Review of Beukema, Frits and Marcel den Dikken, eds. 1999. Clitic phenomena in European languages...

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Frits Beukema & Marcel den Dikken (eds.), Clitic phenomena in Europeanlanguages (Linguistik aktuell/Linguistics Today 30). Amsterdam: JohnBenjamins, 2000. Pp. x+320.

LOREN A. BILLINGS

Journal of Linguistics / Volume 38 / Issue 01 / March 2002, pp 173 - 190DOI: 10.1017/S0022226702221386, Published online: 25 April 2002

Link to this article: http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0022226702221386

How to cite this article:LOREN A. BILLINGS (2002). Journal of Linguistics, 38, pp 173-190 doi:10.1017/S0022226702221386

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J. Linguistics (). DOI: .}SX# Cambridge University Press

Juri Apresjan, Systematic lexicography. Translated by Kevin Windle. Oxford: Oxford UniversityPress, . Pp. v.

Reviewed by B M, Australian National University

Most of the chapters making up this book originally appeared in Russian during the early s.Juri Apresjan has for many years been an important figure in the Moscow school of semantics,and this translation by Kevin Windle provides the English-speaking world with a valuablechance to gain access to the work of Apresjan and the whole school. The edition also includesan introduction written in English by the author. It is an indispensable text for both semanticistsand lexicographers, as well as for scholars of Russian language and culture.

In his writings, Apresjan tries to bring together the traditionally distinct fields of lexicographyand theoretical semantics. It is often assumed that the two have nothing to offer each other, butApresjan shows that this is not the case, giving concrete examples of how semantic theory canbe integrated with lexicographic practice. He advocates a systematic approach to lexicography,so that a lexeme’s definition can be comprehensive and non-redundant – integrating meaning,grammar and prosody – and can fit it into the language’s wider scheme of conceptualization.Most of the book’s chapters draw on examples from the Russian lexicon, and for this reasonit will be of special interest to scholars of that language. Semanticists in general, however, willfind Apresjan’s work accessible and interesting, and his approach refreshing. The book’s firstchapter is a discussion, with extensive exemplification, of synonymy in English, and is a goodillustration of Apresjan’s approach applied to the English language. It draws on the author’swork in writing a dictionary of English synonyms aimed at native speakers of Russian. Hissystematic method of analysis and eye for detail enable him to pinpoint fine semantic distinctionsbetween synonyms and, in most cases, to express these distinctions clearly and simply. Apresjanaims to use the simplest possible words in definitions (ideally semantic primitives), in order toavoid vicious circles and complicated, unhelpful definitions.

Most of the rest of the book deals with the Russian language. Its second chapter gives adetailed outline of the structure of entries in the ‘New explanatory dictionary of Russiansynonyms’ (Apresjan et al. ), another work in which the principles of systematiclexicography are applied. According to Apresjan, dictionaries should explicitly list all propertiesof a lexeme, and should not only help users to understand the meaning of a word, but also givethem the full information needed to be able to use it correctly. His definitions therefore includefar more information than one generally expects from dictionary entries, including an exhaustivelist of a lexeme’s linguistic features as well as its synonyms (both exact and inexact), conversives,hyperonyms, and derivatives. At the basis of this method for describing meaning is the conceptof the lexicographic type. This term refers to a group of lexemes which share certain properties,not necessarily semantic but also ‘pragmatic, syntactic, combinatorial, prosodic, communicative,morphological, or other linguistically significant properties ’ (), and which should thereforebe uniformly described in a dictionary. The principle underlying the description of commonproperties, ‘unification’, must be applied in concert, Apresjan claims, with the principle of‘ individualization’, that is, the description of all the ways in which a lexeme from othermembers of its lexicographic type. Apresjan calls this second kind of description a lexicographicportrait. It is illustrated in three chapters providing detailed portraits of the Russianlexicographic types schitat« (‘ to consider ’) and synonyms, znat« (‘ to know’) and synonyms, andkhotet« (‘ to want ’) and synonyms. These chapters draw on entries in Apresjan et al. ().While they may at first seem a little daunting to readers with little or no knowledge of Russian,they are worthwhile inclusions in the volume because they provide concrete examples of thepractical applications of the theory of systematic lexicography. The explications and discussionof the various lexemes, which are much longer than in traditional dictionaries, have greatexplanatory power, and one can see obvious value in the lexicographic experiments Apresjan

and his colleagues in the Moscow School are undertaking. Windle’s carefully chosen glosses forthe Russian lexemes help readers who do not know Russian to understand the fine semanticdistinctions the author discusses, distinctions which do not always have straightforwardanalogues in English. The brief introductions to each of these chapters include some repetitionof the tenets of Apresjan’s theory, but the advantage of this is that each lexicographic portraitis self-contained.

Another key concept in the work of Apresjan is that of the ‘naı$ve’ picture of the world, thatis, the layperson’s unexamined world-view, which can be pieced together by analysing differentaspects of the language he or she speaks. It is a way of conceptualizing reality distinct from anyscientific picture of the world, and shaped by natural language. This notion informs the author’swhole approach to the study and description of meaning, and is discussed in depth in chapterthree. This chapter outlines the Russian naı$ve picture of humans, which is made up of variousculture-specific characteristics, as well as other features which, Apresjan claims, may turn out tobe universal. A good dictionary, through its presentation and analysis of a language’slexicographic types, should provide an insight into the naı$ve world-view of its speakers.

The book also includes a short chapter on metaphor in the semantic representation ofemotion – an original and arresting contribution to the ongoing interdisciplinary debate onemotions – and a discussion of semantic primitives, which compares the methodology ofApresjan and the Moscow Semantic School with that of the Polish Semantic School. It ends withanalyses of the verbs byt« ‘ to be’, and vyiti ‘ to emerge, come out’. In these, Apresjan produceslengthy, extremely detailed definitions, including rather complex formulae, of the many differentsenses of these verbs.

Though packed with rich and detailed subject matter, Systematic lexicography is generallyfairly easy to read, and its comprehensive indices of names, subjects, and Russian and Englishlexemes mean that it is also easy to use. Anyone interested in synonymy, lexicography, semanticsor Russian language and culture is sure to find it a valuable resource.

REFERENCE

Apresjan, J. D., Boguslavskaia, O. Iu., Levontina, I. B., Uryson, E. V., Glovinskaia, M. Ia., &Krylova, T. V. (). Novyi ob§iasnitel«nyi slovar« sinonimov russkogo iazyka [Newexplanatory dictionary of Russian synonyms]. Moscow: Iazyki russkoi kul«tury.

Author’s address: School of Language Studies, Australian National University, Canberra ACT��, Australia.E-mail : Brigid.Maher!anu.edu.au

(Received September )

J. Linguistics (). DOI: .}S# Cambridge University Press

Frits Beukema & Marcel den Dikken (eds.), Clitic phenomena in European languages (Linguistikaktuell}Linguistics Today ). Amsterdam: John Benjamins, . Pp. x.

Reviewed by L A. B, Providence University

This volume consists of ten papers. Most were presented at the workshop ‘Clitic phenomena inEnglish and other European languages ’ in Debrecen, Hungary, in . Seven papers investigate(South) Slavic. Considering areal affiliation, six of them primarily discuss Balkan languages.Only one paper, on Spanish, focuses mainly on neither of these.

The volume includes a table of contents (v–vi), list of contributors’ addresses (vii–viii), and abrief preface by the editors (ix). There is also a relatively thorough subject index (–),including a language index ().

As someone who has worked on clitic phenomena in Macedonian and Bulgarian (for example,Rudin et al. ), and Slavic in general, I speak authoritatively primarily on these languages.That said, I organize this review as follows. I summarize and then assess each chapter separately,grouping the papers thematically. I then end with a summary of common points and assess thevolume overall.

