63). A useful feature of the organization in the book is the summary of the topic of each section given at the beginning of each unit.

This is a very comprehensive and user-friendly work, which will be most valuable to scholars versed in Semitic and Afro-Asiatic languages, but it will be also of interest to typologists and historical linguists.

Variation in datives: A microcomparative perspective.

Variation in datives: A microcomparative perspective. Ed. by Beatriz Fernández and Ricardo Etxepare. (Oxford studies in comparative syntax 2.) Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013. Pp. xxvi, 320. ISBN 9780199937387. $40. Reviewed by Sara Gómez-Seibane, Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha

The book edited by Beatriz Fernández and Ricardo Etxepare compiles a set of research projects regarding the syntactic nature of datives from a micro-comparative perspective. Directed at linguistic variation and especially syntactic micro-variation researchers, this book is made up of an introduction by the editors, ten chapters with their corresponding references, and an alphabetized index of terms and issues, which makes searching the book’s content considerably easier.

Using the principles and parameters model, this book deals with the syntactic variation understood as an intrinsic element belonging to grammar. Within this conception, the crosslinguistic variation responds to a closed set of parameters in accordance with the principles, rules, and mechanisms of Universal Grammar known as macro-parameters or metaparameters. Nevertheless, the difficulty for formulating parameters which cover a wide domain, mostly in many languages for which the available knowledge is incomplete, has motivated many linguists to pay attention to more limited variation zones. This is one of the reasons there has been an increased interest in studying genetically close languages or dialects of the same language or, in other words, microparameter variation. Along these lines, the crosslinguistic and dialectal syntactic microvariation is revealed as a research tool, which allows both marking out which properties are common and which are specific as well as the possibility of refining the enunciation of the macroparameters.

Within this framework, the contributors of this book analyze the syntactic behavior of datives in European languages such as Serbo-Croatian, French, Basque, Icelandic, Feroese, German, Greek, and Spanish. Among other syntactic behavior, the chapters examine selected and not selected datives in French and the connection of this type of clitics with the evaluative mood in a set of Serbo-Croatian dialects. The papers also describe dative and accusative alternations in different types of predicates in Icelandic and the use of la/s as dative (laísmo) closely related to other aspects which affect the ditransitive constructions of Spanish. Regarding case marking and agreement, the extension of dative marking to DPs, which express several types of spatial functions, is analyzed in some varieties of the Basque language. Moreover, different models of syncretism are explained for Basque and German.

The chapters in this book are a highly specialized contribution to generative grammar. For this reason, readers need to possess a high level of knowledge of this theoretical focus in order to adequately follow and value the proposals. The result is, most definitely, a work which deeply delves into the syntactic variation of datives and which presents new directions of research for both some of the least described languages—Basque and Serbo-Croatian—and more analyzed languages such as the Romance or Germanic languages.

Jamieson’s dictionary of Scots

Jamieson’s dictionary of Scots: The story of the first historical dictionary of the Scots language. By Susan Rennie. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012. Pp. xvi, 282. ISBN 9780199639403. $135 (Hb).
Reviewed by David Elton Gay, Bloomington, IN

This book is a history of the first comprehensive historical dictionary of the Scots language by John Jamieson in 1808. Jamieson’s dictionary was a remarkable work and for several generations afterward was the standard dictionary of both Older and Modern Scots. Its influence can be seen even today in current multivolume dictionaries of Scots that are in progress. Susan Rennie’s book opens with ‘A man of letters’, which looks at Jamieson’s educational, cultural, and social background. Ch. 2, ‘Models and rivals’, then examines the sources for the dictionary, as well as the competing dictionaries of Scots. Ch. 3, ‘The Dictionary takes shape’, then looks at how the dictionary took shape in Jamieson’s mind and work in gathering sources. Ch. 4 examines ‘The pulse of the public: Promotion and publication’. As was common in his time, Jamieson’s dictionary was published by subscription, which meant that he had to do a considerable amount of work promoting his dictionary and finding subscribers before he could get it published.

Ch. 5, ‘Inside the Dictionary’, looks closely at Jamieson’s methods and such features in the dictionary as the historical principles within which he worked, how he handled headwords, how he chose his authorities, and how he dealt with dialect and spoken Scots. Though Jamieson worked to have a broad representation of Scots vocabulary in his dictionary, he was typical of his day in not including words he thought to be vulgar. His tendency to focus on what he thought to be the best of Scots literature also meant that he missed some words in current use in his time. Ch. 6, ‘Revision and collaboration: The Abridgement and Supplement’, looks at the process through which Jamieson revised the dictionary, and also his abridgements, which were some of the most commonly used Scots dictionaries—or dictionaries deriving from his abridgements—until recently. The final chapter, ‘After Jamieson’, looks at how later editors revised Jamieson’s dictionary and also its influence on later Scots lexicography.

