Reviewed by András Kertész, University of Debrecen

The problem of understanding other minds has so far been tackled predominantly by the theory of mind approach, which is computational and representational. This volume challenges such an approach by claiming that it is intersubjectivity that bridges the gap between the self and others.

Following Colwyn Trevarthen’s foreword ‘Shared minds and the science of fiction: Why theories will differ’, the editors contrast the theory of mind approach with the leading idea of the volume in their introductory chapter ‘Intersubjectivity: What makes us human’.

Part 1 of the volume is devoted to ontogenetic development. Shaun Gallagher and Daniel D. Hutto, in ‘Understanding others through primary interaction and narrative practice’, hypothesize that children understand actions in terms of reasons through narratives of a distinct kind. In ‘The neuroscience of social understanding’, John Barresi and Chris Moore discuss evidence for the claim that autistic children are not able to combine proprioceptive and sensorimotor information about the self with exteroceptive information about others. Peter Hobson and Jessica A. Hobson, in ‘Engaging, sharing, knowing: Some lessons from research in autism’, argue that intersubjectivity is pivotal for understanding autism. In ‘Coming to agreement: Object use by infants and adults’, Cintia Rodríguez and Christiane Moro explain the way children reach agreement with adults on the use of objects by means of diverse semiotic systems in contexts of joint communicative action. Ingar Brick’s chapter ‘The role of intersubjectivity in the development of intentional communication’ accounts for the role of intersubjectivity in the development of nonverbal intentional communication in human infants. Noah Susswein and Timothy P. Racine, in ‘Sharing mental states: Causal and definitional issues in intersubjectivity’, introduce a taxonomic concept of intersubjectivity.

Part 2 of the volume bears the title ‘Evolution’. Simone Pika answers the question ‘What is the nature of the gestural communication of great apes?’ by claiming that great apes seem to be capable of intersubjectivity; however, there are differences between human and ape gestures rooted in an innate bias for human cultural learning. In ‘The heterotronic origins of explicit reference’, David A. Leavens, William D. Hopkins, and Kim A. Bard argue for the opposite thesis, i.e. for the lack of such an innate bias. Jordan Zlatev’s chapter ‘The co-evolution of intersubjectivity and bodily mimesis’ suggests that intersubjectivity is closely interwoven with the use of the body for the purposes of representation and communication. In ‘First communions: Mimetic sharing without theory of mind’, Daniel D. Hutto explains the sophisticated social engagements of the hominids by growing recreative imaginative abilities.

Lastly, Part 3 focuses on ‘Language’. In ‘The central role of normativity in language and linguistics’, Esa Itkonen shows, among other things, that normativity implies common knowledge that is a particular form of intersubjectivity. Arie Verhagen’s chapter ‘Intersubjectivity and the architecture of the language system’ discusses the inherently argumentative nature of linguistic communication. In ‘Intersubjectivity in interpreted interactions: The interpreter’s role in co-constructing meaning’, Terry Janzen and Barbara Shaffer claim that the interpreter influences the interchange through her assumptions about the interlocutors’ knowledge states. In the final chapter, ‘Language and the signifying object: From convention to imagination’, Chris Sinha and Cintia Rodriguez outline a multi-faceted definition of intersubjectivity. The book concludes with a subject and an author index.

The central idea of the volume as well as the individual chapters are thought provoking and highly original, thus raising new problems and shedding fresh light on old ones.

Reviewed by Agnieszka Pysz, Adam Mickiewicz University

Based on his doctoral dissertation, in this volume, Constantino Martínez Fabián provides an optimality theory (OT) treatment of coordination patterns in Yaqui, a Uto-Aztecan language.

In the extensive introduction, MF describes three specific aspects of coordination: (i) the position of the coordinator with respect to conjuncts, (ii) unbalanced coordination instantiated by verbal chaining structures, and (iii) asymmetric noun-verb agreement patterns observed in coordinated objects and coordinated subjects. He also provides information on Yaqui word order and a basic introduction to OT.

Ch. 2 reviews the previous research on coordination. MF describes several theoretical frameworks that have previously been used to account for the data, including head driven phrase structure grammar, minimalism, OT, lexical functional grammar, principles and parameters, and autolexical approaches.