In ‘Clitics at the interface: an introduction to Clitic phenomena in European languages ’ (–),Steven Franks uses a variation of Optimality Theory to account for clitic positioning, primarilyin Slavic. He assumes that the syntax is derivational (part of ‘Gen’), in which clitics are oftenmultiply copied. ‘Eval ’ then selects the clitic site that is most satisfactory to prosodic andmorphological constraints. This paper’s ideas are expanded upon considerably in Franks &King (hereafter F&K).

Next, in ‘Second position cliticisation: syntax and}or phonology? ’ (–), ZC eljko Bos) kovic!methodically reviews the relevant literature and shows that non-syntactic components of thegrammar are responsible for the peninitiality of clitics in Serbo-Croatian. The syntax moves theclitics into the highest head position of the clause without looking ahead to the phonology.However, the phonology requires them to be suffixes. This paper’s only real ‘drawback’ is thatit has re-appeared as chapter of Bos) kovic! () ; having read both versions closely, I noticedthat errors in the former are corrected and numerous additional arguments have been added tothe latter version.

In ‘Where do clitics cluster? ’ (–), Ljiljana Progovac succinctly counters Bos) kovic! ’spaper in the same volume. The peninitiality of Serbo-Croatian clitics in their intonation phrase,Progovac argues, is epiphenomenal to a requirement that clauses correspond to intonation units.Bos) kovic! subsequently ignores Progovac’s paper for the most part, calling this requirement ‘astipulation’ ( : , fn. ).

Marija Golden & Milena Milojevic! Sheppard, in ‘Slovene pronominal clitics ’ (–),contrast Slovene clitics with those of neighboring Serbo-Croatian, about which far more hasbeen published. The authors claim that both languages ’ clitics are of the second-position kindand not verb-adjacent. However, Slovene clitics are not prosodically suffixal because clitics arepositioned syntactically. My concern is that in all of Golden & Sheppard’s data with non-suffixalclitics (, ) the clitics immediately precede the tensed verb; see, however, F&K ( : )for counterexamples. Still, this is one more clear paper from Golden (occasionally incollaboration with Sheppard) on yet another area of Slovene syntax.

Jon Franco, in ‘Agreement as a continuum: the case of Spanish pronominal clitics ’ (–),argues convincingly that clitic doubling represents object agreement. Franco also shows how theAnimacy Hierarchy, possibly reducible to saliency or referentiality (), and not specificity(–), is what determines whether a direct object will be doubled. Franco assesses a vastliterature on Romance clitics and proposes a sound model based on multiple dialects of Spanishand other languages.

Similarly, Dalina Kallulli’s ‘Direct object clitic doubling in Albanian and Greek’ (–)maintains that specificity is not the crucial feature determining whether clitic-doubling occurs.Crucially, the doubled object must be [®focus], as with fronted objects within the GermanicMittelfeld. Kallulli’s argumentation and interaction with the literature are quite easy to follow.

Next, Artemis Alexiadou & Elena Anagnostopoulou, in ‘Antisymmetries in the distributionof clitics : the case of Greek restrictive relatives ’ (–), account specifically for clitic doublingin the modern language. Unfortunately, try as I might, I failed to detect serious elucidation ofthe facts. Instead, the paper struck me as fiddling with theory.

Mila Dimitrova-Vulchanova, in ‘Possessive constructions and possessive clitics in English andBulgarian DP’ (–), argues that possessors in these two languages can be differentiatedbased on whether they are arguments. This argument is sound enough, with one exception.*wood Italian industry is ungrammatical in English because ‘material-denoting adjectivesprecede the head noun’ (), she writes, failing to observe that the attested word order, ItalianWOOD industry, involves a morphological compound. Additionally, all the data lack diacritics.The main problem with this paper, however, is its analysis of possessive clitics in Bulgarian,which relies on the following crucial examples () :

() (a) [otdadenijat na deloto] mu prijateldevoted-the to cause-the he-- friend

(b) *[otdadenijat mu na deloto] prijatel‘his friend (who is) devoted to the cause’

Alas, these judgments are contrary to two other published accounts : Ivanka Petkova Schick’spaper (), discussed below, and F&K ( : ). Relying crucially on (a), Dimitrova-Vulchanova posits a rather ad hoc Clitic Phrase above the Determiner Phrase (reminiscent ofFRONT in her earlier work on clausal clitics).

Schick’s ‘Clitic doubling constructions in Balkan-Slavic languages ’ (–) is an attempt todo for Bulgarian (and Macedonian) what Franco and Kallulli achieve in their papers.Unfortunately, Schick does not demonstrate the same level of scholarship. For instance, twoexamples from a th-century poem, impossible in contemporary speech, are listed without anyreference (). Other data are presented so compactly that certain information is lost () :

() Rada (mu) pomaga na deteto} edno dete} *dete.Rada ---. is helping to child-the} a child} child‘Rada is helping the child}a certain child}*child. ’

I have verified that one of the permutations ruled out by Schick’s asterisk}parentheses notationis grammatical : Rada pomaga na dete ‘Rada is helping a child. ’

Finally, ‘On clitic sites ’ (–), by Olga Mis) eska Tomic! , argues that Macedonian has bothsecond-position and verb-adjacent clitics. While I agree with this claim, there are seriousproblems with the way it is argued. For example, the section on the site of verb-adjacent cliticsuses discredited mechanisms (namely: Tobler-Mussafia Phrase as a syntactic projection) and stillreaches ‘no definitive solution’ (). Additionally, Tomic! now acknowledges that clitics neednot be adjacent to certain predicates () but without citing the sources of this observation.Also, rather than merely mentioning extremely relevant literature, such as Rudin (), onceor twice, this paper (and Schick’s too) might have discussed how the proposed model differsfrom other approaches. Fortunately, most of the issues Tomic! discusses are addressed far morecompetently in Bos) kovic! ( : –).

A problem with many of the papers is the apparent lack of familiarity with some excellentwork done on the same phenomenon in other language families. As just one example, only someof the Slavists cite a remarkable study, Rudin (), which argues that Bulgarian doubled cliticsare object agreement. Rudin’s study, which every clitic-doubling study should emulate, looksnot just at Bulgarian, but at the rest of Balkan (Macedonian, Albanian, Greek and Romanian),as well as non-European languages. For example, I saw only one reference by Alexiadou &Anagnostopoulou to another Balkan language, Romanian (), and none to any neighboringlanguages. (An exception in this regard is Franco, who even taught me something aboutMacedonian!) Similarly, had the aforementioned disagreement over (a–b) been addresseddirectly, then we might have learned about whether judgments in Bulgarian are in flux. Someinteraction between Franco’s Animacy and Kallulli’s [®focus] proposals would also have beenuseful. It’s as though many of these authors did not attend their colleagues’ talks in Debrecen.

Lack of cohesion among the papers aside, the quality of the papers also varies too much.(Fortunately, some of the better ones have reappeared elsewhere.) By agreeing to publish thepoorer papers, the editors have diminished the book’s more capable contributions.

REFERENCES

Bos) kovic! , ZC eljko (). On the nature of the syntax-phonology interface: cliticization and relatedphenomena. Amsterdam: Elsevier.

Franks, Steven & King, Tracy Holloway (). A handbook of Slavic clitics. New York: OxfordUniversity Press.

Rudin, Catherine (). AgrO and Bulgarian pronominal clitics. In Lindseth, Martina &Franks, Steven (eds.), Annual workshop on formal approaches to Slavic linguistics : the Indianameeting, ��. Ann Arbor: Michigan Slavic Publications. –.

Rudin, Catherine, Kramer, Christina, Billings, Loren & Baerman, Matthew (). Macedonianand Bulgarian li questions: beyond syntax. Natural Language & Linguistic Theory .–.