Though Jamieson’s dictionary is not well-known outside of Scottish Studies, it was an important nineteenth-century historical dictionary; it was, in fact, the first of the great historical dictionaries of the time. Jamieson’s work deserves to be more widely known to historical linguists, lexicographers, and even the general public. R’s book is an excellent guide to how this dictionary was created, from Jamieson’s first, much more limited concept to the final four-volume, comprehensive record of medieval and modern Scots that the dictionary became.

The art of translation

The art of translation. By Jiří Levý. (Benjamins translation library 97.) Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2011. Pp. xxviii, 322. ISBN 9789027224453. $143 (Hb).
Reviewed by David Pruett, Austin Community College

Jiří Levý’s influential book was first published in Czech in 1963. It appeared in German, Russian, and Serbo-Croatian translations over the years but, until this edition, never in English. In fact, the editor, Zuzana Jettmarová, spent three years preparing a text for this translation, as previous editions had been revised somewhat by L, mostly to include literary examples more familiar to the readers in their own literary traditions. Writing from the point of view of Prague School structuralism, L’s approach to translation, visible in practice throughout his text, exemplifies a stratification model of poetics wherein the verbal strata—phonic and semantic—are complemented by an extralinguistic layer, i.e. a thematic structure. Jettmarová’s introduction to the English edition gives readers a clearer understanding of L’s position in Czech structuralism, which is discrete from French and Russian versions of that theory.

L uses the concepts style, stylization, and re-stylization rather than the narrower concept of linguistic style since he sees translation as a hybridization of two languages and cultures. In Ch. 1.1, L offers a concise history of translation theory, comparing and contrasting literary and linguistic methodologies. In Ch. 1.2, he proposes three stages of translation: apprehension, interpretation, and re-stylization. Ch. 1.3 discusses the hybridization aspect, focusing on the variables of the translator’s literary creativity as well as cultural and historical situation. Ch. 1.4 turns attention to the poetics of translation styles, and Ch. 1.5 addresses translations of drama, highlighting the importance of speakability, intelligibility, and selective accuracy. Ch. 1.6 deals with the issue of translations in the context of literary criticism.

Part 2 of the book is devoted to issues relating to the translation of verse. Ch. 2.1 compares and contrasts the work of translating prose and verse, noting each genre’s predominant motifs, syntactic formulas and variations, semantic ‘density’, and formal specializations. Ch. 2.2 addresses the situation of translating from non-cognate versification systems, and Ch. 2.3 treats in detail the circumstances of translating from cognate versification systems. Ch. 2.4 contains L’s notes on a comparative morphology of verse rhythm, and Ch. 2.5, on integrating style and thought, includes L’s paean to Karel Čapek’s skill in translating French verse into Czech.

L’s work on translation theory, in this book and many other works, eminently stands the test of time. Very little in this work can be said to be outdated or even superseded by more recent theoretical texts. This edition, translated by Patrick Corness, finally presents one of L’s seminal works in translation theory for English readers, and it is a valuable work for all who have an interest in translation studies and theory.

Grammar of Palestinian Jewish Aramaic

Grammar of Palestinian Jewish Aramaic. By Wm. B. Stevenson. (LINCOM Grammatica 46.) Munich: LINCOM Europa, 2011. Pp. 98. ISBN 9783862900251. $64.
Reviewed by Peter Freeouf, Chiang Mai University

In the Jewish and Christian traditions, Aramaic is of considerable importance among the Semitic languages in which the canonical texts of the traditions were originally composed. The three major varieties of Jewish and Christian Aramaic are: (i) Biblical Aramaic, the language of small portions of the Hebrew Bible (the books of Ezra and Daniel); (ii) Babylonian Jewish Aramaic, most prominently in the Babylonian Talmud; and (iii) Palestinian Jewish Aramaic (PJA), the language of the Palestinian or Jerusalem version of the Talmud and also of Midrashim and the Targums, Aramaic translations of the Hebrew Bible, especially that of Onkelos.

Wm. B. Stevenson’s book is an exact reprint of a work that was first published by Oxford University Press in 1924. This short work is a concise summary of the main grammatical features of PJA. In the ‘Preface’ (3–5), S indicates that the audience of his grammar is first and foremost those with a knowledge of Hebrew or another Semitic language and who need an introduction to and overview of the language of the Aramaic portions of the Palestinian Talmud, the Midrashim, the Targums, and the Aramaic of the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament), the latter of which is very similar to PJA.