Ch. 3 focuses on patterns of sentence coordination in Yaqui. MF singles out one coordinator, into(ko) ‘and’, and describes its distributional properties. Based on the data, he argues that Yaqui coordination poses a challenge for most theoretical accounts and suggests an OT-based proposal, which accommodates the Yaqui data by means of an adjunct-host relation coupled with a set of OT constraints.

Ch. 4 starts with a discussion of verbal balanced coordination (i.e. coordinated verbs that do not differ in inflection). MF then turns to unbalanced coordination—specifically, cases in which only the last verb in a series carries overt inflection, as in the so-called –kai constructions. Such constructions share a number of characteristics. For instance, they are interpreted as a single event, they involve verbs marked with the suffix –kai, and they consist of conjuncts whose order tends to be sequential. MF suggests an OT account that captures these characteristics.

Ch. 5 deals with number agreement phenomena in verbs and coordinated nominals. MF demonstrates that, although coordinated objects require a transitive verb to be morphologically singular, coordinated subjects require an intransitive verb to be plural. He observes that this asymmetry is not readily handled by many analyses—in particular, lexical functional grammar accounts. MF proposes an alternative that captures the Yaqui agreement patterns via the ranking of OT constraints.

The volume is not free from conspicuous language errors and editorial lapses, which undoubtedly detract from its quality. Nevertheless, this book makes an interesting contribution to the existing research on coordination and should inspire future investigations in the area.

Reviewed by András Kertész, University of Debrecen

Case studies are one of the most effective and most often used means of qualitative research in applied linguistics and second language acquisition research. However, the case study method is only rarely explained explicitly and students acquire its use mainly implicitly, in practice, without the guidance of textbooks. The work under review intends to fill this gap. Its aim is threefold. First, Patricia Duff introduces the reader to the methodological foundations of case study research. Second, she presents a series of sample case studies with respect to second language acquisition. Third, she shows how to apply the technique of case study research.

To achieve these aims, Ch. 1, ‘Case study research in applied linguistics’, starts with the discussion of a concrete example so as to give the student a first impression of the nature of case studies. The case exemplifies different theoretical and methodological traditions and also shows that the impact of case studies may touch on broader foundational, methodological, and theoretical problems of second language acquisition research.

In Ch. 2, ‘Defining, describing, and defending case study research’, after defining the notion of case study, the author presents an outline of the theoretical background, the methodological characteristics, the advantages, the disadvantages, and the significance of both qualitative research and case studies.

Ch. 3, ‘Examples of case studies in applied linguistics’, provides a rich inventory of different types of case studies with many examples so as to highlight their differences as well as their common features. One of the most important conclusions the examples yield is that case studies have to consider the language learner as a multidimensional individual with his or her own history, hopes, and desires.

Chs. 4 and 5 set out to describe how to conduct case studies. In Ch. 4, D elucidates the initial phase of conceptualizing and planning a case study. Ch. 5 focuses on the analysis, interpretation, and evaluation of case study data.

Ch. 6, ‘Writing the case study report’, summarizes those factors that shape the way case studies should be presented. These factors include, for example, the intended audience, purpose and focus, contents, stylistic matters, and ethics. This chapter is followed by references and an author and subject index.

In sum, the book undoubtedly achieves all three aims mentioned above and is, accordingly, a very useful and well-written introduction to the methodology of qualitative research in the field of applied linguistics.

Reviewed by Iulia Pittman, Auburn University

An overview of Swiss German for those not familiar with German, this volume includes observations not described in previous studies.

Johannes Reese begins by presenting some ‘General information’ (3–7) and surveying the linguistic situation in Switzerland. Although the label might be used to refer to any of the numerous dialects of Germanic Switzerland, R uses Swiss German only in reference to the dialect spoken in and around Zurich. Other dialects are simply referred to by the name of their geographic region. Additionally, R discusses the koineization process, which is currently taking place around Zurich.

Ch. 2, ‘Phonology’ (8–14), contains an inventory of the Swiss German phonemes, including vowels, diphthongs, and consonants. Syllable structure, assimilation, phonology of foreign words, and phonological differences between Swiss German and Standard German are also considered. The rules of Swiss German orthography are discussed in Ch. 3, ‘Orthography’ (15–16). A list of phonemes with their corresponding orthographic letter is also provided.