Author’s address: Department of English Language, Literature and Linguistics, ProvidenceUniversity, �� Chung Chi Road, Shalu, Taiwan ��, Republic of China.E-mail : billings!pu.edu.tw



David E. Johnson & Shalom Lappin, Local constraints vs. economy. Stanford: Center for theStudy of Language and Information, . Pp. x.

Reviewed by R D. L, Ohio State University

This remarkable book (hereafter LCE) presents a closely reasoned, profound and ultimatelydevastating critique of the Minimalist Program (MP) developed in the late s and early sby Noam Chomsky and presented in its ‘classic ’ form in Chomsky (). Both theinexplicitness and the number of possible variants of the MP make such a critique a dauntingprospect ; the authors have therefore proceeded realistically, taking Chomsky’s formulationand certain proposed revisions of it as the target of their scrutiny, and have attempted toconstruct a formal characterization of its assumptions and analytic constructs, insofar as this ispossible. Johnson & Lappin’s point of departure is, as the title of the book emphasizes, thecentral role of comparative derivational economy metrics in all versions of the MP that theyinvestigate, and the grave computational and conceptual difficulties that these economy metricscreate for the plausibility of the framework, compared with purely local constraints on structuralwell-formedness involving no transderivational comparisons at all. But the critique in LCE goeswell beyond the problematic aspects of the economy criteria, severe as these are.

After a brief overview introduction summarizing in general terms the organizing assumptionsof the MP and sketching the structure of their own narrative, two chapters consider in depth theform and theoretical effects of several kinds of economy conditions that have been proposed ascriteria for selecting optimal derivations under the Minimalist view of syntax. The authors setthe stage with an exposition of the main working concepts and basic structures assumed inChomsky’s (chapter ) version of the MP, walking the reader through the derivation of asimple transitive sentence as a concrete instance of these assumptions at work. This compact butlucid review gives readers the necessary preparation for a detailed assessment of threemechanisms intended to effect the MP’s central assumption – that alternative derivations froma given numeration are compared with each other and all but the most economic are ruled out.The constraints are , and (HEOC). In all three cases, it turns out that (i) the ‘economy’ conditions can be reformulatedas a strictly local constraint on structure, or (ii) where this is not possible, the economyformulation proves both conceptually and computationally inferior to strictly local structuralconstraints, or (iii) the constraint turns out to be altogether unnecessary. Johnson & Lappin notein particular the failure of efforts to provide robust support for economy conditions empirically,for example, Fox’s () defense of HEOC, which they show to make false predictionsabout the semantic conditions on VP ellipsis, as well as to be inconsistent with the MPitself, insofar as it introduces, midway through derivations, purely semantic representationalelements which correspond to no component of the numeration, but only to LF interfaceinterpretation. In the end, then, all three global economy constraints prove untenable." Whilelocal versions of economy succeed in reducing somewhat the vast computational overhead ofChomsky’s global metrics (HEOC alone requires a derivational comparison set which growsexponentially as the size of the numeration increases linearly), exactly the same conclusions(i)–(iii) turn out to hold for them as well. Moreover, for none of the economy approachesconsidered is any explicit weighting of the separate constraints so as to yield a uniform economy

[] There is, moreover, no psycholinguistic evidence which even weakly motivates the addedlayer of complexity that transderivational economy conditions demonstrably entail – avery relevant concern, given Chomsky’s insistence that ‘ [p]roceeding in accord with normalpractice, we may also seek to construct a ‘‘parser ’’, a device, also attributed to themind}brain, ’ ; further ‘ it adds a greatdeal to postulate mechanisms in the interpreter that ‘‘correspond to the theory’’, since itis precisely that move that subjects the theory to a wide variety of evidence’ (Chomsky : , : ; emphasis added).

metric ever provided, and different weightings yield different results. In this sense, the MPactually provides no of derivational economy. Nor does it fare any better with respectto its movement-based theory of feature percolation; both Iraqi Arabic and German display wh-movement phenomena which prove highly problematic for the specific Minimalist assumptionthat () overt wh-movement consists of pre-SpellOut displacement of a feature complex whichincludes all the features of wh-words, and () the (scoping of) in-situ wh consists of covertmovement of a [wh] feature. In Iraqi Arabic, wh-movement is optional in all but one context,embedded finite S, where it is obligatory. In effect, overt movement out of finite S is altogetherunproblematic, so that it appears that the [wh] feature move out with the pre-SpellOut wh-phrase movement of the other features, but covert movement is impossible. On MP assumptions,covert movement of [wh] should be possible wherever overt wh-movement is permitted, sosomething is clearly very wrong. Simpson’s () attempt to reconcile MP assumptions withthese Iraqi Arabic phenomena, based on a wh-licensing morpheme which replaces the covert wh-feature movement mechanism, does not however account for the optionality of wh-movementin those cases where in-situ wh is possible.# The technical details of Johnson & Lappin’s ownHPSG solution play off the hypothesis that finite clauses are islands for , which regulates thepercolation of wh, but not for , which enforces filler}gap connectivity. This solution worksnicely for Iraqi Arabic, and extends directly to German partial wh-movement, which isproblematic for the MP for the same reasons as Iraqi Arabic, in that when more than two S[fin]sseparate the scope-marker was from a wh-phrase – corresponding to covert wh-movement – theresult is bad, although when overt extraction is involved, there is no difficulty getting wh-movement safely through the identical configuration.

Johnson & Lappin’s final chapter rounds out their book with a succinct critique of the central‘guiding assumptions’ of the MP (–), showing convincingly that contrary to the MPassumption that the language faculty reflects an ‘optimal ’, indeed ‘perfect ’ system, neitherbiological nor physical systems reveal anything like this essentially teleological property.‘Optimal design’, they note, cannot be anything other than an engineering criterion, cannot bedefined in scientific terms in advance for, or intelligibly applied to, natural phenomena, andhence offers no substantive contribution to the characterization of a natural language capabilityarising from the vagaries of evolutionary history.

LCE is remarkable not just for the sharpness and clarity of its argumentation but for the scopeand depth of its criticisms. Using data from expletive, raising and other constructions in Englishand other languages, Johnson & Lappin uncover the strictly stipulative nature of the overt}covert movement distinction and the use of feature checking to ‘derive’, or more accurately toencode, the linear position of the phonologically realized components of the sentence, thetheoretical incoherence of driving movement via a distinction in a property – interpretability –which has no bearing on syntactic representations prior to the LF interface, and so on. The MPemerges from Johnson & Lappin’s tightly reasoned, pitilessly clinical examination ascomputationally expensive to the point of intractability, empirically deficient, stipulative at bestand incoherent or inconsistent at worst in its internal architecture, with metaphysical andteleological foundations that run counter to the methodological premises undergirding thesuccess of the hard sciences. But perhaps the most disturbing aspect of LCE’s formidablechallenge has been the MP’s response to it, consisting either of silence or incomprehension (e.g.Chomsky ( : ) apparently takes Johnson & Lappin (), the ‘pilot study’ for LCE, to‘presuppose that the derivational approach is correct ’ and to be appealing to ‘virtual conceptualnecessity ’, whereas Johnson & Lappin ( and the volume under review) argue against theformer and make absolutely no use of the latter notion, while Roberts () flagrantlymisrepresents the conclusions of the economy critique; see Lappin et al. () for discussion).These are responses that advocates of the MP can ill afford; until and unless there is a coherentand substantive response to Johnson & Lappin’s critique, the MP will have marginal credibilityoutside the increasingly narrow domain in which it is simply the unquestioned ‘houseframework’.

