Reviewed by Sharbani Banerji, Ghaziabad, India

Adopting the principles for the classification of modality proposed by Frank Robert Palmer (Mood and modality, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), Shlomper Genady details the system of modality in Hindi, supporting his claims at every step with helpful examples. G’s aim is to define the modal resources of Hindi and to detect their interrelations based on semantic classification and nuances. The grammatical tools most often used for expressing modality are mood, modal verbs, modal adjectives, modal adverbials, sentential adverbials, special syntactic constructions, particles, clitics, interjections, conjunctions, parentheticals, word order, and question words. The past and future tenses can also have strong modal connotations. Among these modal devices, moods are broadly interpreted as basic. G divides modality into three subclasses: inherent, deontic, and epistemic, each with primary and secondary expressive means.

This book contains six chapters. In the introduction, Ch. 1 (1–13), G defines modality as ‘a feature of a language that serves for expressing the attitudes and opinions of the speaker to the propositional content of the sentence’ (7). Individual speech is exclusively subjective. For example, whereas The flowers are red and blue expresses a minimum degree of subjectivity, Perhaps they will come tomorrow shows a higher degree of subjective attitude (6–7). Excluded from the analysis is neutral modality, which is a mere statement of fact.

In Ch. 2, ‘Some previous works on modality in Hindi’ (14–20), G points out that not much work has been done on modality in Hindi. Here, G designates cases of the subjunctive for a deontic function as optative and the subjunctive used for an epistemic function as potential. Furthermore, G demonstrates that, although the temporal characteristics of a proposition do not depend on the choice of mood, past indefinites and the future have modal characteristics.

Ch. 3, ‘Inherent modality’ (21–45), discusses the agent-oriented notion of inherent modality, which represents the ability or the desire of an agent to fulfill an action. Ability can be inner/innate, acquired, or circumstantial. Desire can be classified as a wish or an intent. Intention can also have various shades of meaning. The role of tenses in expressing intention is also discussed.

Ch. 4, ‘Deontic modality’ (46–104), deals with possible worlds that are consistent with social regulations and requirements. Deontic modality reflects an attempt by the speaker to influence the addressee’s behavior, known as a directive. Directives are classified into mands, which include commands, demands, requests, and exhortatives, which in turn include invitations and recommendations. Among deontic subordinations are complement, purpose, and relative purpose clauses. Deontics also include permissives and prohibitives.

In Ch. 5, ‘Epistemic modality’ (105–56), G demonstrates that a speaker’s evaluation of reality can be factual or imagined. An imagined state of affairs, can be nonfactual (possible or probable) or counterfactual. Evidential information can be obtained from (i) sensory evidence, (ii) experience or general knowledge, (iii) personal confidence, (iv) reported evidence (i.e. reportatives), or (v) inferential evidence. Guesses include speculatives, deductives, and counterfactuals. Conditional clauses and concessive clauses also fall under the discussion of epistemics.

In Ch. 6, ‘Summary and conclusions’ (157–60), G admits that the correlation of modality with negation and interrogation—the discourse properties of modality—as well as the compatibility of different kinds of modality have been touched upon only lightly.

Reviewed by Madeleine Adkins, University of California, Santa Barbara

Those interested in language and politics in Europe would be wise to start with Máiréad Nic Craith’s book, Europe and the politics of language. From the historical origins of Europe, to the transnational linguistic communities of nomads, to the vagaries of the European Union’s (EU) policies and practices, this volume provides an overview of language and politics in Europe that covers a generous swath of territory in a relatively slim tome. In its range of chapter topics and its detailed case studies, this book provides a multifaceted overview of the issues, perspectives, and realities of the politics of language in Europe today, in particular, the policy challenges faced by the growing EU.

A whirlwind tour of European history, Ch. 1 (1–19) provides the historical context for the issues, exploring the conceptual perspectives and the political realities of Europe in addition to defining the key issues of inclusion, exclusion, and citizenship. Ch. 2 (20–39) examines the ideologies implicit in the concepts of language and statehood and how these ideas play into the politics of national identity and citizenship.

