review of dependency syntax: theory and practice by i. melcuk

7/24/2019 Review of Dependency Syntax: Theory and Practice by I. Melcuk

1/34

Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found athttp://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=rwrd20

Download by:[123.2.15.242] Date:14 November 2015, At: 02:44

WORD

ISSN: 0043-7956 (Print) 2373-5112 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rwrd20

Reviews

Alan R. Libert, Joseph Clancy Clements, Martha S. Ratliff, Thomas A. Lovik,Charles W. Kreidler & Jacqueline Anderson

To cite this article:Alan R. Libert, Joseph Clancy Clements, Martha S. Ratliff, Thomas A. Lovik,

Charles W. Kreidler & Jacqueline Anderson (1990) Reviews, WORD, 41:2, 223-255, DOI:10.1080/00437956.1990.11435822

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00437956.1990.11435822

Published online: 16 Jun 2015.

Submit your article to this journal

Article views: 3

View related articles
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/mlt/10.1080/00437956.1990.11435822http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/mlt/10.1080/00437956.1990.11435822http://www.tandfonline.com/action/authorSubmission?journalCode=rwrd20&page=instructionshttp://www.tandfonline.com/action/authorSubmission?journalCode=rwrd20&page=instructionshttp://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00437956.1990.11435822http://www.tandfonline.com/action/showCitFormats?doi=10.1080/00437956.1990.11435822http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rwrd20http://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=rwrd20


2/34

eviews

IGOR A. MEL CUK. Dependency Syntax: Theory and Practice. Albany:

State University o New York Press, 1988.

xx

428 pp.

Reviewed by L N R LIBERT

Syntactic theories can be divided into two general types: those

which are based on phrase structure, and those based on dependency.

n North America, theories using phrase structure analysis (particularly

the various versions

o

Transformational Generative Grammar) are far

more popular and widely-known than dependency theories. Indeed

some syntax students may be completely unaware o the existence o

dependency syntax. This book may be seen as an attempt to correct the

situation, and this is a laudable goal. The field o linguistics would be

a healthier one if linguists paid more attention and gave more respect

to their colleagues working in different frameworks. An open-minded

reader can thus easily be sympathetic to Mel cuk s effort, and Depen-

dency Syntax is a generally well-done and convincing presentation

o

one brand

o

dependency analysis, namely the Meaning Text theory

(MTT).

Dependency Syntax may be worthy

o

a detailed commentary and

analysis, but in this short review I can only give a superficial overview

o

the work, in the hope that readers will become interested enough to

read and judge it for themselves. Further, I shall say little about the

MTT theory itself; rather I shall concentrate on Mel cuk s presentation

o

this theory. I shall make some general points about the book as a

whole, and then give an account o the contents o individual chapters.

One should first note that this book does not consist entirely

o

new

material; much

o it is

made up

o

revised versions

o

older papers,

some o which were written with other scholars.

There are several factors that make Dependency Syntax unneces-

223

Dow

nloadedby[123.2.1

5.2

42]at02:4414November2015


3/34

224

WORD

VOLUME 41, NUMBER 2 AUGUST

1990

sarily difficult to read. Some

of

Mel'cuk's endnotes are very long,

which may make it hard to follow the arguments

of

the main text. For

example, note 5

of

Chapter 7

is

more than three pages, while note 4

of

chapter 5

is

almost five pages long, which must be some kind

of

record. On the other hand, the endnotes are cross-referenced with the

main text, which is helpful. Those readers who do not know Russian

may not be able to fully appreciate the book, as Mel'cuk takes many

of

his examples from that language. t should however be noted that

there does exist an extensive study

of

English in the MTT Framework

(Mel'cuk and Pertsov 1987), for those who would like to see this

framework applied to English. There are a small number of typograph

ical and grammatical errors, not enough to be annoying, but perhaps

enough to be noticeable.

A general problem is that one may judge all types

of

dependency

grammar on the basis

of

this book, and so perhaps not get an accurate

picture

of

dependency theory as a whole. That is, if for one reason or

another, one is not impressed by Mel'cuk's ideas, one may take on a

negative attitude towards all dependency-based frameworks, just as

one might form a prejudice against all frameworks

of

the generative

tradition, just because he found one particular framework within that

tradition (e.g., Generalized Phrase Structure Grammar) to be inade

quate. This may be an unavoidable type

of

problem for a book

of

this

sort, but it should be noted that there are many different points

of

view

under the general heading of dependency theory, and one should not

judge all

of

them on the basis

of

MTT.

Part I ( Dependency Syntax: n Overview ) may be the most

interesting and useful part

of

the book for those unfamiliar with de

pendency grammar. Here Mel'cuk gives a general picture

of

depen

dency theory, including a welcome bibliography

of

work

of

this school

(Chapter 1), and an introduction to Meaning-Text theory (Chapter 2).

The latter chapter presents some difficulties for the reader. First, this

chapter, as well as much

of

the rest

ofthe

book, seems to contain a large

number of items in lists, e.g.

A

generalized lexeme is one of the

following four items (p. 60),

A

DSyntRel [=Deep-Syntactic Re

lation] is one of the following nine binary relations'' (63), ' 'The SSyntR

of a sentence consists

of

four structures (67), The Semantic Com

ponent must be able to perform eight main operations'' (73). This can

make for tedious reading, although I do not know how one could

express the ideas in a better fashion. What are more annoying, and more

difficult to follow, are the figures illustrating the semantic, deep-syn

tactic, and surface-syntactic representations

of

sentences (e.g. Figures

2-3, p.

54).

Dow

nloadedby[123.2.1

5.2



4/34

REVIEWS

5

These are considerably more complex than the phrase structure

trees

of

transformational grammar. While one can not blame Me ' cuk

for the complexity

of

the representations, since they should reflect the

complex interrelations holding among linguistic constituents,

it

would

have been preferable to use simpler sentences than ' 'As the American

press says, the President believes that a duty of the people of the

United States

is

active aid to the development

of

the economy

of

African countries." Mel'cuk does realize the difficulty

of

following

such representations; as he says (53), they

may

stun a newcomer

I had the choice between using a toy SemR [ =Semantic Representa

tion] or exposing the reader to the astonishing complexity

of

the real

thing. Not without hesitation, I opted for the second alternative." I am

not sure whether the right choice was made.

With regard to the MTT framework itself, I shall just mention that

perhaps its most distinctive characteristic, aside from the fact that it

is

a dependency theory, is the fact that it

is

not a generative model, but

rather a mapping system, which links the set of texts to the set of

meanings. Thus it

is

rather different from transformational theories;

nothing

is

transformed or generated; as Mel'cuk says (45), the rules

"simply match" meanings and texts (or the intermediate levels be

tween them). For those used to some of the better known North Amer

ican schools

of

linguistics this may be a new and interesting way

of

viewing linguistic processes.

Part

(''An

important concept of Dependency Syntax: Surface

Syntactic Relations") contains a single chapter

in

which various types

of dependency relation-morphological, syntactic, semantic) are dis

cussed. It

is

important to realize that there are different sorts

of

de

pendencies, and that a dependency

of

one kind does not imply the

existence or directionality

of

dependencies

of

other kinds. This can be

seen

in

Mel'cuk's section on "Possible Combinations

of

Syntagmatic

Dependency" 118-128).

Part Ill begins the examination

of

the practice

of

dependency

theory. This part deals with the difficult problems involved in the study

of

ergative constructions (Mel'cuk rejects the term

ergativity ,

specif

ically with whether there is an ergative construction

in

Dyirbal (Chapter

4) and Lezgian (Chapter 5). A definition

of

subject is clearly crucial to

a decision on whether a construction

is

ergati ve, and so Mel 'cuk spends

some time on the characteristics

of

subjects

in

Dyirbal and Lezgian. His

conclusion

is

that neither language has an ergative construction: the GS

[Grammatical Subject]

of

what had been considered ergative construc

tions

is

a semantic object and not a semantic subject (Mel'cuk's def-

Dow

nloadedby[123.2.1

5.2



5/34

226

WORD,

VOLUM

41, NUMBER 2 AUGUST 1990

mtion

of ergative construction

is ' 'a non-nominative construction

whose GS refers to the 'semantic

subject '),

while Lezgian simply

lacks transitive verbs (and thus can not have an ergative construction).