[] Denham’s () approach, which Johnson & Lappin do not consider, and which in effectreplicates Simpson’s analysis without referencing it, fails completely for Iraqi Arabic, sincethe optionality of wh-movement is possible in cases where the scope-delimiting functionalhead which Denham takes as the licenser of wh-in-situ, though it exists in Iraqi Arabic, isprovably in most of the cases where wh-in-situ is possible.

REFERENCES

Chomsky, Noam (). Language and interpretation. In Earman, J. (ed.), Inference,explanation and other frustrations. Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press.

Chomsky, Noam (). Naturalism and dualism in the study of language and mind.International Journal of Philosophical Studies . –.

Chomsky, Noam (). The Minimalist Program. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Chomsky, Noam (). Minimalist inquiries : the framework. Ms., Department of Linguistics,

MIT.Denham, Kirsten (). Optional wh-movement in Babine-Witsuwit’en. Natural Language and

Linguistic Theory . –.Fox, Danny (). Economy and scope. Natural Language Semantics . –.Johnson, David E. & Lappin, Shalom (). A critique of the Minimalist Program. Linguistics

and Philosophy . –.Lappin, Shalom, Levine, Robert D. & Johnson, David E. (). The revolution maximally

confused. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory . –.Roberts, Ian (). Who has confused what? More on Lappin, Levine and Johnson. Natural

Language and Linguistic Theory . –.Simpson, Andrew (). Wh-movement, licensing, and the locality of feature-checking. Ph.D.

dissertation, University of London.

Author’s address: Linguistics Department, The Ohio State University, �� Oxley Hall,�� Neil Avenue, Columbus, OH ��-��, U.S.A.E-mail : levine!ling.ohio-state.edu

(Received October )


April McMahon, Change, chance, and Optimality. Oxford: Oxford University Press, .Pp. x.

Reviewed by C MC, University of Manchester

It is an operational cliche! that when linguists disagree, the formula used is ‘I have a couple ofproblems with … [your paper}book}hypothesis] ’. McMahon clearly has more than a couple ofproblems with Optimality Theory (OT). This brief study exposes some of them. The exposureleaves this reviewer, at least, with a couple of problems concerning McMahon’s presentation.

This neatly-produced, and mercifully short, work – chapters, of which the last is a mere pages of peroration – comes equipped with a promising back-cover blurb (‘devastating critiqueof a widespread linguistic orthodoxy’) and a couple of nice puffs, for example from Roger Lass(‘One of the most important and sophisticated works’, etc.). The blurb also claims thatMcMahon ‘set[s] out [the] basic principles ’ of OT before ‘assessing their explanatorypower’ – also known in the trade as ‘ tearing them apart ’.

The problem is that the reader coming to this work in the expectation that it will guide hercarefully through OT’s ‘basic principles ’ – I use scare quotes because those basic principles arehard to identify, still less to agree about – will be disappointed. Chapter (‘Optimality Theory:the basics ’) comprises pages that do not so much introduce the basic principles, but ratherreveal some of McMahon’s scepticism about the OT project : ‘ I shall argue that OT, inattempting to confront the universal component of phonological behaviour, is in danger offailing to cope with the language-specific part ’ (). McMahon also appears to object, since shequotes it twice, to Archangeli’s (over)statement that OT is ‘THE linguistic theory of the s ’(Archangeli : ). McMahon’s rather acid conclusion to chapter is that ‘ it remains to beseen how definitively the new millennium puts OT into the past tense’ (). One could read thisin a number of ways, but a cool and even-handed introduction it isn’t : knowing Scots empiricism(of a form yet to be determined) meets indiscriminate American enthusiasm; weary professionalscepticism raises a canny eyebrow towards the gushings of the Rutgers archive; LexicalPhonology meets OT, Round . The linguistics is hard to hear amid the sound of grinding axes,

and meanwhile, McMahon has established the somewhat waspish tone that characterises thisbook.

Chapters and , respectively ‘Optimality in a complex world’ and ‘Constraints, causation,and change’, are the heart of the work. Here is the promised sophistication. By page , forexample, one is being introduced to Correspondence Theory – crudely, a mechanism thathandles the extent of matched latitudes between Input and Output (McCarthy & Prince) – and, by page , to Sympathy Theory (McCarthy ). This last is an extension ofCorrespondence Theory into opacity, whereby outputs may be faithful to input forms thatwould otherwise have ‘failed’ in the evaluative process. McMahon’s datum here is replicatedfrom McCarthy : it is one form from Tiberian Hebrew. At this point as elsewhere, as sheis balancing angels on pin-heads, McMahon relies heavily on Kager’s () introductorytextbook and on Bermu! dez-Otero (). (The last is an unpublished Ph.D. thesis for whichMcMahon was the external examiner.) Together with the unavoidable Prince & Smolensky(), these are the most frequently-cited works in this part of the book. True, each is a keyproduction in the evolution of OT, but it would have been both generous and interesting ifMcMahon had cited, and analysed, some further works in this emerging field, together with aricher set of data.

What I find curious, among such learned parsimony, is that McMahon clearly understandsthat OT’s central founding claims are flawed: it is impossible, for example, to make OT ‘work’,even in the simplest cases, on a single level of derivation. This mono-level processing is the claimmade for stress theory, in the case of contemporary English, by Pater (), and it is a claimthat cannot be sustained (see e.g. McCully ). McMahon knows this, and admits thepossibility of interleaved derivations within OT – a ‘cophonology approach’ (). Yet the bookproceeds the old oversimplicities of ‘classic ’ OT were still the status quo. The same is trueof McMahon’s invocation of Hayes () in chapter , where she considers the phoneticgrounding of constraints in the context of language change, together with the vexed issue ofwhich constraints may be innate, and which learned, or (even) language-specific. Interleaved OT,and phonetic grounding, are at the time of writing at the forefront of phonological research. Yethaving touched on these matters, McMahon eschews further analysis in favour of historicalmaterial she knows well, and which provides an easier target (see the account of chainmechanisms, vowel shifts, and syntactic change in the last part of chapter ). McMahon is, asalways, interesting and relevant when she begins to theorise the messiness of historical change,and she is surely right in arguing that linguists should work from data to theory, and not theother way round. But I wish that in this ‘assessment ’ of OT she had spent longer on phonetic grounding, coupled with interleaved OT, might handle some specific cases of change,or at the least provided an even-handed comparison of how OT fares in accountingfor even one example of historical change when compared with, say, Lexical Phonology. It is allvery well identifying ‘ [o]ne possible way forward for OT’ () at the beginning of chapter (theway forward includes restrictions on the number, type and language-specificity of constraints,together with the introduction of ‘new machinery’, by which one guesses that McMahon meanslevels), but this reviewer, at least, wanted to see that way forward more carefully exemplified.Instead, we have a segue into chapters and , respectively ‘Natural morphology and neo-Darwinian evolutionary biology’ and ‘The emergence of the innate’. Such breathlessness isunfortunate. One takes the point that considering evolving systems in terms of nature(innateness) and nurture (language-specificity) involves an uncomfortable boundary dispute inOT (as in other sciences), but since McMahon quotes Dennett () on ‘grubby particularity ’(), again one wishes for fuller instantiation of the historical linguistic muck and messiness.McMahon is one of the ablest historical linguists in the world; through chapters and , evenas I was admiring the breadth and clarity of McMahon’s professional competence, I wish shehad got her hands slightly more soiled with real linguistic dirt.

Despite my reservations about the wisdom of producing such a book at this point in theevolution of OT, and about the partiality of McMahon’s account, I have unhesitatingly includedthe work on my reading lists for final year students and graduates. Not least, McMahon hasprovided a full index of constraints, together with a careful inclusion of authors and relevantpage references, so that one can, for example, consider ‘Hayes on inductive grounding’ or‘Bermu! dez-Otero on interleaved OT’ in an advanced class, as well as hunt downDEPENDENCY-IO or NONFINALITY with precision.