Ch. 3 (40–56) turns the focus to the EU, examining its official languages and the privileges these languages are accorded as well as the day-to-day realities that often trump their official status. Ch. 4 (57–80) discusses the complex range of linguistic and political situations that lead to a language receiving the inferior status of a minority language within its own country. This chapter also discusses the status of such languages within the EU as well as the various studies, proposals, and efforts of support that the EU and other European agencies have made on the behalf of minority languages.

In Ch. 5 (81–105), the author explores the issues unique to languages that are spoken in two or more nation states and provides examples of the challenges and accomplishments of cross-national efforts to support language groups. The challenges and realities of language varieties that have not been accorded recognition as languages are explored in Ch. 6 (106–25). Ch. 7 (126–46) rounds out the discussion of language within Europe, examining the unique challenges of people who have lived on the continent as nomads of one sort or another and are therefore lacking historic ties between their languages and specific territories.

Ch. 8 (147–67) lays out globalization as an issue in modern Europe by exploring the linguistic status, within Europe and the EU, of the languages of non-European immigrants. Ch. 9 (168–87) concludes the book with an evaluation of EU language policy, a discussion of the underlying challenges of the conflicting definitions of linguistic equality, and recommendations for future directions in language policy for Europe.

One of the highlights of the book is the author’s use of case studies and examples to illustrate the key issues. By focusing on specific linguistic cases, she illustrates her points and provides in-depth examples. However, given the length of the book, the author does not (and cannot) provide an exhaustive coverage of the topic; those readers who are seeking information on a particular language and its community within Europe, or on a particular language issue, may or may not find what they are looking for. This book should be viewed as an introduction to the broader issues, with occasional detailed analyses. It should also be used as a point of departure for more detailed study of specific language issues, and its generous bibliography is a useful reference for this purpose.

Given the book’s breadth, linguists may find that some statements about particular languages or linguistic analyses seem to be either misleading or simplifications. This is perhaps inevitable, in light of the fact that the book covers a wide range of topics and that its target audience is quite diverse.

For those new to the sizeable collection of abbreviations used to refer to European governmental bodies and their documents and declarations, the free usage of such abbreviations in the text can be disconcerting and confusing at times; however, the author provides a website list that will be an invaluable reference for those seeking clarification.

The author positions her book as a call to academic institutions for a greater focus on the issues of language policy as a means to improve the status of minority and immigrant languages and their communities. By laying out the many complex language policy issues faced by the EU, the author succeeds in demonstrating the varied—and extremely difficult—challenges for language communities and political leadership in Europe.

Reviewed by Giorgio Iemmolo, University of Pavia

This book  is a valuable typological-funtionalist insight into the domain of possession. It reveals new facts about possession in European languages to linguists interested in typology, areal linguistics, and language universals.

The authors focus on the existence of possession splits in European languages, which are usually considered to lack this feature. Therefore, the authors dispute Johanna Nichols’ (1992) position (among others) that European languages do not allow possession splits.

Possession splits can be realized not only with overt marking, as observed in many non-European languages, but also by means of a variety of factors that affect obligatoriness, such as the systematical blocking of overt marking in a particular context.

The results from the fifty language sample demonstrate that possession splits are caused by both genetic and geographical factors, even though these criteria do not sufficiently explain the phenomenon. The areal distribution of posession splits reflects the European isogloss in which the core (i.e. Standard Average European) represents an innovative pattern that lacks split possession. Additionally, European languages show a general tendency to realize pronominal possession splits in cases in which at least two syntactic areas are subject to split possession. However, in cases in which a pronominal split is not allowed, a general dispreference for the splits to occur at the same time in genitive and predicative constructions has been demonstrated.

European languages show similarities in the distribution of splits—that is, in pronominal possession the split occurs between kinship terms and body-part posession, whereas in predicative possession the split divides psycho-mental states from other concepts. Additionally, languages differ according to the number of splits allowed in any syntactic area. Accordingly, polysplits are predominantly found in pronominal possession, expecially in languages spoken in the Northwest and  the Southeast of Europe.