Ch. 4, ‘Morphology’ (17–34), supplies an overview of the nominal and verbal morphology. In Ch. 5, ‘Aktionsart, tense, aspect, mood’ (35–46), R tackles the controversial issue of Aktionsart and compares the tense, aspect, and mood system of Swiss German to the English system.

Ch. 6, ‘Syntax’ (47–71), details the syntax of Swiss German. R explores noun phrases, adverbials, and verb phrases as well as sentence modality, complex sentences, and word order.

The last chapter, Ch. 7, ‘Text’ (72–76), includes the transcript of a recording from the phonogram archives at Zurich University. R reminds the reader that Modern Swiss German is not a real language but rather an open set of possible forms. Thus, deviations between the text and the presented grammar should be considered normal.

Despite some minor editorial issues, this book represents a thorough reference guide to Swiss German. Although previous knowledge of German is not a prerequisite, a solid knowledge of linguistics is recommended for maximum comprehension.

Reviewed by András Kertész, University of Debrecen

The work under review is the third revised and enlarged edition of a successful textbook that has been widely used for over a decade. Besides a series of corrections, the current edition includes a new chapter on grammatical indeterminacy, terminological changes, new case studies, and the reorganization of some of the chapters.

The author adopts the syntactic framework of generative grammar as elaborated by Noam Chomsky. The central idea of the textbook is that the application of this framework to English syntax is associated with an explicit emphasis on the techniques of syntactic argumentation. The fifteen chapters of the book are divided into four parts.

Part 1, ‘Function and form’, is devoted to the introduction of basic notions and methods of analysis. Bas Aarts discusses grammatical functions such as subject, predicate, direct object, indirect object, adjunct, word classes, and phrasal categories. The last chapter of Part 1 examines the interface between function and form. In regard to the methods of analysis, trees and labeled bracketing are also exemplified.

In Part 2, ‘Elaboration’, A deepens the application of the conceptual and methodological framework outlined in the previous section. Thematic roles, X-bar syntax, clause structure, and movement are discussed. At this point, the reader may have acquired enough experience to reflect methodologically on the concepts that have been introduced thus far.

Part 3 of the book is devoted to ‘Argumentation’. Its aim is to make explicit the methodology of the hypothesis-falsification approach as used in syntax. To begin with, the author motivates this methodology by an instructive example. In subsequent chapters, methodological principles such as economy of description, elegance of description, and independent justification are discussed. In illustrating these principles, constituency tests are carried out. Dummy elements and idiom chunks as well as equi and raising predicates are further mentioned.

Building on the methodological foundations of syntactic argumentation that have been introduced, Part 4, ‘Applications’, presents a series of case studies. The case studies show how decisions between conflicting analyses can be made, how evidence may be used to support or to falsify hypotheses, and how provisional solutions of problems in turn raise new problems. The topics discussed include noun phrase structure (e.g. a lot of books and a giant of a man) as well as verb complementation, subordinating conjunctions, and prepositions.

The book is a pedagogic masterpiece for several reasons. First, the chapters are didactically well-structured in that beside the main text, they include a list of key concepts, a series of exercises, and recommendations for further reading. Second, in the main text, new concepts and methods of analysis are systematically introduced. Finally, conscious reflection on the technique of syntactic argumentation is a highly effective means to introduce the student to the practice of problem solving in syntax.

Reviewed by Marc Pierce, University of Texas at Austin

The study of word origins often attracts nonlinguists, as demonstrated by the numerous columns on etymology in popular periodicals and by the regular appearance of questions about word origins on quiz shows such as Jeopardy!. However, much of the popular information about etymology is incomplete or inaccurate. This book, which is aimed at nonlinguists, is intended to provide a ‘thorough investigation of the history of the science of etymology [authored by] an internationally acclaimed expert, [Anatoly Liberman]’ (statement on the dust jacket).

The book consists of eighteen whimsically titled chapters, such as, ‘Chapter ten, which suggests that in the world of words, anonymity is the greatest reward, or words and names’ (106–25). There is also an extensive collection of endnotes and indexes of English words, names, and subjects.