These conclusions may still be open to debate, but Mel'cuk has pre

sented good arguments. One is made aware of the importance

of

def

initions of such notions as subject; discussion of ergative constructions

is meaningless until one knows what a subject is. The third and final

chapter of Part Ill is not concerned with a particular language, but is

concerned with defining

ergative construction.

The definition is basi

cally the same as that given before,

in

Chapter 4, but this chapter is of

value because Mel'cuk gives a "typology of predicative construc

tions'',

where these constructions are classified on the basis

of

relations

among three levels, namely semantics, (surface) syntax, and (deep)

morphology. This three-way correlation is significant, because while it

is common to analyze any construction in which the grammatical subject

does not correspond to either the semantic subject or the nominative NP

of a sentence, Me ' cuk reserves the term ergative construction for those

constructions in which grammatical subjects and the semantic subjects

correspond, but do not bear nominative case. Thus Me 'cuk' s definition

is

narrower than those

of

some other linguists.

The two chapters

of

Part IV ("Syntactic Description: Surface

Syntactic Models and Notions") deal with two languages, Alutor

(Chapter 7), and Russian (Chapter 8), with reference to several sig

nificant features which they possess. The former chapter is of value

because so little material is available on the Alutor language, which is

related to the better known Chuckchee. In this chapter we see several

of the surface-syntactic rules posited for Alutor. Some of these rules

describe unusual kinds of agreement present in this language; a matrix

verb can agree with the subject or direct object

of

its subordinate

clause,

or

with the clause as a whole. The next chapter discusses a less

exotic phenomenon, the phonetically null elements which may be pos

ited

in

Russian sentences such as those below (of course similar sen

tences exist in other languages):

(la)

(lb)

Kolya v sosednej komnate

Ulicu zasypali peskom

'Kolya is in the next room.'

'The street was strewn with

sand

(by somebody).

One must be able to argue that these sentences do in fact have

"syntactic zeroes , and Mel'cuk does this for the type of sentence

exemplified by (lb), although I do not know whether I am convinced.

Dow

nloadedby[123.2.1

5.2



6/34

REVIEWS

227

There are two types

of

syntactic zeroes, the zero lex (as

in

la) and the

zero lexeme (as

in

lb). Mel'cuk stresses the distinction between these

zeroes, which

"EXIST

in language and as such are stored in the minds

of speakers" (linguistic

1

zeroes) and "descriptive devices introduced

by the researcher

in

order to make this description look more homo-

geneous, more compact or more elegant" (linguistic

2

zeroes). I am not

sure what he has in mind for the latter class; some examples would

clarify this. I suspect that the PRO pro and traces of Government-

Binding theory may be among Mel'cuk's linguistic

2

zeroes; however,

most researchers working

in

that framework would deny that these

categories have been posited merely to make their descriptions neater.

The last part of Dependency Syntax ("Syntactic Methodology:

Some Thorny Questions of Russian Syntax") consists of three chapters

which attack the problems involved in

making a choice among several

descriptions

of

some construction. Chapter 9 takes

up

the problem

of

how to describe an intriguing class of construction, those where a

"verb of emotion" (i.e. not a "normal verb of speech") introduces a

direct quote, as illustrated

in

(2):

(2) "Ostav'te

menja "-ispugalsja

bufetCik

'"Leave

me

alone "-became

frightened the bartender.'

The questions raised by Mel'cuk are what the (syntactic) relation

is

between the matrix emotion verb and the quote clause and which

constituent of such sentences conveys the idea "utter the given utter-

ance''.

He chooses a ''syntactic'', rather than a ''lexical'' solution, and

so claims that the syntactic relation between verbs of emotions and the

quotations they introduce is not the same as that between verbs such as

say

and the quotes which they introduce. The idea

of

uttering

is

con-

veyed by the

''the

syntactic structure itself ''

in

sentences with the verbs

of

emotion.

In Chapter

1

Me ' cuk argues for the addition of animacy to the

list of inflectional categories relevant for cardinal numerals in Russian,

to account for following type of differences

in

adjectival endings:

3a)

3b)

4a)

4b)

Ja vizu cetyre sosny

Ja vizu cetyrex devusek

Ja vizu krasivyj dom

Ja vizu krasivogo junosu

'I

see four pine trees.'

'I see four girls'

'I see a beautiful house'

'I see a handsome youth'

It

is

surprising that this problem

is

mentioned as little as Mel'cuk

claims; he cites (372) two ''basic reference works on Russian'' in

Dow

nloadedby[123.2.1

5.2



7/34

228 WORD, VOLUM 41, NUMBER 2 AUGUST

1990

which this problem is not brought up . In any case, his solution

appears reasonable, and he provides a list

of

seven arguments for

choosing it over the alternative solution

of

positing another case (the

animate-accusative

case).

The final chapter is also concerned with numerals, specifically

with the question

of

what case

is

borne by certain numerical con

structions (containing animate nouns) occurring after the Russian prep

ositions: v 'in', na 'on', az 'behind', cerez 'through, behind',

po

'each' when these prepositions are used

in

a quantitative sense, as

in

siloj rovno v tri medvedja 'with the power of exactly three bears'. It

has been said that such expressions bear accusative case, but this

answer is not satisfactory because such numerical constructions have a

different form when they occur

in

standard accusative contexts , i.e.

direct object position (e.g. the form required is trex medvedej rather

than tri medvedja . Mel'cuk sets up the choice between the solutions

of claiming that these constructions are actually

in

the nominative case

(what one might see as the obvious solution), and maintaining that they

are accusative, but do not take the expected form because

of animacy

non-agreement between the numeral and the animate noun. Mel'cuk

chooses the second solution. giving four arguments for it. One of his

arguments

is

that Russian prepositions do not govern the nominative in

any other situations, and thus it would violate the spirit

of

the

language to claim that these five prepositions can govern a nominative

noun when used in

a quantitative way. It must be pointed out that it

is

not completely unheard of for a preposition to govern a nominative

in

other languages, and Mel'cuk himself concedes that Russian nomina

tive NPs are not as syntactically independent as has been thought.

Although the earlier chapters of the book may be the most inter

esting for many readers, those who are interested in ergative construc

tions

or

certain aspects

of

Russian syntax will also find the later chap

ters useful. While I do not find that Dependency Syntax is as neutral a

book as Mark Aronoff seems to indicate in the preface, it is a non

polemical introduction to a theory (or set of theories) which will ben

efit those wishing to learn about alternative conceptions of syntax.

Department

o

Linguistics

McGi/1 University

Montreal, Quebec H3A JG5

Canada

REFERENCES

Mel'cuk I. A and N

V

Pertsov.

1987.

Surface Syntax

o

English. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Dow

nloadedby[123.2.1

5.2



8/34

REVIEWS

229

DANIELLE CORBIN. Morphologie Derivationelle et structuration

u

lex-

ique. 2 vols. Linguistische Arbeiten Series, Nos. 193-94. Tiibingen: Niemey

er, 1987. vxii 937 Pp.

Reviewed y

JosEPH

CLANCY CLEMENTS

It is unique

in

the current stage

of

development

of

the study

of

derivational morphology (DM) to encounter a theory based on insights

from both lexicology and lexicography as well as from current theory

in

DM. The present two-volume work is a thorough treatment

of

French DM precisely from such a perspective. One of the author s

principle objectives in this endeavor was to help remedy the lack of

detailed empirical analyses in the current literature on DM, which, she

notes, is one reason for the proliferation

of

alternative theories

in

recent years.

The firstvolume is divided into three parts. In the first, Corbin

(C)

argues against the commonly accepted methodological practices for

data collection predominant in DM today. Part is devoted to the

examination of several current frameworks and how they deal with

regularities, subregularities and irregularities in DM. Here, she also

develops what she calls a stratified, associative model and argues for

its superiority over the existing frameworks for the treatment of different

kinds and degrees

of

sub- and irregularities. In part Ill, C presents and

discusses the structure of the lexical component developed in part 11

Volume two contains the footnotes,

16

appendices consisting of data

collections and studies that substantiate arguments put forth in the first

volume along with very helpful subject, author and word indices.