Furthermore, the authors demonstrate that the kind of possession splits that affect European languages are determined  by inalienability in only a few cases, whereas the majority of splits are brought about by other semantic distinctions such as the reference to the ego. Nevertheless, the role played by semantic factors in defining the occurrence of possession splits is narrowed by the presence of other stronger factors governed by syntax and pragmatics (e.g. definiteness, animacy, time individuation, syntactic weight), whereas typological parameters do not rule possession splits.

Possession splits are determined by three parameters—namely, the possessor, the possessee, and the relationship between them. This tripartition is a useful tool for classifying the types of splits found in language. Accordingly, splits determined by the possessor are strongly bound to empathy, whereas possessee-determined splits rely on the control of the possessor over the possessee. Finally, the possession splits triggered by the relation itself are ruled by time and manner distinctions.

REFERENCE

Nichols, Johanna. 1992. Linguistic diversity in space and time. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Reviewed by Peter Freeouf, Chiang Mai University

Now available to new generations of readers and lovers of the history and etymology of English, this paperback reprint of a dictionary that first appeared in 1958 (a reproduction of the fourth edition from 1966) will be a source of information for scholars and students for decades to come.

This edition begins with a forward by Philip Howard, which is a tribute to Eric Partridge’s career of more than five decades as an independent scholar who researched and wrote his numerous scholarly works in the reading-room of the British Museum. The subsequent sections include a short preface, directions on how to use the dictionary; a list of abbreviations; the dictionary, which makes up  the bulk of the volume (1–819); a short commentary (820–21), which is a list of notes to twenty-nine of the entries in the dictionary; ‘A list of prefixes’ (822–34); ‘A list of suffixes’ (835–66); ‘A list of learned compound-forming elements’ (867–970); and finally ‘Addenda to dictionary’ (970–72).

P states in the preface that his intent is to provide etymological information on ‘non-specialized words […] the 10,000 or so used by every intelligent person’ (xii). Separate lists catalogue the recurrent prefixes and suffixes that are part of English word-forming processes. Their origins and comparative forms in other languages are provided as well, along with examples. A striking feature of this dictionary is the wealth of literary and historical linguistic references in the main body of the work. For instance, in the entry for man, there are references to Publius (or Gaius) Cornelius Tacitus (Germania), to Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, and to Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (Zarathustra, which we are informed ‘appeared in 1883-85’ [375]). In the commentary, a note on the form am provides references to the Oxford English Dictionary, Eduard Prokosch’s Comparative Germanic grammar (1939, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press), and to Verner’s Law (820). An interesting illustration of the depth and range of P’s scholarship is his citation for the suffix -er. There are seventeen separate entries for this suffix, which is not surprising upon examination of the entries on its complex origins and meanings (845).

The section on ‘Learned compound-forming elements’ provides similar information on the (primarily) Greek and Latin roots and stems used in English to form scientific and scholarly words that do not appear in the body of the dictionary but can assist in deciphering  the meaning of a ‘vast number of erudite terms’ (867). Common well-known roots and stems, for instance -onym, -onyma, -onymic, -onymous, -onymy are listed with a brief summary of origin and representative examples in English usage (924). Roots and stems that are less widely known and used are also listed, such as leio-/-lio, from Greek leios ‘smooth’, used in leiodermatous ‘smooth-skinned’ (909), a word which admittedly may not be often needed but is nice to know that it exists. A number of common compounding prefixes and suffixes are included in this section on elements, such as bi-, hemi-, -fer, and -scope, which have more or less specific lexical meanings in addition to their morphological word-forming functions.

In short, this dictionary is a delight to explore at leisure, wandering from one entry to another, or to use for the more directed pursuit of discovering a word’s origin.

Reviewed by Peter Freeouf, Chiang Mai University

Guaymi, a member of the Chibcha family, is spoken natively by around 165,000 people in Panama and by another 2,500 in neighboring Costa Rica. The data for this grammar was collected from one village in the district of San Felix de Chiriqui in Panama.

