Reviewed by Colette van Kerckvoorde, Bard College at Simon’s Rock

Several textbook-style introductions to the Old English (OE) language are currently available. Such works are usually written for students who major in English and whose primary aim is to develop necessary skills to read OE poetry and prose. Jeremy Smith’s book approaches this subject with a focus on the linguistic structures. He does not assume any prior knowledge of linguistics, and the result is a great beginners’ text for undergraduate students, to be used in an undergraduate course in conjunction with a collection of OE texts. Successful completion of such an introduction should provide the foundation for reading recent scholarship on OE as well as traditional, long-established reference works on OE.

This book contains seven chapters, two appendices, two glossaries, and a reference section. Ch. 1 serves as a general introduction to the textbook and to the origins of the English language. In Ch. 2, linguistic terminology that is required to describe OE sounds, spelling, grammar, and vocabulary is introduced, and S demonstrates how these terms are used in descriptions of sample words and short sentences. Ch. 3 deals with the structure of OE and analyzes a few longer excerpts in OE prose and poetry.

The first three chapters provide an elementary understanding of the subject matter, and the following four chapters expand on this information. What follows is a discussion of spelling and sounds (Ch. 4), of the OE lexicon (Ch. 5), of OE syntax (Ch. 6), and of OE inflectional morphology (Ch. 7). The material is consistently well explained and illustrated by means of several examples, and S also includes discussions of diachronic and dialectal variation. The only thing that may surprise the reader is the frequent absence of the traditional tables in the inflectional morphology section. Instead, paradigms are presented in one column, and it takes some time to get used to. At the end of each chapter, there is a list of key terms that were introduced and sometimes there are also a few exercises on the topic of the chapter.

The first appendix consists of a selection of OE texts. This section is designed for preliminary study only and should be supplemented with more OE texts from other sources. It is noteworthy that this selection includes runic and nonrunic inscriptions, excerpts from West Saxon and non-West Saxon texts, and a passage from the Peterborough Chronicle that exemplifies the transition to Middle English. Each text is accompanied by a short introduction and a present-day English translation. The second appendix contains discussion questions and a list of recommendations for further reading. At the end of the book there is a glossary of OE to present-day English. A second glossary contains an alphabetical list of key grammatical terms used in the book, along with an explanation for each one. The book ends with a list of references and an index.

Reviewed by Omaima Ayoub, Islamic Foundation School

This book portrays a complex picture of distributed morphology (DM), a modern framework that was proposed in the early 1990’s within the government and binding tradition and the minimalist program as an alternative to other models of universal grammar. In this book, Daniel Siddiqi provides an overview of the major parts of DM (i.e. argument selection, the structure of the verb phrase, nominal compounds in English, stem allomorphy and suppletion) and proposes some revisions to the model (e.g. minimize exponence, eliminate readjustment rules, incorporate a feature blocking system).

Part 1 includes three introductory chapters. Ch. 1 ‘Syntax within the word’, provides a synopsis of the major elements of DM. Ch. 2, ‘Distributed morphology’, details the fundamentals of DM and demonstrates how it is different from lexicalist minimalism. Ch. 3, ‘Morphological operations in DS: From spellout to PF’, outlines three morphological processes in DM (i.e. morphological merger, fusion/fission, and readjustment rules).

Part 2, ‘On a theory of root allomorphy’, comprises five chapters. Ch. 4, ‘Root allomorphy’, offers an analysis of root allomorphy within DM and exhibits a functional application of the new economy constraint (minimize exponence). Chs. 5 and 6, ‘Simplifying DM’ and ‘Expansion of the fusion analysis’, propose some revisions to the DM framework by highlighting the merits of a new constraint. Ch. 7, ‘Inflection in compounds’, explains how the same constraint can be used to propose a novel analysis for the blocking of regular inflection in English nominal compounds. Finally, Ch. 8, ‘Interim conclusions’ provides a summary of Part 2 as a whole.