In

part I, C presents solid arguments against the methological

practices generally employed by morphologists today. With data col

lected on the adverb-forming suffix ment

-ly

from

15

French mono

lingual dictionaries (found in appendices

of

volume two), she argues

that the dictionaries consulted are inconsistent

in

the ordering

of

base

and derived words (DWs) with respect to one another (macrostructural

ordering) as well as in the ordering of the different meanings of a given

DW from the most regular to the most idiosyncratic (microstructural

ordering). Although

C s

study is most thorough, the same should be

carried out for various other affixes of different degrees of frequency

and productivity to ascertain whether her findings hold there as well.

Moreover, even though the same situation were to obtain for dictio

naries in other languages, it seems dangerous to overgeneralize that the

situation

of

French lexica reflects that

of

dictionaries in any language,

which seems to be what C implies.

Dow

nloadedby[123.2.1

5.2



9/34

230

WORD, VOLUME

41. NUMBER 2 AUGUST

1990

In dealing with dictionaries, C draws a useful distinction between

the lexicon o the linguist as opposed to that o the lexicographer.

While the lexicon

o

the latter is present

in

all dictionaries and is the

less restricted o the two in the sense that it contains extra-linguistic

as well as linguistic information, the linguist s lexicon

is

less restricted

in another sense: It must remain unconstrained by anything that is

not strictly linguistic. C also discards the ambiguous notion

o pro

ductivity and suggests availability (my translation o Fr. disponibilite

to denote the capacity o an affix to be used

in

coining unattested

DWs,

andfrequency

(Fr.

rentabilite

to denote the number

o

attested

DWs

a

given affix is involved in forming. Her distinction is reminis

cent

o

Aronoff s (1983) differentiation between

productivity

n fre-

quency.

C also scrutinizes the notion o native speaker intuition, noting

that such

an intuition is actually based on three types o metalinguistic

competence: a) sense o newness o a DW, b) metalinguistic awareness

and c) acceptability judgments. It is not exactly clear why C differen

tiates between the first and second types since she herself (58) con

fesses that they are one and the same. Types a) and b presuppose, she

states, theoretical impossibilities:

I f

there is an intuition o what is or

is

not a neologism, it implies that all speakers have the same lexical

pool from which to draw, which is at odds with the accepted fact that

no one knows the same set o words. Type c), she says, suffers from

a triple ambiguity in that an asterisk marking a DW as ill-formed

can be interpreted either that i it is not attested, ii) it is ill-formed

according to acceptability judgments or iii) according to the word

formation rules (WFRs). The first two o these are cases o accidental

gaps in the lexicon. E.g. the fact thatferroviaire relative to railroads

is normally used instead o ferrovial might say something about the

availability

o

the suffix

-al

to derive new forms, but there are no

linguistic constraints systematically blocking its existence. iii) repre

sents a case

o

a systematic gap. For instance, DWs such as

*demaison

dehouse (N) are impossible because part o the corresponding WFR,

i.e. the category change (N > V), is violated. Systematic vs. acci

dental gaps

in

the body o attested DWs reflect what C refers to as

derivational vs. conventional lexical knowledge. While both are part o

our lexical competence, i.e. the sum o knowledge regarding the lex

icon, the former tells us what is linguistically well/ill-formed while the

latter allows

us

to judge what is otherwise acceptable

or

unacceptable.

She concludes, then, that metalinguistic intuition is necessary but not

sufficient as a source o data for the morphologist. She warns that great

Dow

nloadedby[123.2.1

5.2



10/34

REVIEWS

231

care must be taken to systematically collect a representative inventory

of

data from as many sources as possible, a practice, she claims, that

has not been strictly followed in the discipline.

C categorizes her model as stratified and associative. In part 11

she carefully examines the stratified and non-stratified models in lex

icalist morphology. Her main claim is that non-stratified models, such

as those of ackendoff (197 5), Aronoff (197 6), Booij (1977), Lieber

( 1981) and Selkirk ( 1982), have a lexical component consisting of

essentially only two sub-components: one list of entries where irreg

ularities are listed and one list of rules and/or principles that account

for the regularities. In her stratified model, subregularities, i.e. ones

that cannot be derived by derivational competence alone, are not lo

cated on the same level as regularities, but are subordinate to these.

Moreover, her model deals with the possible as well as the attested

lexicon and can neatly account for this difference in terms

of

system

atic vs. accidental gaps in the lexicon. Unlike the disassociative frame

works which, she claims, separate the treatment of semantic and mor

phological regularities, in C s associative model these treatments are

inseparably linked-an approach which I find to be similar to Zwicky s

( 1987) rule-to-rule relation between morphology and semantic rules.

However, In C s theory, the relation between WFRs, affixal lexical

entries and their respective semantic rules

of

interpretation exhibits a

number of innovative aspects. To understand these, a brief sketch of

her model is necessary.

The Base component contains underived words and affixes. Af

fixes, marked as [Affix] with their own lexical entries that do not

include lexical category specification, are independent of word forma

tion rules (WFRs) but linked to these through certain morphological

operations. One key novelty here

is

that the general notion

of

subcat

egorization (SUBCAT) frames has been done away with. On this view,

a WFR, such as A-> V with the corresponding semantic interpretation

make A , may be used for the prefix en- as

in

riche rich -> enrichir

enrich (make rich) , as well as for the suffix

-iser

as in

industrial

industrial -> industrialiser industrialize (make industrial ) (with

proper allomorphy). Idiosyncratic properties of the affixes are also

posited in the lexical entry. For instance, the suffix -ite -ity , associ

ated with the WFR A

->

N with the interpretation quality/character

istic

of

A ,

is

very restricted as to the bases with which it may combine:

it attaches only to bases containing the suffixes -able -aire -al. -el

-ique. In the Base component, C also distinguishes between complex

underived and complex derived words. The former are words with a

Dow

nloadedby[123.2.1

5.2



11/34

232

WORD,


1990

recognizable internal structure, of which there are two types: those

whose base is recognizable, as in royaume kingdom from roi king ,

and those whose affix is recognizable, as in carpette small rug , where

the base carpe rug does not exist. Complex DWs, as in chanteur

singer , are not listed in the lexicon and could not be listed since they

are, according to C, theoretically infinite

in

number. A contradiction

emerges here in the interaction of the different components. C states

that the WFRs and all possible DWs are found in the Derivational

Component, the only component with generative capacity. However,

as just noted, the possible DWs are not and, furthermore, cannot be

listed at all. Not listing at least the attested DWs also poses the tech

nical difficulty concerning how they can be used as inputs for the

WFRs to derive further DWs.

In C s

model, the weight

of

the semantic operation falls on the

WFRs and not on the affixes. The structure of a WFR

is

expressed in

the equation WFR = nWSCR + SSCR + MP + CSC + LSI. The

WFR for fertilisation fertilization would be as follows: the Word

Structure Construction Rule (WSCR) is V > N. It corresponds to only

one Semantic Structure Construction Rule (SSCR), which here

is

ac

tion or result of the action of V , and to only one Morphological Para

digm (MP), which

is

a list of all possible affixes/conversions corre

sponding to the WSCR and SSCR in question. These are: conversion

[ + masc] [-A]; conversion

[+fern]

[+A]; -ade; -age; -erie; -ment;

-tion; -ure, etc.

A

= available for forming new DWs). A set of

Categorial Semantic Constraints (CSCs) that restrict the general type

of

base to which the affixes in the MP may attach also form part of the

WFR. For example, the WFR at issue only applies to nonstative Vs.

Other restrictions, such as the constraints on the phonological form

of

the base to which a certain affix may attach, form part of the lexical

entries for affixes. The Lexical Selection and Insertion (LSI) mecha

nism, which handles proper insertion,

is

made sensitive to these con

straints.

Leaving aside the allomorphic specifications, the whole deriva

tional operation for fertilisation would take place, then, in the follow

ing manner. The lexical itemfertiliser fertilize would be inserted into

the structure N

>

[[X]v Y)ar1N whereby

it

would be checked whether

the categorial and semantic constraints associated with the WFR are

met. This operation creates the structure [[[fertile]A (is)]y

Y)ar1N

From among the affixes in the MP

of

the WFR only -tion may be

selected because the form of the base only allows the insertion of this

particular affix. This operation yields [[[fertile]A (is)]v tion)ar1N The

Dow

nloadedby[123.2.1

5.2



12/34

REVIEWS

233

DW is then associated with the meaning action and result of the action

of fertiliser and finally the necessary diacritic features, such as the

feature

[+fern],

are projected onto the DW.