REFERENCES

Archangeli, D. (). Optimality theory: an introduction to linguistics in the s. InArchangeli, D. & Langendoen, D. T. (eds.), Optimality theory: an overview. Oxford:Blackwell. –.

Bermu! dez-Otero, R. (). Constraint interaction in language change: quantity in English andGerman. Ph.D. thesis, University of Manchester, UK.

Dennett, D. C. (). Darwin’s dangerous idea. London: Penguin.Hayes, B. (). Phonetically-driven phonology: the role of Optimality theory and inductive

grounding. Ms., Rutgers Optimality Archive (ROA-).Kager, R. (). Optimality theory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.McCarthy, J. (). Sympathy and phonological opacity. Ms., Rutgers Optimality Archive

(ROA).McCarthy, J. & Prince, A. (). Faithfulness and reduplicative identity. In Beckman, J.,

Dickey, L. W. & Urbanczyk, S. (eds.), Papers in Optimality theory (University ofMassachusetts Occasional Papers in Linguistics ). Amherst, MA: Graduate LinguisticStudent Association. –.

McCully, C. B. (). Secondary stress in Old English and other Germanic languages. Paperpresented to International Conference on Historical Linguistics XIV, Vancouver, B.C.

Pater, J. (). On the nonuniformity of weight-to-stress and stress preservation effects inEnglish. Ms., McGill University & ROA.

Prince, A. & Smolensky, P. (). Optimality theory: constraint interaction in generativegrammar. Ms., TR-, Rutgers University Cognitive Science Center.

Author’s address: School of English and Linguistics, University of Manchester, Oxford Road,Manchester M�� PL, U.K.E-mail : chris.mccully!man.ac.uk



Jouni Maho, A comparative study of Bantu noun classes (Orientalia et Africana Gothoburgensia). Go$ teborg: Acta Universitatis Gothoburgensis, . Pp. xvi.

Reviewed by S N, SIL International

The Bantu languages of sub-Saharan Africa are notable for their noun class systems. MostBantu languages exhibit or noun classes, normally arranged into at least ten singular}plural(or individuated}non-individuated) pairings (some noun classes occur in several pairings, othersin none). These are generally agreed to be reflexes of a Proto-Bantu system of between and noun classes. Bantu noun classes are indicated by nominal prefixes and also by concords onverbs (agreeing with subjects and arguments), demonstratives, adjectives, numerals, quantifiers,possessives, etc. The following example from Chidigo illustrates some of the concords of nounclass :"

() Chihi chi-phya ch-a mwana chi-na-tengez-w-a..chair -new -POS child --make--final vowel‘The child’s new chair is being made. ’

This book, which is essentially the author’s doctoral thesis, provides a description of Bantu nounclass phenomena (chapters to ) together with the geographical distribution of selected features(chapter ). The study culminates in a partial reconstruction of the noun class system of Proto-Bantu (chapter ). I will discuss each chapter in turn.

The first chapter contains the typical preliminaries of a doctoral thesis : aims and methodology,

[] Bantu noun classes are numbered according to a system devised in the nineteenth century.One advantage of using this system is that class in one language should correspondetymologically to class in other Bantu languages, and so forth, even when phonologicalforms differ.

literature review, preview of following chapters, but is useful reading for anyone not wellacquainted with Bantu linguistics. Published sources (primarily Guthrie – and Kadima) yielded data for languages, including full or nearly full noun class descriptions of (out of a total of up to Bantu languages}dialects). The sources range over a period of abouta hundred years and are listed in an appendix along with data for each language. Limitationsof using such sources are discussed, such as fragmentary data and the effects of standardisation.

The second chapter is primarily concerned with delimiting Bantu languages. Having explainedGuthrie’s (–) grouping (–) and evaluated it (–), Maho concludes that ‘ for allpractical purposes Guthrie’s notion of Bantu is as good as any’ (). He mentions (, n. ) aproposal to merge Guthrie’s zones D.-D. and E.-E. into a new zone ‘J ’, but choosesnot to adopt this revised classification; this is a pity, as the languages of zone J share manytypological features which Guthrie’s original classification obscured, and the new grouping isnow fairly well established in comparative Bantu studies.

Chapter covers the most important or problematic features of Bantu noun class systems:prefix doubling in ‘additive ’ plural marking (–), augments (–), the semantic content ofnoun classes (–), and variation in concords (–). Many interesting facts are presented(for example, class , the usual class for infinitives of verbs, often includes the word for ‘ leg’),but integration and explanation of these facts is often lacking. The description of concord onverbs (–) greatly oversimplifies the issues, and repeats the common mistake of labeling as‘object concords ’ what are in fact incorporated arguments (which just happen often to begrammatical objects). The two subsequent sections discuss the resolution of concord inconjoined NPs (that is, which concord to use when the associated NP contains nouns of differentclasses) (–) and ‘general animate concord’ (the use of class } concords for all animates,irrespective of inherent noun class membership) (–). These are both treated with moreauthority, although Maho is hampered by the lack of published descriptions of thesephenomena. Finally, Maho presents a typological matrix in which languages are classifiedaccording to the way in which noun class membership, animacy and singular}plural distinctionsaffect both noun prefixes and concordial systems (–).

In chapter , Maho uses a method which is essentially that of dialectology to plot informationabout various noun class features onto maps (for which explanatory notes are provided in anappendix). When the distribution of a particular feature is sufficiently constrained within ageographical area, this area is termed a ‘(typological) coherence area’. Seventy putativecoherence areas are identified, covering formal distributions (noun classes, singular}pluralpairings and noun class mergers) and semantically defined distributions (classes for languagenames, infinitives, diminutives and augmentatives).

The aim of chapter ‘ is to reconstruct selected features of an assumed Proto-Bantu noun classsystem’ (). Maho summarises previous attempts to reconstruct such a system, making gooduse of his distributional data in evaluating putative reconstructions for various noun classes (see,for example, the discussion of whether to posit a separate class a in Proto-Bantu on –).

The study concludes (chapter ) with a summary of the main themes (typological anddiachronic) and a note that ‘ there is an acute need for more descriptive work to be performedand made available through publication’ (), a need which SIL’s Bantu Initiative aims toaddress.

A few criticisms: glosses in examples and even in running text are given in the language of theoriginal published source, which includes Afrikaans, Italian, Portuguese and Swedish. Theoriginal source usually also provides the citation name of each language; this results ininconsistency, as some names include the appropriate noun class prefix (Isizulu, Setswana andOtjiherero, instead of Zulu, Tswana and Herero) whilst others do not (Giryama, Digo andLwena, instead of Kigiryama, Chidigo and Lulwena). Also, outside of chapter language namesare usually given without their Guthrie classification, which, as Maho notes (), ‘gives us arough idea of where in the Bantu area a given language is spoken’. This means that it is oftennecessary to refer to the index of Bantu languages in order to locate an unfamiliar language.

No doctoral thesis is faultless, of course, and this study has much to commend it. The firstthree chapters serve as a clear introduction to Bantu languages and their noun class systems, andthe refinements proposed in chapter provide a valuable contribution to historical debate. Inparticular, the typological matrix of language types proposed at the end of chapter is apotentially useful tool in comparative Bantu studies. Also, the wealth of data that has beenamassed, and the way it has been mapped and analysed, constitutes a valuable resource in itsown right.

REFERENCES

Guthrie, M. (–). Comparative Bantu: an introduction to the comparative linguistics andprehistory of the Bantu languages ( vols.). Farnborough: Gregg International Publishers.

Kadima, M. (). Le syste[ me des classes en bantou. Ph.D. dissertation, Universite! Nationalede Leiden (Leuven: Vander).