Part 3, ‘Argument selection’, consists of five chapters. Ch. 9, ‘Argument selection within distributed morphology’, briefly surveys the phenomenon of subcategorization (i.e. argument selection) and describes how it is treated within this framework. Ch. 10, ‘Minimize exponence based account of subcategorization’, outlines the effects of fusion on an analysis of the argument selection of a verb. Ch. 11, ‘Subcategorization expanded’, discusses how a model based on the minimize exponence constraint would handle the behavior of verbs (e.g. polysemy of verbs, structural coercion, and dative alternations). Ch. 12, ‘The nature of verbs’, explores two possible analyses for the category selection of a verb within the DM framework and examines how DM might handle the phenomenon of verb classes. Finally, Ch. 13, ‘Interim conclusions’, sums up Part 3.

Part 4, ‘Odds and ends’, includes three chapters. Ch. 14, ‘Event semantics’, argues that the new minimize exponence constraint has a potential influence on the relationship between syntax and event semantics, whereas Ch. 15, ‘Typology and theory’, uses English data to detail some of the typological predictions for the inclusion of minimize exponence in the universal grammar model. Finally, Ch. 16, ‘Conclusions’, wraps up the book by recapitulating all four parts.

Reviewed by Itzhak Hadani, Haifa, Israel

Sam Rakover is professor emeritus of Psychology at the University of Haifa, with vast experience in research on animals (e.g. mice, rats, fish) and humans. In his long academic career he has shown great interest in the philosophy of science and mind. In 1990, he published a highly significant book (Metapsychology: Missing links in behavior, mind and science, New York: Solomon) that treated the mind-body problem at length. His multifaceted background is expressed here in its serious attempt to develop a new methodology to understand the behavior of cats and humans. Among other things, this book tackles the question of whether a cat has consciousness. Furthermore, assuming that a cat does have consciousness, how can its consciousness be studied scientifically? R sets about the task by means of a captivating analysis of the behavior of Max—his pet Himalayan cat—and of other animals.

R develops a new, original, research approach called methodological dualism. It coherently unites mechanistic explanations (which appeal to neurophysiological and computational factors accepted in the exact sciences) with mentalistic explanations (which appeal to the individual’s inner world, his or her will, belief, intentions, purpose, and so on). Methodological dualism is based on three assumptions: (i) in empirical tests, the methodological status of mentalistic and mechanistic hypotheses are the same; (ii) schemas (i.e. models) of mentalistic explanation satisfy the requirements of scientific methodology like schemas of mechanistic explanation; and (iii) the complex behavior of humans and animals is explained by means of multi-explanation theory, which is based on schemas of mentalistic and mechanistic explanation.

R maintains that the multi-explanation theory is likely to provide a better explanation of the behavior under study than a theory based only on one kind of explanation, such as the mechanistic explanation accepted in psychology. He illustrates this advantage through an analysis of the behavior of Max the cat: R shows clearly and rightly that mentalistic explanations are needed for the cat’s behavior and that the mechanistic explanations are wanting.

R succeeds in achieving two significant scientific accomplishments. First, he demonstrates that animals have consciousness, although it may not reach the level of human consciousness. R establishes and justifies his position, which runs counter to that of the French philosopher René Descartes, who deemed animals as machines. R’s second accomplishment is the development of the multi-explanation theory. In a highly reasoned way, this theory satisfies all of the meticulous scientific requirements that suggest explanations for behavior. This is no mean achievement, and in my opinion, is theoretical work of the highest order. I hope that psychologists will study the paradigm underlying this theory and adopt it.

R’s writing style is not light, but this circumstance is a factor of the weight and complexity of the subject at hand. Apart from it, all who query whether a cat has a soul (or a mind) dispel all doubts: to paraphrase the popular adage, a cat has not one, but nine lives.

Reviewed by Omaima Ayoub, Islamic Foundation School

The handbook of pragmatics serves the interdisciplinary nature of the field of pragmatics as a subdivision within language studies. This printed version of the online Handbook of pragmatics comes in a loose-leaf format to facilitate flexibility and expandability for new articles and revised versions of older ones. It is divided into three sections: the ‘User’s guide’, the ‘Manual’, and the handbook body.