This approach has numerous interesting though potentially dis

turbing implications. First, as noted above, the typical concept of

SUBCAT frames for affixes is done away with, the category change

being taken care

of

by the WFR with which a given affix

is

linked.

This is an unusual move since this notion is central in virtually all

models of grammar and all-pervasive in frameworks such as HPSG.

Second, by labeling affixes as [Affix] without lexical category marking

and associating them to a specific WFR as it is conceived of by C, the

notion of head in the DW becomes superfluous. At this stage of lin

guistic theory, where the concept of head is becoming one of the main

links between certain components

of

grammar, the idea

of

discarding

it seems highly undesirable.

Also of note in C s model is that if an affix has several different

meanings, as many corresponding affixes with the same phonological

representation are posited. C thus prefers a homonymous system where

different affixes may have the same form but only one meaning rather

than a polysemic approach in which one affix may have several dif

ferent meanings and only one form. The former approach, she claims,

aids in making the model more constrained. Finally,

C s

model lends

a new twist to the problem

of

bracketing paradoxes. In the associative

model she presents, it is implied that any and every bracketing com

bination for a given DW is theoretically possible as long as it is

permitted by the corresponding the WFRs. Unfortunately, she does not

address this issue at all.

Although the theory C proposes is generally very coherent, there

appear to be several minor inconsistencies

in

her model. The manner

in which she handles the commonly accepted distinction between trans

parent and non-transparent affixes is confusing. She states that only one

semantic operation (SO) corresponds to a given WFR.

n

her view, any

given SO involves three elements: I. a parasynthetic operation,

whereby a thematic role is added upon category change, 2. a lexical

category change operation and 3. a lexical operation. First, the oper

ation in

l. is

considered obligatory and as such must apply both to

derivations like chanteur singer


13/34

234

WORD,

VOLUM


some affixes stand for words as in

-erie

'place',

-ette

'small'. Operation

3. is claimed to be an addition to certain SOs, resulting in a more precise

characterization

of

them. While C

(263-66)

states that these three

operations may appear together, in hierarchical order, associated with

one WFR, it seems that operations 2. and 3. should be mutually

exclusive. It is also unclear exactly how these operations correspond to

DWs. Their application needs to be more constrained. Moreover, the

examples which are used to illustrate the point could be more diverse.

For idiosyncratic information of all kinds, C creates

n

her model

the interesting concept of a pragmatic component, called the Conven

tional Component (CC), in which are found allomorphy rules, an

Idiosyncracy Applier (lA) (Fr.

Applicateur d ldiosyncracies),

de

letion rules, minor semantic rules, a

Selector

(Fr. Selectionneur)

and the conventional (i.e. attested) lexicon; in short, all the material

that a speaker would store n

memory and not be able to derive. The

role

of

the lA is to assign (a) feature(s) to certain DWs in order to

sensitize them to certain minor semantic rules. C is not explicit con

cerning just how the lA knows which DWs to mark. It seems that this

information could simply be included

n

the lexical entry of the affixes.

Nor is it entirely transparent how the Selector operates. From the body

of

all possible DWs, which are not listed, the function

of

the Selector

s to mark with the feature [+Attested] that subgroup of the possible

lexicon which s attested. This s to show the actual state of the lexicon

of

a language at a given moment. The difficulty here appears

to

be that

the possible DWs are not listed and the Selector has again no way

of

knowing which to mark or not to mark. Moreover, the attested lexicon

s already listed

n

the CC. It seems, then, that the content and function

of the semantic operation as well as the functions of the lA and the

Selector need to be reelaborated. With respect to these last two items,

they may well be expendable.

These reservations notwithstanding, this carefully edited and well

written volume s a stimulating and impressive piece of work with a

solid empirical foundation and a healthy, eclectic perspective. It is not

only of import for many issues currently being debated

n

DM but it

offers challanging and penetrating ideas for their development and

eventual solution.

It s

worth the time it takes to read it.

Dept.

o

Spanish Portugese

Indiana University

Ballantine Hall

8/oomington, lnd. 47405

Dow

nloadedby[123.2.1

5.2



14/34

REVIEWS

235

REFERENCES

Aronoff.

M

1983. Potential words, actual words, productivity, and frequency.

Proceedings of

the Thirteenth International Congress

of

Linguists

163-71.

1976 ;

Word formation n generative grammar.

Cambridge:MIT Press.

Booij, G.E. 1977. Dutch morphology. A study of word formation n generative grammar.

Lisse:Peter de Ridder Press.

Jackendoff, R 1975. Regularites morphologiques et semantiques dans

le

lexique , French

translation. Ronat.

M

ed.,

1977. Langue. Theorie genenerative erendue.

Paris:Hermann.

pp

Lieber.

R 1981. On the organization

of

the lexicon.

MIT doctoral dissertation

1980;

reproduced

by

the Indiana University Linguistics Club.

Selkirk

1982.

The syntax

of

words.

Cambridge: MIT Press.

Zwicky,

A

1987.

Transformational grammarians and their

ilk . MIT Working Papers n

Linguistics 25:265-79.

PAOLO RAMAT. Linguistic Typology. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 1987.

Reviewed

y MARTHA

S. RATLIFF

Linguistic Typology is a very welcome English translation and

expansion of a collection of ten articles by the Italian linguist Paolo

Ramat. Chapter 9 is new to this volume. The other nine chapters are

revisions of articles previously published

in

the 70s and 80s, many of

which are

in

a language (Italian, German, French) or in a source out of

reach of potential readers. The essays have been revised with the

coherence of the whole in mind: the result is a clear delineation of

R'

s

theoretical position and practice with regard to typological research.

The book is divided into three parts: theoretical, problematic (Ro

mance and Germanic), and historiographical (Humboldt's typology).

Although the layout is logical, readers may find it most profitable to

read the essays of the second section on Romance and Germanic type

and type change first, to become acquainted with R' s research inter

ests, before reading sections one and three. The translation by A. P

Baldry is to be commended: the simplicity and clarity of R

s

style

is

well preserved and the English seems homegrown.

In the theoretical section, and indeed throughout the book, the

same major themes recur:

I) typological research is inductive and probabilistic, and, like

research into language change, can only suggest what

is

likely rather

than assert what must be so (for example, 35, 159-61);

Dow

nloadedby[123.2.1

5.2



15/34

236 WORD

VOLUME 41, NUMBER 2 AUGUST 1990

2

nevertheless, typological research rests on theoretical assump

tions that shape the inquiry. There

is

a necessary dialectic between

inductive and deductive methodologies. The concept

of type

itself

is not a directly perceivable reality in any language, but an abstract

model for the description and explanation

of

language phenomena''

(24);

3) At its best, typological research exposes networks

of

interre

lated strategies for communication that a given set

of

languages em

ploys-a functional orientation (for example 11-19).

In

the first chapter,

The

problems

of

linguistic typology , R

presents a useful review

of

the definitions

of

typology by modern

European scholars, and follows with an elaboration

of

the points pre

sented in simplified form above. He then discusses the relationship

between the study

of

language type and language universals, the rela

tionship between typology and language change, the explanation of the

existence

of

types, and the classification and quantification

of

typo

logical data in turn.

In

section 1.5.1 R briefly presents certain

pro

posals for language types'' that are consistent with the approach he

suggests (see point three above): Klimov's contentive typology ,

Greenberg's word order typology, and the proposals

of

the Cologne

research project on universals and typology

25-6).

This section de

serves expansion into an essay

of

its own: besides being on the ''right

track , how well do the authors

of

these typologies balance inductive

and deductive methodologies? How insightful and far-reaching are the

networks they reveal? Are they clear in illustrating the limitations

of

their classifications? In general, what kind of evaluation measure are

we to use

in

judging typological statements about

''the

organizational

principles

of

linguistic

data''?

In

Universals and typology , R describes the different ways the

term ''universal'' has been used: ''essential universals' ' (after Coseriu)

proceed from a definition of language (such as the property of linearity)

and are arrived at deductively, objective universals are discovered

by empirical research and are based on physiological or psychological/

communicative constraints shared by all (such as the markedness

of

OVS order), and subjective universals are those R considers lin

guists' analyses raised to the status

of

reality (such

asS->

NP VP, where

a particular linear order

is

given preference at the universal level ).