Author’s address: Digo Language and Literacy Project, P.O. Box ��, Kwale (via Mombasa),Kenya.E-mail : Steve-AlisonjNicolle!sil.org

(Received July )


Maria Helena Mateus & Ernesto d’Andrade, The phonology of Portuguese (The Phonology of theWorld’s Languages). Oxford: Oxford University Press, . Pp. x.

Reviewed by T G. B, University of California, Davis

In this book, Mateus & d’Andrade (henceforth M&A) elucidate a wide range of phonologicaland morphological phenomena in European and Brazilian Portuguese (henceforth EP and BP,respectively). They draw upon a number of contemporary theoretical perspectives, includingautosegmental theory, feature geometry, radical underspecification theory, lexical phonology,and the ‘grid only’ metrical framework. M&A’s work constitutes a practical and informativereference and will be of interest to linguists, students, and anyone seeking a broaderunderstanding of the sound system and word-formation processes of Portuguese. The bookconsists of seven chapters, a list of references, and both name and subject indices. In this review,I present a brief summary of each chapter.

In chapter , M&A give an historical perspective on the development of Portuguese fromVulgar Latin. They go on to discuss the major contemporary variants, namely EP and BP. WhilePortuguese coexists with other national languages in several African countries, the paucity ofresearch in this area precludes an exhaustive comparison. Particularly informative in the initialchapter is M&A’s concise overview of previous Portuguese grammars and phonologicalinvestigations, ranging from the pre-theoretical treatments of the late nineteenth century upthrough present-day studies carried out in structuralist, early generative, and more recent non-linear frameworks.

In chapter , M&A examine issues of segmental representation. The Portuguese phonologicalinventory consists of nineteen consonants that contrast in onset position (except for some word-initial restrictions involving sonorants). However, only three consonantal contrasts are permittedword-finally, namely, a fricative and two liquids, although these segments are subject topositional modifications. Both EP and BP neutralize place and voice contrasts among codasibilants, and the uvular rhotic has a number of dialectal phonetic variants, ranging from a trillto voiced and voiceless fricatives. Turning to vowels, M&A note that vowel quality and word-stress are more closely related in EP than in BP. Both varieties permit the same seven vowels instressed syllables, but this number is severely reduced in non-final unstressed syllables : BPpreserves three degrees of vowel height, whereas EP allows only two degrees of openness. On thebasis of evidence from the distribution of the uvular rhotic, the realization of prefix-final nasalsand antepenultimate stress assignment, M&A argue that Portuguese nasal vowels should beanalyzed as underlying sequences of an oral vowel followed by a nasal segment. Despite theambiguous status of laterals with respect to the feature [continuant], M&A observe that ‘codasin Portuguese seem to license only [continuant] … Therefore, laterals should be classified assuch’ (). They defend the separation of vowel height and V-place nodes within the Clements-Hume constriction-based model since it better explains certain phonological processes (e.g.vowel harmony involving only height features, assimilation of more features than those that aredependent on V-place). Finally, M&A assume a radical underspecification approach to featurerepresentation and take the high front vowel }i} to be the least marked. Lexically absent valuesare supplied through the course of the derivation in a feature-filling fashion, either by specificphonological operations (e.g. unstressed vowel raising in EP and BP, vowel harmony in BP

perfect indicative verbal forms) or by postlexical complementary rules. Coronal is taken to bethe unmarked place of articulation for consonants and is, therefore, underspecified, with featurefill-in determined by syllable position. In EP, for example, rhotics become [DOR, back] by anonset rule versus [COR, anterior] occurring elsewhere by default.

M&A treat Portuguese syllable structure in chapter , beginning with a discussion of thephonotactic restrictions on segmental combinations in onsets and rhymes. They attribute thewell-formedness of plosive-plus-liquid onset clusters to the Sonority Sequencing Generalizationand also appeal to the language-specific Dissimilarity Condition in order to explain certaincombinatorial restrictions (e.g. the avoidance of clusters whose consonants have identical oradjacent sonority values). A major assumption made by M&A is that these conditions holdprimarily at the level of base syllabification. Apparent sonority violations abound in colloquialEP due to a process of vowel deletion. Moreover, a number of words seem to contradict sonorityrestrictions, which M&A adduce as evidence for the existence of empty nuclei. With respect tosyllable rhymes, M&A derive phonetic glides from underlying high vowels, which may beintegrated in the nucleus with preceding vowels, but remain as part of the onset before othervowels. Complex codas are not tolerated in Portuguese, and coda }s} is unique in allowingdiphthongs to occur in the nucleus. Thus, rhymes may have a maximum of three segmentsregardless of the makeup of onsets, which suggests that ‘ the relation between the internalsegments of the rhyme is closer than that between the rhyme and the onset ’ (). Chapter concludes with an illustration of the formal conventions involved in base syllabification.

Chapters and deal with basic aspects of inflectional and derivational morphology,respectively. M&A assume that word-formation rules – both derivational and inflectional –apply at the lexical level. In chapter , verbal theme vowels are argued to belongto the word stem and are subject to morphophonological processes, such as vowel harmony andassimilation. In nouns and adjectives, vocalic class markers are not part of the stem, may bephonetically absent in certain classes, and are not subject to lexical-level morphologicalprocesses. M&A go on to examine number inflection, with specific attention given to thedifferences between plural suffixation after stems ending in }l} versus other consonants. Variousaspects of verbal inflection are treated, including the deletion of theme vowels, the realizationof person morphemes in infinitives, vowel assimilation in past perfect indicatives, and vowelharmony as the spreading of floating height features from deleted theme vowels in present tenseforms. The discussion of derivational morphology in chapter encompasses issues ranging fromthe internal composition of base forms with respect to infinitives, past participles, verb roots,nouns and adjectives, to the interaction of morphology and phonology in word formation.Specific instances of morphophonological processes include the spirantization of }t} and }k}and the softening of }g} under suffixation, both of which admit lexical exceptions. M&A couchtheir treatment of these processes within the framework of lexical phonology, in which‘morphological and phonological rules apply when the idiosyncratic properties of themorphemes trigger the domain for their application’ ().

Word stress forms the topic of chapter . In nouns and adjectives, syllable stress has threepotential locations, namely, ultimate, penultimate and antepenultimate – it is never assignedfurther than the third syllable from the right edge of the word. Verbal forms almost always havepenultimate stress, and apparent exceptions involving phonetically final stress in certain formsof the past perfect indicative are explained by the existence of a phonologically word-final vowelthat is subject to either gliding or coalescence with the preceding vowel. M&A argue that cliticsare invisible to stress assignment in that they never induce a stress shift. Furthermore, M&Ademonstrate that Portuguese is not quantity-sensitive and that the apparent complexity of stressassignment facts stems from morpholexical factors (e.g. the defective nature of class and tensemarkers). Adopting the ‘grid only’ metrical framework, M&A argue persuasively that stressassignment in Portuguese can be reduced to only two principles : first, ‘ the rhythmic wave istriggered by trough-first anchored at right, first peak strong’ (), and second, the waveanchoring principle, ‘which places the initial trough on the first pre-assigned trough to befound or, in the case of its absence, on the right margin of the word’ ().

The final chapter of this book examines phonological processes involving nasalization andunstressed vowels, as well as prosodically conditioned postlexical phenomena targeting liquids,the fricative }s} and plosives. M&A argue in favor of a floating nasal autosegment that is spreadover a preceding nucleus in preconsonantal position but receives a consonantal realizationprevocalically. EP exhibits considerable reduction and often total elision of unstressed post-tonic and final vowels, while BP differs with respect to the phonetic realization of liquids in coda

(i.e. posteriorization and}or debuccalization of rhotics, gliding of laterals) and of coronalplosives in onset (i.e. affrication before the vowel [i]). M&A conclude the final chapter with anexamination of external sandhi phenomena affecting consonants and vowels in EP.