The ‘User’s guide’ provides an inclusive index of all cross-references, and the ‘Manual’ includes a preface and a general introduction that present key information for the handbook authors and readers. The ‘Manual’ encompasses the major traditions that underlie the field of pragmatics, the major methods of research used in pragmatics inquiry, and the different kinds of notational systems used in the field. Urpo Nikanne’s ‘Conceptual semantics’ and Terhi Ainiala’s ‘Socio-onomastics’ are the two full-length papers from the ‘Manual’ included in this printed version. In ‘Conceptual semantics’, Nikanne illustrates the four features that define conceptual semantics as a part of generative linguistics: research objectives, background assumptions, methodological guidelines, and technical solutions. In ‘Socio-onomastics’ (i.e. sociolinguistic study of names), Ainiala examines the socio-onomastic research on Finnish place names.

The main body of the handbook is comprised of articles that are organized alphabetically. Varying in length and focus, these articles present an up-to-date overview of different topics within the field of linguistic pragmatics. Only six full-length articles are provided in the printed version of the handbook.

Martin Gill’s article, ‘Authenticity’, explains the complex concept of authenticity within sociolinguistics and pragmatics. Li Wei’s ‘Contact’ outlines the key causes, processes, and outcomes of language contact, discusses its theoretical and methodological approaches, and outlines its main issues within the field.

Liesbet Quaeghebeur’s contribution, ‘Embodiment’, draws on transcendental embodiment to discuss perception and cognition as different aspects of the embodiment hypothesis currently held in cognitive linguistics. Marjut Johansson and Eija Suomela-Salmi’s article, ‘Enonciation: French pragmatic approach(es)’, traces the history of the French enunciation theory and surveys its traditions and the formulation of its main concepts. Finally, in ‘Listener response’ Deng Xudong depicts a wide range of research traditions used in the study of the conversational phenomenon of listener responses. Xudong’s other article, ‘Overlap’, reviews a huge body of literature on the study of the conversational phenomenon of overlap.

Overall, The handbook of pragmatics is a valuable reference book for students and scholars of linguistics in general and sociolinguistics and pragmatics in particular.

Reviewed by Jung Sun Son, University of Texas, Arlington

The book From linguistic areas to areal linguistics is the ninetieth volume of the Studies in language companion series edited by Pieter Muysken. This volume presents language description and typology in terms of the areal contexts in which a language is spoken and discusses a number of case studies in areal linguistics. The book consists of one introductory chapter and five contributing articles, with four appended indexes (language, author, subject, and place; 275–93).

Ch. 1, ‘Introduction: Conceptual and methodological issues in areal linguistics’ (1–23), is composed of four parts. In Section 1, Muysken provides a brief overview of the book. Section 2 presents the definition of a linguistic area (Thomason 2001) and the conceptual and methodological issues of the six key dimensions used to define a linguistic area. In Section 3, language contact scenarios that may be responsible for establishing linguistic areas (e.g. borrowing, convergence, shift, linguistic levelling) are presented. Finally, in Section 4, the emergence of a linguistic area is illustrated by examining a large linguistic area: The Atlantic.

In ‘The problem of the Caucasian Sprachbund’ (25–93) Viacheslav A. Chirikba convincingly demonstrates that the Cocasus constitutes a Sprachbund by presenting the Cocasus-specific common features found on various levels of linguistic structure (e.g. in phonology, morphology, syntax, lexical semantics, and the lexicon). Chirikba argues that the two indigenous and unrelated Caucasian families, North Caucasian and Kartvelian, have formed a ‘union of linguistic families’ (26) over a period of several millennia of contact and that these families share a range of linguistic features. Additionally, Chirikba states that the main mechanism of the formation of the Caucasian Sprachbund is convergence (e.g. substrate).

In ‘East Nusantara as a linguistic area’ (95–149) Marian Klamer, Ger Reesink, and Miriam Van Staden provide historical and linguistic evidence that Austronesian and Papuan languages have influenced each other in the East Nusantara area. The authors focus on five features: (i) possessor-possessum order in adnominal possession, (ii) the order marking of the distinction between alienable and inalienable possession, (iii) class-final negation, (iv) subject-verb-object (SVO) order, and (v) an inclusive/exclusive opposition in the pronominal paradigm. They propose that of these five areal features, the first three are Papuan features that have diffused into the Austronesian languages, whereas the last two are Austronesian features that have diffused into the Papuan languages.