Following a short introduction, which provides a brief summary of the basic ethnographic details of the Guaymi-speaking community and of previous studies of this language, the book is divided into four sections: phonology, nominal morphology, verbal morphology, and syntax. A three-page bibliography completes the volume. Numerous tables and charts throughout this book provide convenient overviews and summaries of the basic facts of the phonology, morphology, and syntax of Guaymi.

The discussion of phonology (23–48) includes a delineation of the segmental phonemes. Guaymi has a rich vowel system, which consists of eight oral and eight nasal vowels as well as several diphthongs. Morphologically conditioned vowel harmony is a prominent feature of this language, and word stress is phonemic. The author maintains that lexical tone is not a phonemic feature of the language, contrary to what earlier studies have suggested.

The chapter on nominal morphology (49–98) discusses word classes such as nouns, adjectives, adverbs, pronouns, conjunctions, postpositions, and quantifiers. Interrogative and negative particles are also included here. Plurality may be indicated by the particle tre, but this overt marker is omitted when other quantifying words are present. Nouns are divided into fifteen semantically-based classes, each of which has a specific classifier to which cardinal numerals are suffixed. These classifiers are used only to enumerate entities. An interrogative suffix, –bi, can also be added to the base forms of classifiers to form interrogative quantifiers (e.g. ‘how much’, ‘how many’). These classifiers, with a suffixed numeral or interrogative particle, occur to the right of the noun.

The section on verbal morphology (99–145) discusses the formal features of the verb system. The Guaymi verb lacks morphological marking of person. Plurality can be optionally indicated by the use of the plural particle tre, which occurs to the right of the verb. Verb forms are categorized along two intersecting axes: realis/irrealis and tense. The realis includes events that the speaker considers as realized or as in the process of being realized. The irrealis indicates events that may potentially be realized. The realis and irrealis categories are further divided in terms of time: atemporal (i.e. indefinite time and aspect) and temporal. In the realis category, the temporal forms include the recent past tense, the remote past tense, the perfect tense, and the testimonial past tense. The irrealis includes an immediate future tense and a remote future tense. Lexical verbs are divided into three classes, or conjugations, based on the form of the indefinite realis.

The section on verbal morphology also discusses the relative frequency of the various verb forms in a narrative corpus gathered by the author. Together, the recent past and the indefinite realis account for over two thirds of all verb forms that occur in the corpus. Other topics in this section include verb derivation, verb compounds, passives and mediopassives, Aktionsart (modality), subjectless verbs, copulative verbs, intransitive verbs, and verbs with dative subjects (i.e. experiencer or beneficiary subjects).

The section on syntax (147–85) concludes the grammar. Word order is underlyingly subject-object-verb, with noun phrases characterized by adjectives that occur to the right of nouns (NA) and demonstratives that occur to the right of nouns and adjectives (NA Dem) as well as to the right of nouns and numerals (N Num Dem). Guaymi follows an ergative-absolutive pattern. The author, however, characterizes this ergativity as ‘restricted’ (160) because verbs of perception (as well as some others) take dative subjects. Coordination and clausal subordination are discussed in the final section of this chapter.

This book is a detailed and well-organized descriptive grammar of Guaymi. Providing a wealth of examples, it is well-written and easy to follow, with a minimum of theoretical jargon.

Reviewed by Mark J. Elson, University of Virginia

Although there is no indication of it in the title, in addition to being an introduction to forensic linguistics, this book is a case study of the use of English as the legal language of Nigeria—that is, the language of the Nigerian court. The linguistic focus of the book includes speech acts, discourse, and syntax, with an emphasis on questions; the nonlinguistic focus appears to be power and the role language plays in instantiating and maintaining an inherently unequal relationship between representatives of the law in various forensic contexts (e.g. the courtroom) and defendants (i.e. those suspected or accused of illegal activities). Each context, as it interacts with power and/or language, may be viewed as a domain of forensic linguistics. This book is comprised of ten chapters (7–163) followed by six additional units (164–303) and concludes with a list of references (304–13).