The book is divided into thirty-eight sections preceded by the ‘Preface’ setting out the author’s range of coverage, sources, and intended audience; a detailed ‘Table of contents’ (6–7); and a short bibliography, ‘Literature,’ citing only work published up to this edition of 1924. The first section, ‘Introduction’ (9–10), gives an outline of the character of the literary sources of PJA. The next section is ‘Orthography’ (11–15) and discusses in particular issues of vocalization of the extant texts in PJA. Pronominal and nominal morphology is treated in the next sections, three through fifteen (15–44). In the paradigmatic tables, variation in forms are given for the main textual sources of PJA, the Talmud, Midrashim, and the Targums of Onkelos, with some reference to the variants found in the Aramaic of the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament).

The following sections, sixteen through thirty-eight (44–87), deal with the extensive verbal morphology. There is practically nothing on syntax or even examples that would allow for any extraction of syntactic information. Presumably, students’ use of texts written in this variety of Aramaic would serve this purpose. Finally, at the conclusion of the text there are several pages of verbal paradigms (88–96).

This is not a reference grammar but rather a concise supplementary outline of the major morphological features of this historically important variety of Aramaic. As such, it will be useful to students of the Hebrew Bible and other Aramaic scriptures as well as others interested in older Semitic languages.

Sensuous cognition. Explorations into human sentience: Imagination, (e)motion and perception.

Sensuous cognition. Explorations into human sentience: Imagination, (e)motion and perception. Ed. by Rosario Caballero and Javier E. Díaz-Vera. (Applications of cognitive linguistics 22.) Munich: De Gruyter Mouton, 2013. Pp. viii, 303. ISBN 9783110300765. $140 (Hb).

Reviewed by Zhen-qiang Fan, Zhejiang Gongshang University
In line with the embodiment paradigm in cognitive linguistics, this book focuses on the complex and inseparable relationship between body, mind, and culture. Contributed by scholars from a wide range of disciplines, the papers in this book deal with specific issues related to embodiment, including many unexplored topics.

Apart from an introduction and a postscript, the book is arranged in three parts. The editors’ introductory chapter presents the aim and organization of the book. Part 1 concentrates on the mind and the body. Daniel Casasanto’s study explores how motoric differences between left- and right-handers shape the way they act and represent abstract ideas with positive and negative emotional valence. Roslyn M. Frank examines the linguistic representation of relationships between body and mind in Basque, trying to find out how bilinguals accept the target schema or modify their original indigenous schema. Ning Yu analyzes the Chinese body-part terms for ‘head’ and its parts and their metonymic or metaphoric extensions, showing the complicated interaction between universal experience with the body and cultural construal of the body in language and cognition.

Part 2 focuses on cognition and perception. Rosario Caballero and Carita Paradis tackle the perceptual landscapes of architecture design and wine by scrutinizing wine and architectural reviews, exploring how sensory experiences are conveyed in these genres across cultures. Iraide Ibarretxe-Antuñano’s paper deals with the relationship between language, embodiment, and culture in perceptual metaphors, including their motivation, entrenchment, and distribution. Rune Nyord’s paper demonstrates how to study conceptualization through visual materials, i.e. ancient Egyptian art. Based on instances of synaesthesia in films, Ernesto Suárez-Toste discusses how the passions aroused by food and wine are communicated to international and multicultural audiences.

Part 3 addresses the issue of imagination and (e)motion. Javier E. Díaz-Vera analyzes a set of Old English expressions for fear and their pictorial manifestations in Anglo-Norman textiles. Şeyda Özçalışkan and Lauren J. Stites explore the similarities and differences of the metaphorical organization of abstract concepts in English and Turkish, as well as how children develop their ability to comprehend these metaphors at an early age. Farzad Sharifian discusses the cultural embedding and conceptualization of ruh ‘spirit/soul’ and jesm ‘body’ in Persian. The author also compares the Sufi conceptualizations of the body and the soul to those of Neoplatonism. Finally, Kashmiri Stec and Eve Sweetser, by examining two pyrotechnic examples of religious architectural blending, illustrate how metaphor, metonymy, and other conceptual blends are ‘built in’ to the architecture and art to structure the experience of people in these spaces.

The book ends with David Howes’ postscript where he summarizes the contributions of the book to conceptual metaphor theory (CMT) and even to the emergent field of sensory studies in general. The emphasis on cultural diversity of embodiment complements CMT, which seeks universals. The contributions in this book also pay more attention to bodily diversity (e.g. the study of handedness). Another strength of the book is that it gives due attention to multimodal and inter-modal aspects of metaphor.