In ‘The Guaporé-Mamoré region as a linguistic area’ (151–79) Mily Crevels and Hein Van der Voort claim that the Guaporé-Mamoré region (i.e. the Amazonian state of Rondonia in Brazil and the adjacent lowland areas of Bolivia) is a possible linguistic area. The authors provide archeological and historical evidence for linguistic diffusion among the languages in that region, although these two areas have great linguistic diversity. Crevels and Van der Voort also demonstrate that the Guaporé-Mamoré languages share a number of structural features such as prefixes, evidentials, directionals, verbal morphology, lack of classifiers, and an inclusive/exclusive distinction although they diverge dramatically at the lexical level.

Ch. 5, ‘An integrated areal-typological approach’ (181–219), by Olga Mišeska Tomić explores local convergence of morphosyntactic features in the Balkan Sprachbund. To uncover various convergent and divergent tendencies of Balkan Sprachbund morphosyntax, Tomić examines the individual typological features of the Balkan languages that appear to interact with other features in the structure of the determiner phrase (DP) or in the clause of individual languages. Additionally, Tomić considers sociolinguistic factors and dialectal variation.

Finally, in ‘Zhuang: A Tai language with some Sinitic characteristics’ (221–74) Rint Sybesma discusses a single areal feature—namely, post-verbal modal acq (translated as ‘can’ in English). This feature is shared by four languages: Zhuang, Cantonese, Vietnamese, and Lao in Indo-China and Southern China. In particular, this chapter focuses on how two Tai languages, Zhuang and Lao, differ in their use of acq as a post-verbal modal element: post-verbal acq in Lao can have an ability reading, whereas in Zhuang it cannot, because in Zhuang, resultative constructions cannot have a secondary can reading.

This book is a valuable contribution to descriptive, comparative, historical, and typological linguistics. I highly recommend this volume to linguists working in those fields.

REFERENCE

THOMASON, SARAH G. 2001. Language contact: An introduction. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.

Reviewed by Omaima Ayoub, Islamic Foundation School

This second edition of Arabic today provides a course of spoken and written Arabic for students and business professionals living, or planning to live, in the Arab world. Intended to facilitate direct and effective communication, this book can be used as a textbook in contemporary Arabic classrooms or as a self-study guide. The book bridges the gap between the written language (which is never used in everyday speech) and regional dialects (which are never written down) by focusing on an emerging spoken form that fosters both speaking and writing skills. Accompanied by an audio material with a native voice, Arabic today offers a perfect resource for Arabic teachers and learners.

The pronunciation guide, which follows the introduction, offers a simple outline of the Arabic sound system. This outline includes vowels and diphthongs, consonants similar to those in English, consonants different from those in English, deep velarized consonants, velarized /a/ and /ā/, stress, hyphens, weak vowels, doubled consonants, and written pronunciation.

Part 1 teaches an educated form of spoken Arabic in fifteen lessons that include contextualized dialogues, grammatical explanations and illustrations, and exercises to reinforce the materials. Dialogues are provided on the accompanying compact disc. The section on spoken Arabic includes chapters on greetings and on interactions that may occur in locations such as at the airport, in town, in a visit to friends, on the telephone, in a restaurant, in a visit to a factory or a village, in the market, and in the news. This first part can be used in isolation to teach spoken Arabic or as an introduction into Part 2, which teaches written Arabic in eleven lessons.

Part 2 stresses on the inner workings of the Arabic writing system. It teaches standard written Arabic through segments on reading and writing, the alphabet, Arabic transcription, insurance, transport and communications, personnel management, petroleum, the newspapers, correspondence, the transfer of technology, and the United Nations.

This edition of Arabic today concludes with a key to the exercises, new word indexes (in Arabic and English), and a grammar index. Overall, this coursebook combines exercises that develop speaking and writing skills, build a vocabulary repertoire of approximately 2000 words, and incorporate dialogues that can help those who have no prior knowledge of the language to communicate in Arabic both directly and effectively.

