{"id":610,"date":"2010-07-02T10:00:02","date_gmt":"2010-07-02T08:00:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/elanguage.net\/blogs\/booknotices\/?p=610"},"modified":"2010-05-06T15:18:06","modified_gmt":"2010-05-06T13:18:06","slug":"typology-of-conditional-constructions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/?p=610","title":{"rendered":"Typology of conditional constructions"},"content":{"rendered":"
Typology of conditional constructions. <\/strong>Ed. by Victor S. Xrakovskij<\/strong>. (LINCOM studies in theoretical linguistics 25.) Munich: LINCOM Europa, 2005. Pp. 701. IBSN 9783895866791<\/a>. $279 (Hb).<\/div>\n

Reviewed by Benji Wald<\/strong><\/a>, Los Angeles, CA<\/em><\/p>\n

This weighty volume is the English translation of a Russian text published following a language typology workshop held at the St. Petersburg Institute of Linguistic Research in the late 1990s. The translation is completely fluent and unobtrusive, disregarding a few uses unusual in English\u2014for example, taxis<\/em> for \u2018clause sequence\u2019 and peripheral<\/em> for \u2018marginal\u2019. The book begins with a preface (vii\u2013x) and two chapters by the editor, Victor Xrakovskij: Ch. 1 \u2018Conditional constructions: A theoretical description (meaning, calculus, typology)\u2019 (3\u201395) and Ch. 2 \u2018A questionnaire on conditional constructions\u2019 (96\u2013125).<\/p>\n

The numerous issues introduced by Xrakovskij are wide-ranging. He notes that in certain contexts in some languages, conditionals can be expressed by nonprototypical devices\u2014for example, give and<\/strong> you shall receive<\/em> in addition to if<\/em><\/strong> you give you shall receive<\/em>. Additionally, Xrakovskij describes other uses of constructions prototypically used for conditionals, typically if<\/em>– and when<\/em>(ever<\/em>)-clauses (i.e. conditional and temporal clauses). These forms can also be used in nonassertives (e.g. if<\/em><\/strong> you want to make a call, the phone is in the next room<\/em>) or presumptives (e.g. if<\/em><\/strong> she was strict she was also fair<\/em>), in which the if<\/em>-clause is understood to be unconditionally true.<\/p>\n

Languages of typological importance are mentioned in Part 1\u2014for example, Classical Arabic, in which hypothetical and counterfactual conditions are distinguished by the conjunctions used (72\u201373). The typological survey of conditional constructions (CCs) in individual languages begins in Part 2, which consists of two sections. Section 1, \u2018Languages in which the prototypical conditional construction is the complex sentence\u2019 (129\u2013524), contains eighteen chapters that each survey a different language, including Bulgarian, Armenian, Dari, Hindi, Homeric Greek, Early Latin, French, German, English, Finnish, Estonian, Hungarian, Hausa, Klamath, Indonesian, Cambodian, Vietnamese, and Chinese.<\/p>\n

Section 2 of Part 2, \u2018Languages with CCs including non-finite protasis\u2019 (525\u2013655), covers six languages: Even, Evenki, Asiatic Eskimo, Aleut, Yukaghir, and Japanese. The major focus of Section 2 is how temporal sequencing is accomplished or interpreted in languages in which only the main clause has an explicit time orientation. Finally, the book ends with a section of references (657\u201373), and indexes of authors (674\u201376), languages and dialects (677\u201378), and subjects (679\u2013701).<\/p>\n

Most languages are richly exemplified and statistics on textual frequency are often included. Individual examples usually consist of triplet lines that display the original language, a morpheme gloss, and a translation. This is also provided for the translations of the original Russian examples, which are abundant in Part 1. However, no doubt following the original Russian text, knowledge of French and German in addition to English, are assumed without gloss or translation.<\/p>\n

As expected of a book of this size, it contains a wealth of information. The indexes make much of this information easy to locate. There is a great deal to consider in this volume, and a careful reading will reveal the points contributors generally accept and the issues where contention lies.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Typology of conditional constructions. Ed. by Victor S. Xrakovskij. (LINCOM studies in theoretical linguistics 25.) Munich: LINCOM Europa, 2005. Pp. 701. IBSN 9783895866791. $279 (Hb). Reviewed by Benji Wald, Los Angeles, CA This weighty volume is the English translation of a Russian text published following a language typology workshop held at the St. Petersburg Institute […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/610"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=610"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/610\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":611,"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/610\/revisions\/611"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=610"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=610"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=610"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}