As

to the relationship:

The

purpose

of

typology

is

to create a

universally valid means

of

describing languages which will necessarily

be based on the essential, constituting (=universal) properties. For the

creation

of

an effective model of typological research, such concepts as

Dow

nloadedby[123.2.1

5.2



16/34

REVIEWS

237

'sentence' (and 'operation' 'grammar', and even 'structure',

'opposition', and so on are

relevant-and

these concepts do belong to

the domain of universals. (42).

The next chapter, The typological level: predicates and argu-

ments follows smoothly from the preceding one (and from the intro-

duction

of

this concept of deep structure given in 1.2.2). At the deepest

level common to all languages certain communicative functions lie

(universals-of

the

objective

type). The typological level is inter-

mediate between this level and the level of the manifestation of these

functions in any particular language. For example, all languages are

able to express the deictic function, but only a particular type will have

a cateogry of deictics (64). R criticizes modern treatments of the pas-

sive, in which the passive is derived from the active, in this light: at the

level of predicate and argument they are the same, and empirical study

demonstrates that one

is

not necessarily more basic than the other.

n

Crisis in formalism? Theory

of

grammar and empirical

data ,

R sets forth a description of the

' 'two

paradigms'' of linguistic research

that have separated linguists counterproductively into opposing camps:

''One formal paradigm considers a language (=a grammar) as an

abstract object, so that grammar is consequently seen as a set

of

formal

rules

of

syntax to be applied regardless

of

the possible meanings and

the possible uses of the syntactic structures described. A second takes

language primarily as an instrument of social interaction which estab-

lishes a communicative relationship within a society.'' (71) There is a

concomitant methodological difference: The formal paradigm is

(mainly) deductive, the functional paradigm is (mainly) inductive.

(72). Among many others, the former is exemplified by Hjelmslev and

Chomsky (in terms of metholodology), the latter by Bloomfield and

Dik. The challenge is to find a convergence

of

these two paradigms to

yield a more integrated theory

of

language 96). R sees hope in the

recent broadening of the generative model to account for more lan-

guages than English and in the introduction

of

the notion

of

param-

eter which in practice [accounts] for the existence of phenomena

that lead to the divergences that typological studies feed on. 96)

Nonetheless, the bulk

of

the chapter is critical

of

various generative

analyses which do not hold

up

to confirmation by empirical data from

a wide range of languages: two areas of discussion that are given

consideration at length are the representation

of

word order in grammar

which grows, R claims, from the inclusion

of

categorical notions in the

deep structure, implying universal validity for them 76-79) and gap-

ping phenomena in different languages, the causes for which include

Dow

nloadedby[123.2.1

5.2



17/34

238

WORD, VOLUME 41, NUMBER 2 AUGUST

1990

psycholinguistic as well as syntactic strategies in a complex and often

contradictory mix of

principles (80-88). Again, in place

of

these

analyses, R advocates an approach which studies the strategies differ

ent groups of languages employ to accomplish the same communica

tive task (Chapter 3).

The second section contains the following five articles: Toward

a typology

of

Common

Germanic ,

The birth

of

new morphological

categories: the case

of

the article and relative pronoun in Germanic

languages'', ''Towards a typology of Pompeian

Latin'',

' 'An example

of reanalysis: periphrastic forms in the Romance languages' verb

system ,

and Sentence Negation in Germanic and Romance lan

guages''.

I found two chapters of special interest in this section. R' s re

working

of

his oft-cited

1st das Germanische eine SOV-Sprache? ,

here Toward a typology of Common Germanic , effectively refutes

Vennemann's analysis of the cause for the change from SOY to SVO,

which involves topicalization of 0 and the subsequent movement of V

to second position to disambiguate the two NPs. R proposes instead

that the V2 position, already a tendency in Indo-European ( Wacker

nagel's

Law ),

was generalized (albeit inconsistently) in Germanic.

Sentence Negation in Germanic and Romance languages , a

joint project with linguists Molinelli and Bernini, examines type (es

pecially word order type) as one factor in the curiously parallel devel

opment of the position of the negative from preverbal to discontinuous

to postverbal (the latter two less common positions for the negative in

the world's languages) in both Romance and Germanic. A wealth of

data is presented to indicate that type may have influenced the histor

ical development of the negative in these languages, but that a possible

common origin for these two branches, language contact, and the

complex histories of individual languages in the two families have

played roles as well (the language contact situation is revealed in an

interesting map on 87 comparing both the structure of negative-verb

constructions and the lexical items involved).

The final essay

of

the collection,

The

language typology

of

Wilhelm von Humboldt'' , originally a contribution to an issue of

Lingua

e Stile

dedicated to H, seeks to correct the impression created by

Chomsky's

Cartesian Linguistics,

among other writings, that H was

primarily a Rationalist: there is no doubt that the idea of a

Universal Form or Grammar, underlying the diversity

of

various lan

guage forms and the consideration of language as creativity

(energia)

'which makes an infinite use

of

finite means' are concepts which

Dow

nloadedby[123.2.1

5.2



18/34

REVIEWS

239

characterize

H's

linguistics But as we have seen, behind H's

complex linguistic approach . . . lies one main goal: the study of

(historical and anthropological) causes and kinds of language differ

ences H thus wrote

Uber die Verschiedenheit des menschlichen

Sprachbaues

not

Uber die Gleichheit

and repeatedly stressed that the

'spirit of the people' is the real explanatory principle and basis for the

difference between languages

(198-99).

To demonstrate that H

was a Romantic, a product of his times,

as

much or more than a

Rationalist, R points out

Since

H agreed with Schlegel that some

languages (namely the inflectional ones) are better than others, his

typology, like Schlegel's has a finalistic teleological outlook, a must

be approach to languages, and thus becomes a critical yardstick.

( 192).

H s threefold classification of languages is based on the methods

different languages use to express unity

in

a sentence and are the ( l)

isolating, (2) incorporating, and (3) agglutinating-inflectional types

206-7).

R' s mastery

of

the literature on typology, his knowledge

of

current

theoretical debates in general linguistics both in Europe and the United

States, and his facility

in

the fields of Germanic and Romance philol

ogy are impressive. Although R s theoretical choices are evident and

his criticisms

of

generative grammar

in

Chapters 4 and

lO

are pointed,

he is not polemical, and constantly strives for synthesis and commu

nication among those who practice different brands of linguistics.

Both

[deduction and induction; theory-oriented and data-oriented]

positions are methodologically valid and necessary . . . Both derive

from a pretheoretical choice, often made on the basis of personal

inclination and, ultimately, ideological convictions, usually uncon

sciously accepted and hence not expressed explicitly-but nevertheless

still operating.''

71

). The volume will be of interest, then, to those

who wish to set a framework broad enough to encompass and relate the

variety of kinds of linguistic research that is going on today. It will be

crucial to those involved

in

typological research who need to sharpen

their understanding of the methods and goals of their research.

Dept. o English Linguistics Program

Wayne State University

Detroit M/. 48202

Dow

nloadedby[123.2.1

5.2



19/34

240

WORD


1990

ALBRECHT SCHONE, ed. Kontroversen alte und neue. Textlinguistik con-

tra Stilistik? Wortschatz und Worterbuch. Grammatische oder pragmatische

Organisation

vo

Rede?

Eds. Waiter Weis, Herbert Ernst Wiegand and

Marga Reis. Akten des VII. Internationalen Gennanisten-Kongresses Got

tingen 1985. Band 3. Tiibingen: Niemeyer, 1986. x + 403 pp. (32.50 DM.)

Reviewed by THOMAS A LovtK

This is the third

of

an 11-volume series

of

papers presented during

the 7th International Congress of Germanists held in Gottingen from

Aug.

25-31,

1985. Entitled Controversies, old and new, the par

ticipants, all Germanists trained in both literature and linguistics, ad

dressed primarily literary topics. Nonetheless, several sessions dealt

with more linguistically oriented topics, including the 45 articles on the

three topics included in this volume:

1

Textlinguistics or Stylistics? 2)

Lexicon and Dictionary, and 3) Grammatical or pragmatic organisation

of speech? Volumes 4 and 6 address language norms and dialects, and

women's language and literature, respectively.