Reviewed by Richard W. Hallett, Northeastern Illinois University

In Ultimate attainment in second language acquisition: A case study, Donna Lardiere seeks ‘to characterize formal aspects of a particular L2 [second language] end-state idiolect’ and ‘to see whether the findings can be accounted for under recent proposals in the theoretical and language acquisition literature’ (19). To these ends, L presents a detailed case study of Patty, a Chinese-American naturalized immigrant who has been L’s long-term acquaintance. Seven chapters comprise this book. In Ch. 1, ‘Some preliminary issues in adult L2 ultimate attainment’ (1–20), L offers an overview of second language acquisition (SLA) concepts, notions, and controversies key to this case study including fossilization, stabilization, target, idiolect, ultimate attainment, and poverty of stimulus.

In Ch. 2, ‘Introducing Patty’ (21–47), L provides the necessary background information about Patty. Born in Indonesia in 1953, Patty, whose parents spoke Hokkien and Mandarin, was dominant in Hokkien but also fluent in Mandarin and Indonesian by the age of three. At the age of fourteen, Patty moved to China, where she lived for two years. She began to study English, the language of investigation in this case study, when she moved to Hong Kong at the age of sixteen. She married a Vietnamese man, with whom she spoke Cantonese, and together they immigrated to the United States when she was twenty-two. Patty subsequently earned her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in the United States, divorced her Vietnamese husband, and married a native speaker of American English. L notes that Patty does not fit the classic scenario of a L2 learner per Schumann’s (1997) acculturation model.

Ch. 3, ‘Knowledge of finiteness’ (48–93), provides a detailed description of the more formal aspects of Patty’s knowledge of English syntax. This chapter is divided into four sections: ‘Defining finiteness’ (49–50), ‘Considering the input: Kinds of evidence for finiteness’ (50–64), ‘Knowledge of finiteness in SLA’ (65–73), and ‘Finiteness in an end-state L2 grammar’ (73–93). In this chapter L offers details on Patty’s marking of tense, agreement, pronominal case, and form of finiteness.

The issue of Patty’s lack of past tense marking (less than thirty-five percent overall in obligatory contexts) is the focus of Ch. 4, ‘The acquisition of past tense’ (94–139). L provides factors that may have affected this rate such as phonological reduction, first language (L1) influence, type of speech style, and social network affiliation. Patty’s errors in past tense marking, L concludes, are predominantly those of omission.

The focus of Ch. 5, ‘Clausal word order and movement’ (140–79), is verb-raising, which includes adverb placement, wh-movement, relative clauses, and passives in Patty’s English. In Ch. 6, ‘Nominal phrases’ (180–202), L analyzes Patty’s use of possession, plurals, and articles and discusses the interaction between definiteness and number. In Ch. 7, ‘Conclusions’ (203–36), L reviews the formal aspects of Patty’s English idiolect and considers L1 influence and the possibility of decreased sensitivity to input, ‘two (probably related) factors that have been hypothesized to play a crucial role in adult second language acquisition’ (203). Based on the longitudinal study of Patty’s English, L concludes that the formal domains of linguistics ‘are not linked in the way that linguistic theory has previously suggested’ (236).

This in-depth book is a welcome addition to SLA literature. It should be a supplemental text in SLA and psycholinguistic courses.

Reference

Schumann, John H. 1997. The neurobiology of affect in language. Malden, MA: Blackwell.

Reviewed by Malcolm Ross, The Australian National University

This sketch grammar of the Ossu dialect of Makasae is a revised version of the author’s 2005 Zurich MA thesis, based largely on data collected from two speakers temporarily resident in Portugal. Timorese languages are either Austronesian or Papuan, and Makasae, the East Timorese language with the largest number of speakers after Tetun, is claimed to be a member of the Papuan Trans New Guinea family. It retains the subject-object-verb (SOV) word order typical of Trans New Guinea languages but does not reflect their morphological complexity. Instead, Makasae is largely isolating. Isolating languages are typically SVO, and much of this sketch is concerned with the mechanisms that allow speakers to identify the grammatical roles of noun phrases in Makasae in the absence of SVO order.

