Reviewed by Picus S. Ding, Macao Polytechnic Institute

This volume is a collection of papers presented at a workshop held in 1998. In Ch. 1 (1–26), Alexandra Aikhenvald and R. M. W. Dixon provide a thorough introduction to the issues of areal diffusion and genetic inheritance.

In Ch. 2 (27–43), Peter Bellwood investigates the ‘Archaeology and the historical determinants of punctuation in language-family origins’. Calvert Watkins discusses areal diffusion in ‘An Indo-European linguistic area and its characteristics: Ancient Anatolia’ in Ch. 3 (44–63). This area is later revisited in Geoffrey Haig’s study of modern pan-Anatolian structural parallels, ‘Linguistic diffusion in present-day East Anatolia: From top to bottom’ (Ch. 8, 195–224).

Chs. 4–7 focus on languages of the southern hemisphere. R. M. W. Dixon discusses ‘The Australian linguistic area’ (Ch. 4, 64–104), while Alan Dench investigates Western Australia in ‘Descent and diffusion: The complexity of the Pilbara situation’ (Ch. 5, 105–33). In ‘Contact-induced change in Oceanic languages in North-West Melanesia’, Malcolm Ross concentrates on Takia (Ch. 6, 134–66), and in ‘Areal diffusion, genetic inheritance, and problems of subgrouping: A North Arawak case study’ Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald addresses problems of subgrouping in the languages of the Amazon (Ch. 7, 167–94).

Chs. 9–12 investigate languages of the Far East. Randy LaPolla explores ‘The role of migration and language contact in the development of the Sino-Tibetan language family’ (Ch. 9, 225–54). N. J. Enfield pursues a case study ‘On genetic and areal linguistics in mainland South-East Asia: Parallel polyfunctionality of “acquire’’’ (Ch. 10, 255–90). James Matisoff deals with ‘Genetic versus contact relationship: Prosodic diffusibility in South-East Asian languages’ (Ch. 11, 291–327), and Hilary Chappell describes ‘Language contact and areal diffusion in Sinitic languages’ (Ch. 12, 328–57). Several problems can be found in these chapters. Contrary to Enfield’s description (275), the Cantonese morpheme dak ‘acquire’ can take a temporal adverbial complement (e.g. mai dak loeng jat zau laan-zo ‘bought for two days [and] then broke down’) but cannot take an extent complement (e.g. *siu dak gin ngaa m-gin ngaan ‘laugh to the extent that [one can] see the teeth but not the eyes’), which differs from its corresponding functions in Modern Standard Chinese. Additionally, Chappell’s hybridization of two relative clause structures in Cantonese (342), both in the formula and in the example, should have the word order of Relative Clause + GENITIVE + DETERMINER + CLASSIFIER + HEAD NOUN PHRASE. Finally, alignment problems are found with LaPolla’s examples (235).

The next two chapters are devoted to languages in Africa. Gerrit Dimmendaal approaches the problems of ‘Areal diffusion versus genetic inheritance’ from an African perspective (Ch. 13, 358–92), and Bernd Heine and Tania Kuteva discuss ‘Convergence and divergence in the development of African languages’ (Ch. 14, 393–411). Finally, Timothy Curnow concludes the volume by asking ‘What language features can be “borrowed”?’ (Ch. 15, 412–36).

Although the contributors have raised several thought-provoking questions, few solutions are advanced. This reflects the field’s insufficient understanding of the evolution of languages and the difficulty of reconstructing the basic linguistic picture of a prehistoric language family.