Publishing the papers from a conference on a specialized topic,

such as this one in Gottingen, has its advantages and disadvantages.

On the one hand, the volume includes contributions by many major

researchers in the field. On the other hand, some contributions do not

always represent new ideas or research, but instead report on research

which may have appeared elsewhere in print. For the most part, how

ever, the quality of papers presented in this volume is very good and

the issues addressed are truly of a controversial nature. Since it

is

not

possible to discuss each paper in detail, some brief comments on the

general themes addressed in the presentations will have to suffice.

The session on Textlinguistics

or

Stylistics? brought together

13

specialists from the fields

of

textlinguistics, stylistics and literary

studies. The first seven papers by G. Michel, H-W Eroms, H. Aust, B.

Sandig, G. Lerchner, K. Weissenberger, and A. Obermayer all con

sider the theoretical dichotomy between textlinguistics and stylistics or

rhetorics and treat a variety

of

topics, e.g., I) textual and stylistic

norms, rules, and typologies;

2

stylistic variation, and 3) textual mod

els. Their data is taken from several non-literary text types, including

marriage announcements found in newspapers and weather reports

(Sandig) and historical descriptions of cities (Eroms).

Four of the remaining six papers involve stylistic/textual analyses

of literary texts. J. Goheen looks at allegorical structure in Gottfried' s

middle high German courtly epic Tristan und Isolde; F. Simmler char-

Dow

nloadedby[123.2.1

5.2



20/34

REVIEWS

24

acterizes and clarifies the function of syntax in the literary fairy tales

of German romanticism and contrasts this with the genre

of

orally

transmitted fairy tales represented by the brothers Grimm; H. Rupp's

interpretation of Paul Celan's poem Heimkehr demonstrates the limi

tations of a textlinguistic analysis sans interpretation; and W Weiss

demonstrates the interface of stylistics and textlinguistics in the prose

of Robert Musil. In a clear departure from the other papers, E. Schulz

and E.W.B. Hess-Liittich investigate the use of the spoken language as

a group marker by young people.

Not surprisingly, most of the papers begin with a discussion of the

relationship between sytlistics and textlinguistics. Style or stylistics

the older discipline,

is

seen as a subjective evaluation of esthetics,

which considers primarily stylistic devices. A stylistic analysis seeks to

provide depth, and remains, by nature, fuzzy.

Textlinguistics on the other hand,

is

descriptive, more objective,

more certain

of

its task, and has a distinct methodology, which is based

on taxonomic and algorithmic procedures. The strategies for text cre

ation,

e.g.,

narrating, describing, arguing, and directing, in short the

speaker/writer intention, are critical.

Despite the controversy reflected in the session title Textlinguistik

contra Stilistik? there

is

general agreement among these presenters at

least that textlinguistics and stylistics are not mutually exclusive.

In

fact, textlinguistics may even have something to offer stylistic studies

Cf. Goheen on allegory and Weiss on Musil's use of metaphor. To this

end, Michel (6) and Sandig

passim}-in

her extremely lucid style

subsume stylistics under textlinguistics.

The major shortcoming of traditional (literary) stylistics according

to G. Michel

is

its failure to adequately differentiate between the key

issues of normative

rule

vs. stylistic

regularity.

Current linguistic the

ories and methods, e.g., speech act theory, conversational analysis and

text linguistics, in conjunction with more empirical data from text type

studies, he suggests, are better suited to determine the most likely

regularities of the elusive stylistic norms.

Eroms finds it much easier to distinguish a stylistic analysis from

a textlinguistic analysis, whereas Aust notes that a text is much easier

to grasp than style. According to Aust the basic difference between

textlinguistics and stylistics is not what the two disciplines investigate,

but rather the questions each poses. Furthermore, a stylistic analysis is

more interested

in

the relationshhip of individual phases within a speech

activity, while a textlinguistic analysis

is

interested in the genesis of

texts and the identification of constitutive elements. In his concluding

Dow

nloadedby[123.2.1

5.2



21/34

242

WORD

VOLUME

41, NUMBER 2 (AUGUST

1990

commentary,

W.

Weiss applauds the emphasis in the presentations on

the centrality of the text versus that of the origin, reception or context

of

a text, thereby exposing his own methodological bias.

It should come as a surprise to

no one that the field of lexicogra

phy, which enjoys a distinguished tradition in German linguistic schol

arship, and lexicology should include

17

papers, an introduction

(Wiegand), a podium discussion and a conference summary (Fleis

cher), addressing controversial theoretical and practical issues

of

lex

icography,

e.g.,

word class inclusion/exclusion, monolingual vs. bi

lingual definitions, and audience needs.

In the lead article G. Harras, who speaks from years of lexico

graphical experience at the Institut fiir deutsche Sprache in Mannheim,

agrees with Wiegand (1985) that dictionary definitions need to be

written for the layman. Drawing on the work of H. Putnam (197 5,

1978), Harras recommends word definitions 1 that utilize stereotyp

ically marked semantic features as reflected in the Sprachgemein-

schaft

and

2

that avoid pseudo-scientific terminology. Kucera, on the

other hand, supports the notion that some degree of technical infor

mation that is comprehensible to the nonspecialist must be included in

definitions. Piischel, who reviews the merits of Johann August Eber

hard's contribution to the history

of

German thesaurus writing, reiter

ates the old notion, that it is unclear who uses a thesaurus, despite the

necessity that any thesaurus be written with the user clearly in mind.

Some of the most stimulating papers propose inclusion in dictio

naries of traditionally omitted word classes, e.g., modal particles

(Wolski), hedges (Kolde), formulaic expressions (Kiihn) and idioms

(Fleischer).

Three papers describe ongoing or planned dictionary projects.

Kirkness proposes abandoning the familiar German term Fremdwort

'foreign word' and adopting the English technical term 'hard word,' as

has been done at the IdS/Mannheim in the project

Schwerworterbuch

for German. E. Firchow H. Fix report on a successful computerized

lexicon for the Old Islandic Elucidarius, and Triib attempts to reconcile

difficulties presented by semasiological and onomasiological dictio

naries for Swiss German. L Zgusta broaches the delicate topic of

reputed plagiarism in M. Monier-Williams 1872 edition

A

Sanskrit

English Dictionary (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1989 1951.)

Acknowledging that dictionary writers today regularly borrow from the

work

of

others, he predicts an increase

in

this trend with the increased

computerization of dictionary projects.

Wiegand's paper on author lexica and his subsequent chairing of

Dow

nloadedby[123.2.1

5.2



22/34

REVIEWS 243

the podium discussion with West German authors Giinter Grass and

Helmut

e i ~ e n b i i t t e l

(Wolski,

228-236)

proved to be a highly con

troversial topic. Giinter Grass, who has strived for and developed a

pluralistisches SprachversHindnis in post-war West Germany, crit

icized Germanists in general and particularly Wiegand for utilizing a

Germanistensprache Lehrersprache Funktioniirssprache (229),

which is difficult (for the layman not to mention G. Grass himself) to

comprehend.

Several papers address the language used in definitions. Reiterat

ing an idea that has been around for several years, H.-P. Kromann

pleads for two different types

of

bilingual dictionaries for Germanis

t ik-a

passive reading reception dictionary that fosters Heriiber-

setzen i.e. from L

2

to L

1

and an

active

production dictionary that

enables Hiniibersetzen i.e., from L

1

to L

2

K. Sunaga discusses the

necessity for eliminating culturally-bound interference problems in

German-Japanese dictionaries. Similarly, H. Nikula criticizes the de

ficiencies of using authentic language examples. J. Korhonen outlines

the problems of semantic and syntactic verb descriptions

in

a historical

dictionary

of

German, and F. J. Hausmann criticizes the major German

thesaurus, the Schiilerduden (Muller) for failing to provide a) adequate

context in its examples,

b

pragmatic information

of

use to non-native

speakers and c) foreign words as an aid in meaning.

Forum 4 of the congress, entitled Grammatical or pragmatic

organization of speech?'' consisted of 13 papers, including two official

responses to two

of

the papers presented (Lenerz to Braunmiiller, and

Hohle to Zemb). As M. Reis indicated in her introductory remarks, the

presentations represented very different opinions on the (in)depen

dence of the linguistic system and pragmatics.