Ch. 1 introduces the domains of forensic linguistics (e.g. legal interpreting, courtroom interaction, child witnesses, speaker identification) and provides a preliminary survey of the relevant literature. Ch. 2 introduces the nonlinguistic focus, power and asymmetrical relationships, and discusses these concepts with respect to forensic (e.g. suspect interrogation) as well as nonforensic (e.g. casual conversation, family discourse) domains.

Chs. 3, 6, and 9 present details of the Nigerian legal system. Ch. 3 concentrates on the police force, Ch. 6 on the law and issues of power in the Nigerian courtroom, and Ch. 9 on interpreting and the role of English as an instrument of power with respect to the indigenous languages of the country, the most important of which are Hausa, Igbo, and Yoruba.

Chs. 5 and 8 concentrate on questions as instruments of power, with Ch. 8 providing different typologies of questions. Chs. 4 and 7 treat power in the courtroom and other contexts more generally. The book concludes with Ch. 10, which surveys speech acts.

This book has two weaknesses. The first weakness is its somewhat inconvenient organization: the components of the discussion, which I identified above as the linguistic and nonlinguistic foci, are nowhere specified as such. The relevant facts about the Nigerian legal system and the discussion of power are the contents of nonconsecutive chapters, as is the discussion of questions. The basics of pragmatics are provided in the final chapter, rather than the first chapter, as would be expected. Finally, much of the author’s original contribution is not highlighted in the central part of the book but instead is relegated to a subsidiary position. A second weakness of this book is the author’s English, which is inadequately edited. As a result, errors are relatively frequent.

Despite these weaknesses, I found this to be a valuable book: the analyses are especially interesting as is the case study of English as the legal language in a multilingual country in which English is not one of the indigenous languages. Although these shortcomings do not detract from its contribution they make the book more difficult to appreciate.

Reviewed by Peter Freeouf, Chiang Mai University

This is a massive and detailed two hardback volume grammar of Toqabaqita, which is spoken by around 12,500 people at the northern end of Malaita Island in the central Solomon Islands. Toqabaqita is a member of the Southeast Solomonic branch of Oceanic, a subgroup of the widespread Austronesian family. Toqabaqita shares a number of the characteristic phonological and morphosyntactic features common to many Oceanic languages. These features include a relatively simple phonological system; a complex pronominal system, with an inclusive/exclusive distinction in the nonsingular first person pronominals; three numbers  (i.e. singular, dual, plural) in all three persons; obligatory expression of alienable and inalienable possession; object-indexing suffixes with transitive verbs; and a complex system of subject markers fused with markers of nonfuture tense, future tense with imperfective aspect, sequentiality, negation, and dehortative markers, each with a distinct paradigm of forms (143–44).

The grammar consists of forty chapters and an appendix (1331–45) that contains two recorded, interlinearly glossed texts with translation. The grammar contains twenty tables, three maps, and two charts showing the genetic relationship of Toqabaqita. Vol. 1 contains Chs. 1–14, which consists of a brief overview of the language and its genetic affiliation. This is followed by Ch. 2, ‘Phonology’, which contains a comprehensive survey of the phoneme inventory, phonological processes, and orthographic conventions used in the grammar. Ch 3, ‘Grammatical profile’, provides a short overview of the principal morphosyntactic patterns and word classes. The remaining chapters in vol. 1 examine the verbal morphology (Chs. 4–5), nominal morphology and noun phrases, including pronominals (Chs. 6–9), prepositional phrases (Ch. 10), coordination of noun and prepositional phrases (Ch. 11), nominal and verbal compounding (Ch. 12), demonstratives (Ch. 13), and ‘Constructions with inclusory pronominals’ (Ch. 14).