To summarize, this book is an excellent empirical and theoretical reference that succeeds inproviding ‘relevant information, new insights, and suggestive ideas for those who wish to deepentheir knowledge of the phonology of Portuguese’ (x).

Author’s address: Department of Spanish and Classics, University of California, Davis, OneShields Avenue, Davis, CA ��, U.S.A.E-mail : tgbradley!ucdavis.edu



Yael Ravin & Claudia Leacock (eds.), Polysemy: theoretical and computational approaches.Oxford: Oxford University Press, . Pp. xi.

Reviewed by K T, University of Brighton

This is a not uninteresting collection of eleven original articles on several topics in lexicalsemantics. It contains the following papers : ‘Polysemy: an overview’, by Yael Ravin & ClaudiaLeacock (–) ; ‘Aspects of the micro-structure of word meanings’, by D. Alan Cruse (–) ;‘Autotroponomy’, by Christiane Fellbaum (–) ; ‘Lexical shadowing and argument closure’,by James Pustejovsky (–) ; ‘Describing polysemy: the case of ‘‘crawl ’’ ’, by Charles J.Fillmore & B. T. S. Atkins (–) ; ‘ ‘‘The garden swarms with bees ’’ and the fallacy of‘‘argument alternation’’ ’, by David Dowty (–) ; ‘Polysemy: a problem of definition’, byCliff Goddard (–) ; ‘Lexical representations for sentence processing’, by George A. Miller& Claudia Leacock (–) ; ‘Large vocabulary word sense disambiguation’, by MarkStevenson & Yorick Wilks (–) ; ‘Polysemy in a broad-coverage natural languageprocessing system’, by William Dolan, Lucy Vanderwende & Stephen Richardson (–) ;and ‘Disambiguation and connectionism’, by Hinrich Schutze (–). The book ends withan adequate index (–).

The most interesting paper in the collection is Pustejovsky’s on shadowing. This he defines asthe relation between a verb’s semantic representation and an argument which prevents itssyntactic expression. Thus, one can say the (a) and (b) examples, but not the (c) examples below:

() (a) Mary buttered her bread.(b) Mary buttered her bread with an expensive butter from Wisconsin.(c) *Mary buttered her bread with butter.

() (a) Mary elbowed her partner.(b) Mary elbowed her partner with her arthritic elbow.(c) *Mary elbowed her partner with her elbow.

The observation is that the semantics of the verb ‘shadows’ the direct expression of theargument and that the ‘shadow’ is lifted when the argument stands in a subtype relation to theshadowed argument.

The analysis of these and other shadows presupposes some familiarity with the formalisms ofthe Generative Lexicon (Pustejovsky ). The principal idea here is that lexicons are notorganisations where elements and relationships are listed and chosen but are instead mechanismswhere elements and relationships are made. A Generative Lexicon consists of four levels ofstructure – argument structure, event structure, qualia structure and lexical inheritancestructure – which are connected by a set of generative devices which collectively determine thepolymorphic expressiveness of the semantics. The overall effect is to avoid multiple listings ofrelated word senses and to enable both greater compactness and greater expressivity. TheGenerative Lexicon, in short, takes lexical semantics out of the realm of butterfly collecting andinto that of theoretical linguistics.

Another interesting paper is Cruse’s on the micro-structure of lexical semantics. This paper,unlike Pustejovsky’s, is entirely formalism-free and introduces the notions of ‘sense-nodules ’and ‘nodulation’. Cruse employs these notions to discuss the ‘regions of higher semantic

‘‘density ’’ … forming … more or less well-defined ‘‘ lumps’’ of meaning with greater or lesserstability under contextual change’ (). He concedes that metaphor is unavoidable in hisanalysis. He acknowledges that there is a parallel with Generative Lexicon qualia structure(although he does not elaborate on why he wishes to maintain a distance from this). And headmits that the full ramifications of his view of lexical meaning remain unexplored. One way ofreading this paper is as the ‘ordinary language’ version of the Generative Lexicon’s ‘ formallanguage’. Cruse might have considered more carefully the parallels between the two accounts.

Both Pustevojsky and Cruse, in their different ways, see lexicons as dynamic objects. A moreconservative – one might almost say old-fashioned – approach is provided by Goddard, whoexploits the methods of the natural semantic metalanguage (NSM) (e.g. Wierzbicka , )to address some definitional issues. The NSM approach is based on three premises : (i) thatsemantic analysis must be conducted in natural language and not with formalisms of logicalsymbols ; (ii) that ‘ the entire meaning of any semantically complex expression can be stated interms of a reductive paraphrase, i.e. an equivalent expression composed of simpler meaningsthan the original ’ () ; and (iii) that there is one single set of simpler meanings, or semanticprimes, from which all languages draw. There is, in effect, a single universal semanticmetalanguage with various versions in the attested natural languages.

Goddard uses these assumptions to provide what he claims is a coherent and practical methodof lexical definition. From this definition a more explicit and more concrete analysis of polysemyis said to follow. This may be the case but the demonstration is overly abbreviated in this briefpaper. But perhaps more importantly, Goddard does nothing to allay the inevitable suspicionsthat the natural semantic metalanguage is an essentially arbitrary collection of semantic featureswhose ultimate ontological significance is entirely mysterious. The NSM looks like componentialsemantics in slightly newer clothes.

Fillmore & Atkins provide a characteristically meticulous descriptive analysis of English crawland French ramper. They compare the lexical entries for crawl in four dictionaries – and note theinevitable discrepancies – and analyse corpus attestations from the British National Corpus.Unsurprisingly, there are corpus attestations that do not figure in any of the dictionariescompared. The moral of their story is a familiar one: dictionaries, and more especiallycomputational lexicons, would be more comprehensive and internally consistent if their designdrew more from analyses based on large-scale corpora. They repeat the exercise with Frenchramper.

Dowty is concerned with some data that has been at the forefront of syntacticians’ interest forseveral decades. This data is exemplified in () and ().

() Bees are swarming in the garden.() The garden is swarming with bees.

He calls the first the Agent-Subject Form (AS-Form) and the second the Location-SubjectForm (LS-Form) and he denies, with the formulation of ten claims, that these two forms havethe same meaning. These claims are very interesting. For example :

Claim (abbreviated). The LS-Form is a lexical derivation, and as such is subject to a broadconstraint of a Gricean type on all lexical derivations.Claim . The LS-Form accords with the default information structure of English subject-predicate sentences, i.e. the subject (location argument) is the default discourse topic, not theAgent argument.Claim . By Claims and , the LS-Form should be a construction which ‘characterises ’ thelocation, classes it as belonging to a category that is assumed to be significant for humanpurposes (contrast with AS-Form, which has no such presupposition).Claim . The LS-Form often has the implicature (probably conversational) that the activitylargely or totally fills the Location (literally or perceptually) because of its meaning that theperception of activity is sufficient to categorise the Location itself.

And so on. This is a very careful analysis that deserves a longer examination than is possible inthe present context. It demonstrates the adequacy which an inquiry can reach when semanticsand pragmatics come to challenge the autonomy of syntax. The analysis is being continued,according to the paper’s references, in a couple of Dowty-in-preparations.

This collection is something of a mixed bag. The title is somewhat puzzling, as polysemy is notalways the main focus of the contributions and the computational papers are either moreinterested in the more general notion of ambiguity or they discuss the characteristics of the

computational systems that they use to the detriment of linguistic fact. It is also surprising thatthere is so little explicit discussion of pragmatics. If polysemy has to do with relatedness ofmeaning, and not just multiplicity of meaning, then one would expect the various discourses ofpragmatics to be able to shed some light on these relations. The early lessons of Nunberg (e.g., ) seem to have been forgotten by the editors of this book.