W. Abraham performs a major task by sketching out the domain

of

the term pragmatics in the introductory articles. Citing data from

right-brain/left-brain research (Bayer) he concludes that a definitional

separation

of

pragmatics from semantics is supported by the biological

separation.

Given the unique characteristics of German word order, it is un

derstandable why most

of

the papers discuss the relationship

of

prag

matics and syntax and make frequent use of

valence grammar. Within

this framework

P.

Mrazovic examines the extremely problematic clas

sification

of

noun/verb compounds,

e.g.,

in Abrede stellen as a verb

plus adjunct or as full verb. K. Braunmiiller discusses principles

of

German word order as typological patterns that have crystalized out

of

contextually bound strategies.

In

his response to Braunmiiller Lenerz

Dow

nloadedby[123.2.1

5.2



23/34

44 WORD

VOLUME 41, NUMBER 2 (AUGUST 1990)

rejects B s notion, that grammar is merely frozen pragmatics, because

it fails to explain, among other things, the conditions why certain

patterns should emerge but not others. J-M. Zemb questions the notion

of syntactic fields in German, particularly the Mittelfeld i.e., the area

between subordinating conjunction and finite verb

in

German, for

being too metaphorical and lacking descriptive power. This is but one

of the notions that T. Hiihle systematically refutes in his response to

Zemb. H. Glinz, who sees

no

conflict between grammar and pragmat

ics, proceeds to discuss the sentence as a pragmatic notion, reserving

the English term clause for pragmatics, since German uses Satz

in

both

cases. P Valentin discusses subordinate clauses which look like sub

ordinate clauses,

i.e.,

they are verb-final, but do not function as nor

mal sentence elements, e.g., enn du Durst hast Bier ist im Kuhl

schrank. If you are thirsty, beer is in the refrigerator.'

The remaining five papers all treat topics other than the relation

ship of pragmatics to linear syntax.

I

Rosengren dispenses forthwith

of the notion of a one-to-one relationship between speech act and

syntactic type and proposes instead that the semantic as well as syn

tactic structure determine expressions. In a discussion of pragmatics

and sentence stress, A Fuchs rejects the notion that the most important

word in a sentence is accented and establishes instead three text-se

mantic, functional dimensions for placing accent. G. Ohlschlager re

jects the current definition of modality, i.e., speaker attitude toward a

proposition, as too broad. At the same time attributing modality to

linguistic expressions alone is too narrow, he states. W Koch presents

an extremely valuable description of modal verb usage in a corpus of

German business correspondence, and H. Weydt concludes the volume

with yet another fine contribution toward understanding the modal

particles in German, in this case the pair denn and eigentlich.

As the title of this volume states, the papers presented here raise

a plethora of new and naggingly familiar controversial questions of

importance, not only to Germanists but to general linguists and lan

guage practitioners in general.

Dept. o Linguistics Germanic Asian African Languages

Michigan State University

Wells Hall A-615

East Lansing. M/. 48824-/027

REFERENCES

Bayer, Josef. 1985. Neurophysiologie und modulare Sprachbeschreibung. Ms. Aachen: Tech

nical University.

Dow

nloadedby[123.2.1

5.2



24/34

REVIEWS

245

Miiller. Wolfgang. Ed. 1977.

Schulerduden. Die richtige Wortwahl. Ein vergleichendes Wort-

erbuch sinnverwandter Ausdrucke.

Mannheim: Bibliographisches lnstitut.

Putnam, Hilary. 1975. Philosophical Papers.

Vol

2: Mind Language and Reality. Cambridge:

Cambridge U.P.

. 1978. Meaning and the Moral Sciences. London: Routledge K Paul.

Wiegand, Herbert Ernst. 1985. Eine neue Auffassung der sog lexikographischen Definition. Karl

Hyldgaards-Jensen Arne Zettersten Ed. Symposium on Lexicography 11 Proceedings of

the Second International Symposium on Lexicography May 16 17 1984 University

of

Copenhagen. Tiibingen. =Lexicographica. Series Maior 5. Pp. 15-100.

GERHARD LEITNER, ed.,

The English Reference Grammar: Language and

Linguistics Writers and Readers. (Linguistische Arbeiten 172). Tiibingen:

Max Neimeyer Ver1ag, 1986. ii + 450 pp.

Reviewed y CHARLES W. KREIDLER

This is a collection of papers given at a conference on ''English

Grammar-English Grammars, held at the Freie Universitat Berlin in

July 1985. Participants

in

the conference were scholars and teachers

concerned with the writing of grammars (of English) and/or the use of

such grammars in secondary and university-level English courses. Leit

ner points out in his Introduction

( l-3)

that a linguistically sound and

comprehensive grammar is not necessarily, or usually, the same as one

which is specifically aimed at students' needs and which concentrates

on the most common patterns of usage. Several of the participants ir

the conference, and contributors to this volume, are authors or co

authors of such pedagogical grammars, published or in progress.

The 24 papers in the volume are divided into two parts, sixteen

of

them in Part I, Contemporary and Future Reference Grammars, and the

remaining eight in the more homogeneous Part Il, Historical and Na

tional Profiles of English Grammars.

The general topic

of

Part I is What should a pedagogical reference

grammar be? Three papers, however, deal with more specific matters.

Charles-James N. Bailey, 'Where English cannot put a preposition

before a relative or interrogative pronoun,' goes over the intricacies

of

constructions like 'the hill up which they ran' vs. 'the bill which they

ran

up,

adding a lot

of

good points to a topic which has been heavily

worked over. One might wish his terminology was less idiosyncratic

and his references to other scholars less limited. Robert Burchfield,

The end of the alphabet: Last exit to grammar,' reaffirms, with ex-

Dow

nloadedby[123.2.1

5.2



25/34

246

WORD,

VOLUM


amples from recent writings, the fact that subject-verb concord exists

in English and that variation occurs after nouns like group. Derek Davy,

Implications

of

the emergence of new standards of English for the

writing of English grammars, discusses problems which may arise in

attempts to describe English

in

all its native and non-native varieties.

Elsewhere in the volume there are a few pious statements about the need

to consider the varieties of World English, but in reality most of the

contributors show greater concern for finding a pedagogical minimum,

a search for the most common ways of expressing, for example, future

intentions.

Three of the participants describe texts which they have co-au

thored. Sidney Greenbaum,

in The Grammar o Contemporary En-

glish and the Comprehensive Grammar o the English Language,

explains why the authors

of

Quirk et al. 1972 decided to rewrite rather

than revise that book. The rewrite, Quirk et all985,

is

nearly twice the

size of the 1972 work,

is

said to contain new findings, new theoretical

discussions, a more elaborate treatment of tense, aspect, and modality,

and improvements in terminology and indexing. Jan Svartvik, A Com-

municative Grammar

o

English,

makes the claim that Leech and

Svartvik 1975

is

a new approach to English grammar, based on lan

guage in use. Future pedagogical grammars, he maintains, will be

based on new means of surveying actual usage, will show greater

acceptance of language variety, and will be more oriented toward

semantic and pragmatic descriptions. Quite different

is

the approach of

Gottfried Graustein, English Grammar: A scholarly handbook in

teacher-training in the

GDR,

who elaborates a much more extensive

analysis of syntax, as dealt with in his work, 1984.

Part of deciding what to teach involves the knowledge of what is

most used. John McH. Sinclair, First throw away your evidence,

maintains there

is

need for much larger

corpora-l

million words or

more-than

have previously been used as a basis for grammar-writing

or else descriptions are not likely to reflect the real language, and he

illustrates what can be done with present-day computers. A similar

note is struck by Dieter Mindt, Corpus, grammar, and teaching En

glish s a foreign language, who says that instruction should be based

on a fresh examination of data. He exemplifies the fresh approach with

a study of what standard grammars have to say about the comparative

frequency of different ways of expressing future intention

(will,

shall,

be going to,

simple present, et al.), how German textbooks deal with

the same points, and what actually emerges from a study of the con

versations in Svartvik and Quirk (1980). Mindt concludes that peda-

Dow

nloadedby[123.2.1

5.2



26/34

REVIEWS

47

gogical materials need to recognize that relative frequency of alternate

expressions is not the same

in

different kinds of discourse. n a similar

vein Wolfgang Zydatiss, 'Grammatical categories and their text func

tions-Some

implications for the content of reference grammars,''

examines the use, or interpretation,

of

the present perfect in various

kinds of texts-advertisement, financial report, sports story, et al .-to

illustrate his point that a reference grammar should give an account of

the basic meaning

of

a linguistic form and show the modifications or

extensions of that meaning

in

various kinds of texts.