Vol. 2 consists of chapters 15–40. ‘Tense and aspect’ are dealt with in Ch. 15, the function of subject markers in Ch. 16, ‘Negation’ in Ch. 17, ‘Mood’ in Ch. 18, ‘Interrogatives’ in Ch. 19, and ‘Imperatives’ in Ch. 20. The following chapters (Chs. 21–39) explore various morphosyntactic issues, including clausal syntax. Ch. 40, the final chapter, describes the sociolinguistic relationship between Toqabaqita, Solomon Islands Pijin, and English. Each volume has a short section of notes at or near the end of the volume. References (1333–43) and a detailed grammar topic index (1345–56) complete vol. 2.

As an example of the linguistic detail characteristic of the work, this grammar presents an interesting discussion of whether the possible consonants that form the first sound of the short and long transitive suffixes are best analyzed as part of the underlying stem, as a feature of a conjugation, or, as the author proposes, are best understood with a morpho-lexemic analysis, in which the initial consonants of the transitive suffixes are analyzed as separate but ‘semantically empty’ morphs (90–97).

This grammar must be one of the most comprehensive and detailed grammars ever written for an Austronesian language. It is truly monumental in scope and depth and is written lucidly in the contemporary style of language description without a heavy theoretical orientation. As such, it will be very accessible and useful to linguists with various interests.

Reviewed by Peter Freeouf, Chiang Mai University

This volume presents an overview of thirty constructed (i.e. artificial) languages that are based on or derived from Esperanto. The best known of these is Ido. Many of the other languages have not achieved much recognition or attention. Most, if not all, of these languages are seen by their authors as reformed or improved versions of Esperanto, which was originally proposed and developed as an international language. Here, Alan Libert surveys various proposals that have appeared over the past 100 years, the earliest of which date from the first decade of the twentieth century (e.g. Reformed Esperanto in 1902 and 1907, Perio in 1904, and Ido in 1907). Esperanto itself dates from Ludwig Zamenhoff’s first publication in 1887, after which a movement to propagate it as the international—or world auxiliary—language rapidly developed, especially in Europe. However, from early on there was occasional dissension in the ranks of Esperantists, and out of this dissatisfaction with particular aspects of Esperanto new proposals for a successor began to appear. The past decade has witnessed a proliferation of such proposals thanks to the widespread access and availability of the Internet.

L’s study, which assumes the ability to read Esperanto (quotes in Esperanto are not translated into English) is divided into five parts. The introduction (1–19) introduces the thirty proposed languages and provides a short account of the sources for each one. Several of the names of these languages are interesting in themselves: Arlipo, Ekselsioro, Farlingo, Hom-Idyomo, Linguna, Olingo, Virgoranto, and my favorite, Snifferanto, which, as Libert points out, is a serious proposal despite its name.

The following chapter, ‘Phonetics and phonology’ (21–39), deals primarily with the various orthographies and their proposed sound values. Ch. 3, ‘Lexicon’ (41–57), discusses the sources of the vocabulary of the proposed languages. The vocabulary of Esperanto is based almost exclusively on Romance and Germanic languages, with a smattering of Slavic and Greek. Some of the languages discussed here have expanded the Latinate portion of their vocabulary. Several tables provide comparative lists of words in a number of the languages to their counterparts in Esperanto.

The longest chapter in this book is Ch. 4, ‘Morphology’ (59–153). One morphological feature in Esperanto is that the direct object is obligatorily marked by the suffix –n on nouns, pronouns, and nominal modifiers but not on the definite article or on cardinal numerals. Noun-modifier agreement is also marked by the plural suffix -j on attributive and predicative modifiers. Similar to Esperanto, some of the proposed languages mark the accusative, others do not. In two or three of these languages this marking is apparently optional. One of the languages, Linguna, has expanded the system of case forms to seven distinctly marked cases. The issue of noun and modifier agreement (i.e. case and number) is resolved in differing ways in the languages discussed here.

The final chapter, ‘Semantics’ (155–57), is the shortest and deals very briefly with homonyms, synonyms, and idioms. The book concludes with an extensive list of references (159–66), which will be of use to those who wish to search out the sources of the proposed languages. Many of these sources are websites that are immediately accessible.

