Reviewed by Tommi Leung, United Arab Emirates University

The blurb on the back cover states that the pursuit of linguistic universals ‘is a fundamental goal of linguistic research’. This volume attempts to ‘bring[s] together a team of leading experts to show how different linguistic theories have approached this challenge’ (i). The eight chapters are written by experts in the areas of typology, syntax, phonetics, morphology, semantics, and language change, with the purpose of suggesting how diverse approaches toward language can finally hinge on the universals of language. Ricardo Mairal and Juana Gil introduce the chapters by summarizing the chronology of the entanglement between the formal and functional approaches to universals, within and outside the realm of linguistic study.

In ‘Linguistic typology’ (46–66), Kees Hengeeveld discusses the contribution of typology to linguistic universals. In this view universals state restrictions on cross-linguistic variations that typology studies. H focuses primarily on how implicational hierarchies, a major achievement in the functional approach to linguistics, are exemplified in phonology, morphology, syntax, and semantics.

Cedric Boeckx presents a standard formalist approach to language universals in his chapter, ‘Universals in a generative setting’ (67–79), arguing that linguistic universals follow from the general principles underlying the language acquisition device posited in Chomskyan generative grammar. The grammatical invariance exhibited by natural languages and speakers’ competence in structural dependency in the absence of primary linguistic data support the view that syntactic knowledge is largely innate.

Ian Maddieson’s chapter, ‘In search of universals’ (80–100), takes a phonetic approach to linguistic universals. The author draws a number of samples and statistics from the UCLA Phonetic Segmental Inventory Database completed in 1984 to claim that phonetic and phonological universals stem from the interaction between mechanical (i.e. physical limits on articulatory gestures) and ecological (i.e. selection within the range of possibilities of articulation) factors.

In ‘Morphological universals’ (101–29), Andrew Spencer argues strongly against the possibility of morphological universals, primarily because the concept of the morpheme is merely a crude approximation: the formatives and operations that constitute a morphological theory, such as morphemes, lexemes, derivation, and inflection, are largely ill-defined and thus only language-specific notions of word-hood are possible.

Bernard Comrie stresses the value of linguistic research from a typological point of view in his chapter ‘Syntactic typology’ (130–54). Through a typological survey of relative clause constructions in various European languages, he points out that linguists need to justify linguistic hypotheses across a good sample of languages, most genetically and areally unrelated. While typologists do not need to follow generativists in producing a highly abstract analysis serving to describe counterexamples, they certainly need to go beyond mere observation and strive for a more general and adequate account of linguistic variation.

‘Some universals of verb semantics’ (155–178) by Robert D. Van Valin elaborates a fundamental set of Aktionart distinctions informing the verb systems of all languages and a system of semantic representation to capture these distinctions, which he then tests against a wide range of languages.

In sharp contrast to previous sections, Joan Bybee concludes the volume with ‘Language change and universals’ (179–194) by arguing that the true universals of language are the de facto mechanisms of change that create synchronic patterns, an idea originated in Joseph Greenberg’s diachronic typology. She criticizes the generative approach to universals, in particular the innateness of grammar, as precluding the possibility of further explanation.