Perhaps the best way to give an accurate snapshot of the contents is to examine one chapter in more detail—specifically, ‘Chapter eleven, in which history pretends to raise its veil, or coinages by known individuals’ (126–34). Ch. 11 opens with a brief discussion of the words gas—coined by the Flemish chemist Jan Baptista van Helmont—and boondoggle—‘allegedly coined in 1925 by R. H. Link, an American Scoutmaster’ (128)—followed by an extensive discussion on the origins of Lilliputian—coined by Jonathan Swift for Gulliver’s Travels, first published in 1726—and jeep, both of which present a variety of problems for the etymologist. Jeep, for instance, has two main competing etymologies: the first proposal derives the word from GP, an abbreviation for either general production, for general purpose, or for general purposes, while the other proposal links it to Eugene the Jeep, a character from the Thimble Theatre comic strip (later renamed Popeye), who could only say ‘Jeep!’. L notes that the evidence for both of these etymologies is inconclusive. This nicely illustrates just how difficult etymological research can be: jeep must have been coined around 1940 and yet has no definitive etymology, despite its relatively young age.

Happily, this book lives up to the description on the dust jacket: it contains an engaging discussion of etymology that will help eliminate some of the prevailing misconceptions about word origins. It will make an excellent textbook for an introductory course on English etymology. Those interested in etymology would be well-advised to read this book.

Reviewed by Louisa Buckingham, Sabanci University

En activo is aimed at intermediate to upper intermediate learners of Spanish who intend to work in a professional office environment where Spanish is the medium language. Both peninsular and Latin American variants of Spanish are featured. This work is not as narrowly focused and specialized as, for example, the Español por profesiones series (Madrid, Spain: Sociedad General Española de Librería, 2007). For this reason, instructors without specialized knowledge of the business world will feel comfortable using it. It may also have a place in general language courses with a vocational component. Nonetheless, En activo is a serious text that will provide learners with the solid linguistic basis required to perform adequately in a work setting. From an initial visual perspective, it has sacrificed the glossy full-colour and costly format typical of many textbooks currently on the market for a more sober approach, with relatively densely laid out texts and exercises. This will appeal to professionals, particularly those with an autodidactic leaning, as the text includes both an answer key and tape scripts at the end of the book. Moreover, each chapter encourages further individual learning through the inclusion of websites from the Spanish-speaking world that are relevant to the chapter’s topic.

En activo comprises twenty units, each of about fifteen pages. Four of these units constitute review lessons that consist of discussion exercises. Topics covered include communication in the work place, integration of disabled people and foreigners in the work place, health care, the stock market, international trade, and the media. Each unit is divided into six sections with a particular focus on one of the four skills, although all have follow up exercises involving other skills. The first two sections in each unit concentrate on receptive skills. Grammar (the usual selection of prepositions, tenses, use of subjunctive and the passive voice, and adverbial phrases) is covered with a short, pithy presentation of a particular point in the ‘Recuerde que’ (‘Remember that’) section, while vocabulary (including fixed phrases) is extended in the subsequent section. Productive skills are promoted in the final two sections that require students to undertake a work-skills related task (e.g. filling out forms, understanding documents such as pay slips and bank statements, and drawing up a contract) and complete an activity through researching informative internet sites. Both extend learners’ understanding of the chapter’s topic and encourage learner autonomy.

The organization and content of this work provides learners with the necessary support to complete the relatively controlled and the subsequently less controlled activities included at the end of each unit. A further laudable feature is the book’s ample online support where learners can access all audio texts and a blog, regularly updated by the authors of the book with information relating to the Hispanic business world. En activo is highly recommended both as a classroom text and as a medium for self-directed learning.

Reviewed by Marc Pierce, University of Texas at Austin

This book contains eighty brief entries on important figures in the history of linguistics and the philosophy of language, including Aristotle, Leonard Bloomfield, Noam Chomsky, Wilhelm von Humboldt, and Ludwig Wittgenstein. Each entry is relatively brief and straightforward. For example, the entry on Kenneth Pike (206–07), written by Alan S. Kaye, provides a brief biographical overview, a discussion of Pike’s contributions to phonetics and linguistic terminology (e.g. Pike coined the terms emic and etic), references to some of Pike’s writings, and a few works about Pike.

Although one could quibble over the choice of scholars discussed, in general this book covers a judicious cross section of the key figures in the field. The entries contain a great deal of useful and interesting information within a limited amount of space, making the book a handy—and relatively inexpensive—reference guide. It will be a welcome addition to the library of any linguist or philosopher of language.