Four of the papers undertake to say what a reference grammar

should be. Egon Werlich, in

'The

relevance

of

a text (type) grammar

in foreign language teaching: With a note on text type switches,'

makes the point that a text-oriented type of grammar is superior to a

sentence grammar, but it needs to

be

complemented by a text typo

logical component (i.e. something which deals with different kinds of

discourse). Rene Dirven, 'Towards a pedagogical grammar,' states

that the making

of

a pedagogical grammar consists in selecting the

grammatical items which are problems for the learner, and what

is

selected is to be presented in two phases. First, the descriptive matter

concentrates on what is different from the student's native language;

then an additive

phase

provides more specific detail. Jochen Nie

meyer, 'Teachers, grammar teaching, and grammar books: Some de

siderata,' deals with the role of grammar in the classroom. He points

out that school grammars and also recent standard reference works fail

to deal with, or give conflicting opinions on, several problems, such as

concord, co-occurence of certain adverbials with the present perfect

and past tense, solved already by earlier 20th century grammarians,

who should not be ignored. One point of this article is that the usual

teacher

of

English in Germany depends heavily on a reference gram

mar and does not have a whole shelf of such books nor subscribe to

teacher journals. Friedrich Ungerer, 'Guidelines for a multi-purpose

teaching grammar,' discusses the effects

of

a multi-purpose approach,

that is, one which takes into account student production of texts,

comprehension, and analysis, and he proposes a reduction and stan

dardization of grammatical terms.

Three other articles are concerned with the audience, the nature of

students for whom such grammars are intended. Dietrich Lange, 'Is it

the schools' fault if students don't use grammars?,' searches for the

reasons for difficulties in learning grammar often experienced by Ger

man university students of English. His conclusions are forthright:

grammar teaching is confined to lower levels, where it is unduly sim-

Dow

nloadedby[123.2.1

5.2



27/34

248 WORD VOLUM

41, NUMBER 2 (AUGUST 1990

plified, and at upper levels didactic efforts are concentrated too exclu

sively on productive skills and the teaching

of

literature. Wolfgang

Mackiewicz and Harald Preuss,

The

role

of

scholarly grammars in

course design at university level, conclude from a study they made that

use

of

grammatical handbooks leads to student acquisition

of

termi

nology but not to student performance in the target language. However,

such handboods have played an important role

in

the design

of

the

courses. A. Adler, H. Hirschmiiller, G. Leitner, K. Priifer, and G.

Schnorr, Grammars of

English versus students of English, maintain

that though most grammars select content and terminology on the basis

of presumed needs

of

their readers, no study has been made of how the

intended audience actually uses such books. They offer a pilot study

conducted at Freie Universitat as an entry into such further exploration.

The papers in Part differ in scope but all are worthy contribu

tions to the history of grammars

of

English. Robert H. Robins,

The

evolution of English grammar books since the Renaissance, traces

four centuries

of

change in the models which grammarians have fol

lowed, from the traditional Latinate to 17th century writers who partly

discarded the Latin model, to the 19th century approach of Henry

Sweet and the German Anglisten, to 20th century structuralists and

generati vists.

John Algeo, in A grammatical dialectic, sees the history

of

grammar writing and teaching in the USA

s

a sequence of eight

developments: Latinate grammars, nativist grammars, clause-focused

grammars, historical grammars, utilitarian functionalism, structural

ism, the Students Rights movement, and the Back to Basics movement.

Though somewhat overlapping, these developments have generally

been related in a continual thesis-antithesis-synthesis course. Charlotte

Downey,

The

constants and variables which guided the development

of

American grammar writing in the 18th and 19th centuries, shows

that grammar writing in America was at first strongly imitative

of

British

models, with emphasis on memorization

of

rules and definitions and on

parsing, changing by mid-19th century to more inductive exercises and

sentence-building. Goold

Brown-The

American grammarian

of

grammarians in the nineteenth century, by Kurt Wachtler, attributed to

that pedagogue the perpetuation

of

the authoritarian tradition of cor

rectness and blames his view of language behavior for the ill-founded

linguistic stereotypes and cliches which are still with us.

Flor Aarts, English grammars and the Dutch contribution:

1891-

1985 , shows with an interesting time-line (364) how the Dutch gram

marians Poutsma, Kruisinga, Zandvoort, Aarts Aarts, and van Ek

Dow

nloadedby[123.2.1

5.2



28/34

REVIEWS

49

Robat have influenced or been influenced by Sweet, Jespersen,

Curme, Long, Quirk et al, and Hiddleston.

Aleksandra Jankowska, in Polish grammars

of

English, dis

cusses seven Polish grammars

of

English published in the period

1948-1980,. scholarly and pedagogical, and traces their development

from traditional, word-class-based grammars to an approach which

is

meant to be communicative.

Bertil Sundby,

in

Parallelism and sequence in early English pre

scriptive grammar, claims that 18th century authoritarian views on

sequence

of

mood, tense, voice, etc. and on structural parallelism are

not merely opinions but reflect to some degree syntactic constraints

still in the language. These observations, he writes, serve to demon

strate the linguistic potential

of

a projected historical dictionary

of

English normative grammar, such as the one currently being prepared

at the University

of

Bergen (see Sundby 1980).

Gerhard Leitner provides the retrospective summation in English

grammars: Past, present and future, retracing major developments in

English grammar writing and concluding with a brief outline of the

future challenges: text/discourse, data base, native/non-native En

glishes and usage patterns.

The volume concludes with summaries

of

articles, descriptive

sketches

of

the contributors, a name index, and a very thorough key

word index.

Department o Linguistics

Georgetown University

Washington. DC 20057 US

REFERENCES

Graustein, Gottfried et al. 1984.

English grammar: A university handbook.

3rd ed. Leipzig:

Enzykopiidie.

Leech, Geoffrey, and Jan Svartvik. 1975. A communicative grammar o English. London: Long

man.

Quirk, Randolph, Sidney Greenbaum, Geoffrey Leech, and Jan Svartvik. 1972. A grammar o

contemporary English. London: Longman.

. 1985. A comprehensive grammar o the English language. London: Longman.

Sundby, Bertil. 1980. A dictionary o English normative grammar 19700 1800. A preliminary

report.

Linguistic Project Reports, Department

of

English, University

of

Bergen.

Svartvik, Jan, and Randolph Quirk, eds. 1980.

A corpus o English conversation.

Lund: Gleerup.

Dow

nloadedby[123.2.1

5.2



29/34

250

WORD,

VOLUM

41. NUMBER 2 AUGUST 1990

JONATHAN FINE and ROY

0.

FREEDLE eds.). Developmental Issues n

Discourse. Advances in Discourse Proccesses, X Norwood, NJ: Ablex,

1983. xi-315 pp.

JONATHAN FINE ed.).

Second Language Discourse: A Textbook

o

Cur-

rent Research. Advances

n

Discourse Processes, XXV). Norwood, NJ:

Ablex, 1988. xi-214 pp.

Reviewed by JACQUELINE ANDERSON

The Advances in Discourse Processes Series, published by Ablex

under the general editorship of Roy 0. Freedle, continues to make a

significant contribution to the field of linguistic analysis by bringing

together ideas, authors, and approaches from a number of disciplines,

all sharing a common interest

in

discourse. The strength of Volumes X

and XXV, like others in the series-and ironically, their most notable

weakness-is their characteristic emphasis on empirical testing. The

multi-frame models provided by the authors included in the two books

strongly encourage teachers to construct theory-driven language de

velopment and intervention programs. But they do so by stressing the

kinds of logarithmic analyses that are frequently inaccessible to the

very classroom instructors who might most benefit from the models

being suggested.

The aim of these two volumes is to present diverse theoretical

approaches, methods, and applications of discourse analysis as they

relate to development with

review of dependency syntax: theory and practice by i. melcuk

Documents