{"id":744,"date":"2010-07-20T10:00:46","date_gmt":"2010-07-20T08:00:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/elanguage.net\/blogs\/booknotices\/?p=744"},"modified":"2010-06-07T13:34:02","modified_gmt":"2010-06-07T11:34:02","slug":"the-grammar-of-identity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/?p=744","title":{"rendered":"The grammar of identity"},"content":{"rendered":"
The grammar of identity<\/strong>: Intensifiers and reflexives in Germanic languages. By Volker Gast<\/strong>. (Routledge studies in Germanic linguistics.) New York: Routledge, 2006. Pp. 258. ISBN 9780415394116<\/a>. $165 (Hb).<\/div>\n

Reviewed by Maria del Puy Ciriza<\/strong>, University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign<\/em><\/p>\n

In this semantic and syntactic study of intensifiers and reflexive forms in Germanic languages, Volker Gast explains why self<\/em>-forms can be employed both as intensifiers (e.g. <\/em>The president<\/em> himself made the decision<\/em><\/em>)<\/em> and as reflexives (e.g. John <\/em>criticized<\/em> himself<\/em>). Additionally, G demonstrates how both intensifying and reflexive self<\/em>-forms can be analyzed through the identity function (ID).<\/p>\n

In Ch. 1, after reviewing previous diachronic and synchronic analyses that have attempted to explain the relationship between intensifiers and reflexives, G summarizes the importance of the ID in encoding reflexivity and intensification. He argues that the ID allows for the analysis self<\/em> as an intensifier when interacting with information structure but as a reflexive when interacting with binding.<\/p>\n

Chs. 2\u20136 focus on intensifiers. In Ch. 2, \u2018The distribution and morphology of head-adjacent self<\/em>\u2019, G describes the basic distributional coordinates of head-adjacent intensifiers in Germanic languages. He observes that in some Germanic languages the most common position of the intensifier is right-adjoined, whereas in other Germanic languages the intensifier may also be preposed or left-adjoined. After illustrating various combinatorial properties of head-adjacent self<\/em> in different Germanic languages, G concludes that its only restriction is in the propositional background. In Ch. 3, \u2018Head-adjacent intensifiers as expressions of an identity function\u2019, G demonstrates that head-adjacent intensifiers can denote the ID.<\/p>\n

In Ch. 4, \u2018The syntax of head-distant intensifiers\u2019, G parses the distributional differences between inclusive and exclusive self<\/em> constructions, observing that although exclusive self<\/em> is contained in the verb phrase, inclusive self<\/em> occupies a higher position. Ch. 5 discusses the \u2018Combinatorial properties of head-distant intensifiers\u2019. G summarizes previous research that calls for a number of semantic and pragmatic distributional restrictions on head-distant intensifiers and shows that these restrictions represent tendencies but not rules. Furthermore, he concludes that the only restrictions on head-distant self<\/em> involve information structure. In Ch. 6, \u2018The interpretation of head distant intensifiers\u2019, G demonstrates that the previously provided syntactic representations (from Ch. 4) can account for these semantic differentiations.<\/p>\n

The final two chapters turn to the reflexive function of self<\/em>. In Ch. 7, \u2018Reflexivity and the identity function\u2019, G presents a typology of reflexives as well as two of the most influential theories that account for the distribution of pronouns: Noam Chomsky\u2019s classic binding theory and Paul Kiparsky\u2019s (Disjoint reference and the typology of pronouns. In More than words<\/em>, ed. by Ingrid Kaufmann and Barbara Stiebels. Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 2002) optimality-theory account. G modifies Kiparsky\u2019s model and proposes two types of predicates with respect to reflexivity: typically self-directed predicates (e.g. to wash<\/em>) and typically other-directed predicates (e.g. to hate<\/em>). In Ch. 8, \u2018The grammar of reflexivity in Germanic languages\u2019, G classifies Germanic languages along two major dimensions: (i) languages that have simplex (SE)-anaphors versus languages that do not and (ii) languages with a high ranking of the other directed binding constraint versus languages in which this constraint ranks lower than the economy constraint.<\/p>\n

This book provides a thorough analysis of intensifiers in Germanic languages, which combines analytical methods from syntax and semantics.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The grammar of identity: Intensifiers and reflexives in Germanic languages. By Volker Gast. (Routledge studies in Germanic linguistics.) New York: Routledge, 2006. Pp. 258. ISBN 9780415394116. $165 (Hb). Reviewed by Maria del Puy Ciriza, University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign In this semantic and syntactic study of intensifiers and reflexive forms in Germanic languages, Volker […]<\/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\/744"}],"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=744"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/744\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":745,"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/744\/revisions\/745"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=744"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=744"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=744"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}