JulietteHuber’s strategy is to deal in detail with issues that reflect this concern although more briefly—sometimes very briefly—with other topics as well. This is reflected in the relative lengths of the ten chapters: Ch. 1 ‘Introduction’ (1–4), Ch. 2 ‘Phonology’ (4–6), Ch. 3 ‘Lexicon’ (6–7), Ch. 4 ‘Derivational morphology’ (7–13), Ch. 5 ‘The noun phrase’ (13–46), Ch. 6 ‘The verb phrase’ (64–70), Ch. 7 ‘Postpositions’ (half of page 70), Ch. 8 ‘Negation’ (70–74), Ch. 9 ‘Syntax’ (74–102), Ch. 10 ‘Conclusion’ (half of page 103), and Ch. 11 ‘A narrative text’ (103–13). Thus, the lion’s share of this book is devoted to the noun phrase (34 pages) and syntax (29 pages).

Ch. 4 shows that reduplication is the only productive derivational process. There is no inflectional morphology in Makasae, so the language is indeed isolating. Within the chapter on noun phrases (26–28) and in the discussion of transitive clauses in the chapter on syntax (80–81), H demonstrates how the distinction between reflexive and nonreflexive third person pronouns is sometimes crucial to disambiguating the subject and the object. In the chapter on verb phrases, H discusses the object marker ma (60–64), which marks the recipient or beneficiary argument in ditransitive clauses (as well as instruments). Almost half the chapter on syntax (75–93) is devoted to markers of grammatical role, in particular the morpheme ini, the exact analysis of which is puzzling, as it appears to have both agentive subject marking and an information-structural function (seemingly as a focus marker, because it cooccurs with question words). It is noteworthy, however, that ini occurs only five times in the 9-page narrative text, implying that its functional load is not as great as appears from elicited examples, and that this puzzle will be resolved when a larger corpus of naturally occurring texts is collected.

This sketch is clearly written and, where H focuses on an issue, she provides detail and does not shy away from counter-examples, a fact that makes these parts of the description typologically useful. However, an inevitable consequence of H’s strategy is that parts of the grammar receive little or no attention. There are just hints that adjectives are a subclass of verbs (29) and that evidentiality is explicitly marked (57), and no description of complementation other than indirect speech (101–02). If one accepts the wisdom of the author’s strategy, then the only weak points in content occur when she touches on diachronic issues. H’s references to the Trans New Guinea family are decidedly outdated (2–3, 17), and her analysis of the numeral system is undermined because she overlooks the fact that not only lima ‘five’ but also at least pitu ‘seven’ and siwa ‘nine’ are Austronesian loans (22–23).

Reviewed by Mark J. Elson, University of Virginia

According to the author, this book is intended for a broad readership, including students, scholars, and others with an interest in the subject. Sarah Fagan’s goal is ‘to provide an introduction to Standard German that is rich in detail, grounded in modern linguistic theory, and comprehensive in that it includes the history of the language, dialects, and sociolinguistic issues’ (1). The introduction (1–3) is followed by seven chapters: ‘Phonetics and phonology’ (4–53), ‘Morphology’ (54–114), ‘Syntax’ (115–48), ‘Semantics’ (149–80), ‘History of the language’ (181–213), ‘Regional variation’ (214–43), and ‘Sociolinguistic issues’ (244–80). These chapters are followed by a glossary (281–94), a bibliography (295–309), and an index (310–17). Each chapter concludes with exercises.

Although F wrote the volume from a generative perspective, the inclusion of this theory is uneven. In fairness to the author, it should be noted that the series of which her book is a part may have required the assumption of a theoretical framework beyond the well-established default framework provided by phoneme, morpheme, and syntagm. The presence of generative theory is—not surprisingly—most noticeable in the chapters on phonology and syntax. But it is present only in the shallowest sense of the term, that ‘a formal and explicit set of rules underlies the native speaker’s knowledge’ (2). The rules that are offered are of the type that might have been found in early generative descriptions. There is no significant attempt to incorporate more recent theory into either phonology or syntax other than, in the discussion of syntax, a reference to X-bar theory, inflection (INFL), and complementizer phrases (CP), which contributes little. Theory of any sort is much less obvious in the remaining chapters: most general and student readers will have come into contact with these concepts (e.g. synonymy, dialect, variation, tense, gender, and language contact) through language study and therefore will not view them as theory—or as the result of assumptions about language—but rather as everyday knowledge about language. I suspect that the discussions of phonology and syntax—where theory is most evident—will be difficult for students and general readership to penetrate, but, at the same time, not sufficiently elaborated or contemporary in the descriptive apparatus they adopt to be of value to linguists. Furthermore, I question the author’s claim that prior knowledge of German and linguistics is not essential (1). Although it is true that glosses and translations are provided, and it may also be true that, in principle, previous knowledge is not required, for a person without such knowledge, the descriptions of phonology, morphology, and syntax will probably require an instructor. It is doubtful that any book accommodating all of the audiences that the author addresses could be written, and therefore she might better have concentrated, if the series permitted it, on one of the three, perhaps the student in advanced German or in a class on the structure of German.