Reviewed by Ekaterina Timofeeva, University of Jyväskylä

The thirty-six contributions in this volume were selected from more than two hundred proposals by the participants of the Sixteenth Congress of the International Comparative Literature Association at Pretoria, South Africa, in 2000. The volume is aimed primarily at specialists in particular literatures, literary generalists, and comparativists. The common goal of the series is to create a comparative literary history of Romanticism that views literature as a part of cultural life.

The volume is thematically organized in three parts. In the eight chapters of Part 1, ‘Characteristic themes’, the authors deal with contextual approaches to Romanticism to address two major issues: (i) how narrative fiction was influenced by the political, social, and cultural context of Romantic period; and (ii) how certain themes were represented through the literary prism or literary context of Romanticism. For instance, Gerhart Hoffmeister, focusing on three seminal novels by Friedrich Maximilian Klinger, Charles Dickens, and Victor Hugo and seeing the French Revolution as a cultural revolution, identifies similarities in the narrative treatment of the Revolution as well as in the importation of history into fiction. Wilhelm Graeber traces the evolution of the semiotics of nature and landscape in the Romantic prose that proceeds from the representation of the foreign exotic landscapes to the sublime beauty of the landscapes of home, thus evoking a sense of national identity.

Part 2, ‘Paradigms of Romantic fiction’, is divided into two subsections. Subsection A is devoted to the generic types of Romantic fiction. Hendrik van Gorp approaches the Gothic novel as a Romantic genre, whereas Sven Halse provides a cross-cultural analysis of the idyll. Subsection B, which consists of eight chapters, is devoted to describing discursive patterns of Romantic fiction, raising such popular current topics as community, otherness, homophony, and polyphony. Part 3 traces the influence of Romanticism on nineteenth and twentieth century writing and thought. Particularly, the chapters of this part look into the interface between the Enlightenment, Realism, Modernism, and Postmodernism with Romanticism in light of its spread beyond Europe. For instance, Takayuki Yokota-Murakami explores the Japanese version of Romantic prose, while Jüri Talvet and José Ricardo Chaves, in their respective chapters, deal with the features of Romanticism in Latin America.

Despite its impressive size, the 700-page volume still does not include all the contemporary perspectives on Romanticism, and the editors frequently acknowledge that such an intent lies outside their scope. Nevertheless, approaching Romanticism from a comparative cross-cultural perspective, this book is a valuable collection and an indispensable resource for scholars pursuing research in Romantic literature.

Reviewed by Marc Pierce, University of Texas at Austin

The author of this etymological dictionary of German originally aimed to create a database of approximately 3800 monosyllabic morphemes extracted from previous German etymological dictionaries. However, as his project progressed, Hermann Bluhme discovered that approximately twenty-five percent of the data required new analysis, and the end result is this volume. B begins with a discussion of his rationale for compiling the dictionary, a brief outline of the phonology of Standard German, a list of loan words in German by donor language, a list of native words according to semantic field, and short essays on loan relationships between Germanic and Semitic.

B’s etymological descriptions are concise: included under each headword are the semantic field, related words in the modern language, a list of Germanic and Indo-European cognates, and some Bemerkungen ‘remarks’. For instance, the entry Buch ‘book’ provides the semantic field Kultur ‘culture’; the related word Buchstabe ‘letter of the alphabet’; cognates from Old and Middle High German, Dutch, Greek, and Russian; and a note that, contrary to the traditional etymology, Buch is not necessarily related to Buche ‘beech tree’.

Because of its lists of loan words by language and native words by semantic field, in some respects, this volume is more convenient than standard etymological dictionaries of Modern German, such as Friedrich Kluge’s Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache (Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 2002). Therefore, those interested in, for instance, Yiddish loan words in German, or native agricultural words, need only consult the relevant section of the list, rather than search through the entire book. However, B’s text should not supplant more standard etymological dictionaries, like Kluge’s, for three major reasons. First, Kluge’s volume offers more detailed etymological discussion than is found here (e.g. Kluge’s discussion of Buch ‘book’ is significantly more thorough than B’s). Second, the loan relationships between Germanic and Semitic should be examined more cautiously than B considers them. Finally, Kluge’s text is significantly less expensive than this book. This volume will therefore be of most use to those interested in convenient lexical lists or loan connections between Germanic and Semitic languages, whereas scholars whose etymological interests are more general will be better served by other texts.