Constructed, artificial languages have often been neglected by linguists. L is an exception to this rule. As a linguist, he treats all of these proposals with respect and seriousness. However, it is not difficult to imagine the exasperation he must feel at the deficiencies in competent linguistic analyses and even logical coherence demonstrated by some of these languages. This comes across when he makes such comments as: ‘Given this, I do not understand why […]’ (37), ‘It is not clear to me what it means’ (43), ‘It is not clear to me what the difference between “indefinite” and “completely indefinite” is’ (91), ‘One might be surprised at these examples […]’ (108), ‘Presumably this is an error […]’ (140), and ‘I am uncertain of the meaning of occase here’ (153). However, most of these expressions of puzzlement or incomprehension are discreetly put in footnotes. Even more telling are many of the numerous quotes from several of the proposals themselves.

L is to be commended for dealing with these proposals in an objective manner. Constructed, artificial languages, including the well-established Esperanto and its unrelated predecessor, Volapuk, deserve serious scholarly treatment. They are, after all, examples of human language. And to quote Roman Jakobson’s version of Terence’s famous saying: ‘linguista sum, linguistici nihil a me alienum puto.’ (I am a linguist; I consider nothing linguistic foreign to me.)

Reviewed by Sandra Becker, São Carlos, SP, Brazil

Empirical linguistics the center of Text, discourse and corpora: Theory and analysis. It is discussed on a new level because the interpretation and data analysis were carried out using cutting edge protocols. Books as brave, instructive, and graceful as this do not spring from idle natures. The papers gathered here are from an event that took place at The Tuscan Word Centre, at the University of Saarbrücken in 2004, when attention was turned to corpus linguistics on Teachers’ Day. It is clear that the provocative and stimulating talks given and the participants’ contributions greatly influenced this eloquent and enriching volume.

This book presents eight well-organized and compellingly written chapters that mingle case studies with valuable accounts of language theory and research. Each author contributed two articles, and John Sinclair provides a brilliant introduction.

To demonstrate how literary creativity may be handled and described through a corpus-based theory, Michael Hoey examines fragments of three literary texts in Ch. 1. He explains that we are primed to recognize and replicate a number of language phenomena. Before exploring literary language, H highlights the uniqueness of lexical priming, demonstrating how priming cannot be directly inferred from the corpus evidence. He also suggests that every genre, style, domain, and social situation in which a word occurs is part of the priming process. H’s second contribution uses concrete evidence to investigate the relationship between lexis and grammar. H considers grammar to be a product of priming and cites the numeral system as well as data from books written for very young children as evidence.

Ch. 3 addresses the social dimensions of discourse. After analyzing discourse as Michel Foucault understands it—and showing how controversial it can be—Wolfgang Teubert discusses his own view of discourse, which allows the researcher to define the parameters that build the singularity and complexity of discourse analysis. T then turns his attention to hermeneutics and its impact on what he calls parole-linguistics. In his second contribution, Ch. 4, T presents a case study that illustrates a work grounded in parole-linguistics. Because diachronic corpus linguistics is less interested in regularities—and has its focus turned to the socially constructed change that discourse objects undergo—T analyzes the meaning of work and property within Catholic social encyclicals from a social constructivist perspective, based on the hermeneutical approach described in Ch. 3.

Ch. 5 returns to the classroom, as Michael Stubbs discusses his views on Ferdinand De Saussure, René Decartes, David Hume, Leonard Bloomfield, Eugene Halliday, John Searle, and Karl Popper’s distinct ways of understanding language. This section is remarkably instructive. S explores the rationalist deductive and the empiricist inductive views of language and describes how corpus studies may benefit from the use of concordance tools. In Ch. 6, S illustrates how quantitative data can help to identify phrasal constructions in the language system.

Michaela Mahlberg offers a resonant account of the relationship between lexis and text in Ch. 7. She explores how meanings can be analyzed through concordance lines and textual features. By focusing on corpus stylistics in Ch. 8, M succeeds in showing a complex network of clusters in literary texts. These clusters are mapped, and their functions are explored.

This compelling book leaves no stone unturned in addressing a variety of methods for the empirical observation of data. Students, academics, and researchers will benefit greatly by reading this work about the field of empirical linguistics.