Aside from the question of theory and its place in a book of this sort (which I have mentioned only by way of providing an accurate description of the book’s organization), this volume is valuable because of its comprehensive treatment of the data. Of necessity each topic is discussed only briefly although to an extent sufficient for an introductory course on the structure of German or for scholarly use by those who want a competent introduction to the facts before they attempt a more in-depth investigation.

Each chapter is clear, adequately informative, and well-constructed. The chapters on history, regional variation, and sociolinguistics are especially welcome, containing information that is not readily available in survey form elsewhere. However, the chapter on semantics is devoted largely to grammatical meaning, with only the briefest attention to lexical semantics. Although the discussion of grammatical meaning is—perhaps understandably, in view of its complexity—weak in certain areas, most noticeably in regard to voice and aspect. Nevertheless, this book has much to offer as a survey and description of German, and its strengths far outweigh its weaknesses. The author is to be commended for an admirably detailed handbook that will serve its readership well.

Reviewed by Christopher R. Green, Indiana University

Natural phonetics and tonetics serves as a detailed handbook for individuals of varied levels of experience with descriptive phonetics and phonology. Originally published in Italian, this book is best read alongside its companion volume, Luciano Canepari’s Handbook of phonetics, to which the author makes frequent references. The viewpoint of the author regarding the utility of precisely detailed phonetic description and the failure of most phonologists (and even some phoneticians) to provide them is abundantly clear from the foreword alone. In particular, C comments on the ambiguity that is introduced both in the practice of phonetic transcription and into the terminology that has been traditionally used to describe the many hundreds of sounds found in languages across the globe (Ch. 1).

Ch. 2 is indispensible for any linguist attempting to tackle this volume. It is within this chapter that the reader learns of the motivations and implementation of an entirely new system of phonetic transcription—the canIPA (Canepari international phonetic alphabet)—that effectively does away with the official (and other nonofficial) proposed versions of the IPA due to their stated impracticality and inability to provide adequately detailed descriptions of many sounds. C, in particular, rails against the widespread use of diacritics in the official IPA (Ch. 7), in favor of a one symbol, one sound approach. His descriptive ideals are further detailed in Ch. 3 in a discussion on the successes and confounds of language learning.

The truly worthwhile contribution of this handbook is its exhaustive set of figures—including orograms, labiograms, palatograms, laryngograms, and tonograms—that provide a visualization of articulatory and other physical attributes of a vast variety of sounds. These are included in a description of the entire phono-articulatory apparatus (Ch. 4) as well as more specifically for vowels and vocoids (Ch. 8), for consonants and contoids (Chs. 9–10), for sounds described as phonic peculiarities (Ch. 11), and for other micro- and macrostructures like tonemes, intonemes, syllables, rhythmic groups, and prominences (Chs. 12–13).

In the remaining chapters of this handbook (Chs. 15–22), C offers his ‘phonosyntheses’ of over 350 languages (both dead and alive) spoken around the world. Although an entire chapter is, perhaps understandably, devoted to his own language (i.e. Italian), the reader may be surprised by the inclusion of only twenty-five languages (out of approximately 2,000) for the entire African continent and fifty-one (again, out of approximately 2,000) for the entire Asian continent, in their respective chapters.

In sum, Natural phonetics and tonetics is replete with detailed information and will be a valuable handbook to many linguists. One should be cautioned, however, of the oft-stated (and amusing) reminder by the author, that ‘If going through [the chapters of this book] means nothing at all to someone […] let it be at that! After all, phonetics is not for everyone’ (271).