Reviewed by Giorgio Iemmolo, University of Pavia.

This collection of papers deals with valency changing devices, such as passivization, causativization, and antipassivization, from both theoretical and empirical perspectives. The volume is divided into two parts. Part 1, which consists of three papers, is devoted to general issues of passives. Part 2 examines a number of case studies in individual languages or groups of languages that mainly belong to the Uto-Aztecan family.

In the first paper appropriately entitled ‘What is a passive?’, Bernard Comrie provides some parameters, such as markedness and agent- versus patient-orientation, for determining a passive prototype as a morphosyntactic category.

The second paper, by Talmy Givón, ‘On the relational properties of passive clauses: A diachronic perspective’ convincingly discusses the sources of the grammaticalization of passive clauses and shows that the similarities between the relational properties of passive clauses and their sources are motivated by a functional overlap between the different constructions.

Søren Wichmann, ‘Valency-reduction in event-oriented languages’, discusses valency-decreasing strategies based on semantically aligned languages (i.e. active-stative). Wichmann introduces the concepts of event- and participant-orientation to account for the rarity of passives in semantically aligned languages: in his analysis, these languages exhibit a strong tendency towards event-orientation, since argument structure is also primarily event-oriented.

Part 2, ‘Case studies in Uto-Aztecan and other languages’, begins with ‘Participios estativos en yaqui y mecanismos de detransitivización’ in which Albert Álvarez González analyzes the morphology and syntax of stative participles in Yaqui, a Uto-Aztecan language. Specifically, he examines their derivation mechanisms and the syntax of the stative/resultative constructions in which stative participles can be used. Finally, these constructions and other valency-decreasing devices (e.g. the passive) are compared and three different kinds of passive constructions are identified in Yaqui.

In ‘Antipasivas en español: Forma y función’, Sergio Bogard argues for the presence of antipassive constructions in Spanish in which the direct object is suppressed and the verb becomes intransitive. Bogard considers instances of antipassive predicates that express atelic activity, such as Maria cultivó flores ‘Maria grew flowers’.

The paper by Marisa Censabella, ‘Derivación causativa en toba’, provides an analysis of causativity in the Guacaran language Toba. Censabella identifies seven types of causative constructions, describing them with reference to semantics (e.g. direct vs. indirect causation), morphological productivity, and grammaticalization.

In ‘Looking for a new participant: The Purepecha passive’, Claudine Chamoreau focuses on the passive in the isolate language Purepecha. Chamoreau compares the morphosyntactic properties of passive and active subjects and studies strategies used to introduce a new participant in passive constructions.

The paper by Zarina Estrada Fernández, ‘The interplay of the causative and the applicative in sociative causation’, discusses causative and applicative strategies in the Uto-Aztecan language Pima Bajo. She describes the use of the causative and applicative morphemes in direct and sociative causative situations, showing some interesting features of the sociative causation.

In ‘The passive in the Taracahitic languages Yaqui, Warihio and Tarahumara’, Rolando Félix Armendáriz describes, based on Givón’s approach, passives in three closely related Uto-Aztecan languages: Yaqui, Warihio, and Tarahumara. He shows the differences and the similarities of the different types of passive found in these languages.

Ana Fernández Garay, ‘La voz media en la lengua mapuche’, discusses middle verbs in Mapudungun, especially those borrowed from Spanish. Middle verbs are marked by the same suffix of passive and reciprocal. The author demonstrates, through an analysis of old dictionaries, that the middle meaning of the suffix did not occur prior to the twentieth century.

The last paper, by Lilián Guerrero, ‘Yaqui causation: Its form-function interface’, describes in detail the morphosyntactic means and the semantic differences of the causative constructions in the Uto-Aztecan language Yaqui in the framework of role and reference grammar.

This rich collection of papers is informative and full of details from both a theoretical and a typological point of view. It will be of great value to researchers who are interested in valency-changing mechanisms, transitivity, and detailed analyses of Uto-Aztecan languages.