REFERENCES

Nunberg, G. (). The pragmatics of reference. Bloomington: Indiana University LinguisticsClub.

Nunberg, G. (). The non-uniqueness of semantic solutions: polysemy. Linguistics andPhilosophy . –.

Pustejovsky, J. (). The generative lexicon. London: The MIT Press.Wierzbicka, A. (). Semantics, culture and cognition. New York: Oxford University Press.Wierzbicka, A. (). Semantics: primes and universals. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Author’s address: School of Languages, University of Brighton, Falmer, Brighton, East SussexBN� �PH, U.K.E-mail : K.P.Turner!bton.ac.uk

(Received August )


Lori Repetti (ed.), Phonological theory and the dialects of Italy (Current Issues in LinguisticTheory ). Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company, . Pp.x.

Reviewed by N B & S. J. H, University of Durham

This volume is of great interest to the phonologist in that it focuses on the phonology of Italiandialects, varieties which have until recently been neglected by mainstream generativelinguistics – though not by historical linguistics – and which offer a rich inventory for the studyof linguistic variation, especially from a phonological point of view. It includes twelve papers,each focusing on a phenomenon in a particular dialect or group of dialects, plus an introductoryarticle by Lori Repetti.

The volume covers a satisfactory range of varieties spread throughout the whole Italianpeninsula, although some dialects such as Sicilian, Sardinian, Venetian or Ligurian are entirelyneglected while reference to others, such as Friulian or Pugliese, recurs in several papers.Moreover, the articles employ a wide range of modern phonological theories, and often aim atproving the superiority of one model over another, so that their scope goes well beyond theboundaries of the specific varieties under analysis.

Repetti’s introduction (–) is well laid out, simple and explanatory. After convincinglyarguing the importance and usefulness of studying the ‘minor languages of Italy ’, she gives somehistorical and synchronic background and a literature review of Italian dialectology. Finally, sheprovides an overview of the articles contained in the volume, again generally clear and to thepoint, but which sometimes misses some of the implications of the relevant arguments.

Some of the papers deal with closely related topics. For example, six of them look at theintriguing patterns of Italo-Romance vowels. Of these six, three – namely, Andrea Calabrese’s,Francesco D’Introno & Rosemary Weston’s, and Naomi Nagy’s – tackle issues concerningvowel quality, while the other three (Marco Baroni & Laura Vanelli’s, Pilar Prieto i Vives’, andJohn Hajek’s) handle the prosody-related topic of vowel quantity. Calabrese’s ‘The feature[Advanced Tongue Root] and vowel fronting in Romance’ (–) gives an account of vowelfronting in the Southern dialect of Altamura based on the feature [³ ATR]. His contention isthat the fronting process is related to the markedness of the combination [ATR, BACK]and to its interaction with a cross-linguistic constraint against * [®BACK, RND] sounds. Thearticle is valuable because of the use Calabrese makes of a derivational constraint-and-repairtheory, which is an interesting approach, though not entirely coherent and often too powerful.

In ‘Vowel alternation, vowel}consonant assimilation and OCP effects in a Barese dialect ’(–), D’Introno & Weston deal with the related topic of alternations in the unstressedvowels of another Pugliese dialect, that of Coratino, near Bari. They claim that the fourprocesses affecting unstressed vowels in this variety – i.e. non-low vowel reduction, labial vowelretention, labial vowel raising and low vowel reduction – can be accounted for on the basis ofObligatory Contour Principle (OCP) effects, linking and delinking in an Underspecification andFeature Dependency framework. Nagy’s article, ‘Stress and schwa in Faetar ’ (–), handlesthe issue of the phonemic status of [b] and its relation with stress in the Francoprovenc: al dialectFaetar. By conducting a phonetic experiment and on the basis of moraic theory, she concludesthat stress, and not vowel quantity or quality, is lexically marked and that [b] has no phonemicstatus in this variety.

Among the articles dealing with vowel quantity, Baroni & Vanelli’s ‘The relationship betweenvowel length and consonantal voicing in Friulian’ (–) specifically analyzes the phonologicallength of stressed vowels before a phonemically voiced obstruent in word-final syllables. Basedon both phonological and phonetic evidence, they argue that vowel length and obstruent(de)voicing are still related at the synchronic level, and that the main reason for vowellengthening in this dialect is a compensation in contrastivity. In ‘Vowel lengthening in Milanese’(–), Prieto also deals with long vowels in word-final stressed syllables followed byunderlyingly voiced consonants, but in a different dialect. Her claim, however, is that an accountbased on the independently established Optimality Theory constraints F-B (Foot Binarity),H (Harmonic Nucleus) and F is superior to previous derivational accounts. Hajek’s‘How many moras? Overlength and maximal moraicity in Italy ’ (–) gives evidence fortrimoraicity in several linguistic varieties of the Italian peninsula, including Standard Italian.The author’s aim is to prove, by means especially of phonetic analysis, that a three-way weightdistinction can be found at least for many of the Italian varieties, so that the BimoraicityConstraint does not hold. Such a quantitative contrast, however, is phonologically relevant onlyfor dialects such as Milanese, Friulian and Bolognese.

Other papers deal more explicitly with prosodic structure. Although the foot appears inseveral other articles, Giovanna Marotta’s ‘Oxytone infinitives in the dialect of Pisa ’ (–)and Lori Repetti’s ‘Uneven or moraic trochees? Evidence from Emilian and Romagnol dialects ’(–) have this phonological constituent as their focus. Marotta deals with truncatedinfinitives in Pisan and their relation to foot structure. Based on the findings of a sociolinguisticsurvey, the author concludes that oxytone forms are completely lexicalized in this vernacular. Inorder to explain the (by no means exceptional) presence of stress-final bisyllables in an otherwisetrochaic language, she proposes to put aside all accounts based on degenerate feet and catalexisand to allow iambic (and trimoraic) feet into the analysis. Repetti faces the question of whetherquantity-sensitive trochees are better analyzed as uneven or moraic, by looking at differentdialects from the Emilia-Romagna region. Adopting an Optimality Theory perspective, sheshows that foot-bound phonological phenomena found in such dialects appear to argue in favorof the uneven trochee.

Two papers make reference to the prosodic category of clitic, though in different ways.Michele Loporcaro, in ‘Stress stability under cliticization and the prosodic status of Romanceclitics ’ (–), argues that the existence of distinct patterns of stress assignment undercliticization in a number of Italian varieties does not prove that clitics can subcategorize fordifferent prosodic categories. According to him, clitics are always postlexically adjoined to aphonological word; the difference between stress-stable and stress-shifting dialects arises fromthe setting of a parameter for postlexical stress reassignment. Although appealing in itsconclusions, his argument does not appear totally convincing, especially when he uses evidencefrom other dialects to draw conclusions about Standard Italian. Martin Maiden’s ‘Phonologicaldissimilation and clitic morphology in Italo-Romance’ (–) deals with the influence ofdissimilation on clitic sequences. Virtually all Italo-Romance varieties are included, althoughspecial reference is made to the Center-South. The author’s contention is that dissimilation is acrucial factor in the choice of one variant over the other when different variants of a clitic areavailable. He convincingly argues that, in such cases, dissimilation is not the result of a rule, butof a filter applying to diachronically determined lexical or morphological alternants.

Jean-Pierre Montreuil, in ‘Sonority and derived clusters in Raeto-Romance and Gallo-Italic ’(–), handles the issue of derived word-initial clusters and sonority sequencing in twoRaeto-Romance and three Gallo-Italic dialects. By looking at syllabic and moraic structure andmaking use of Optimality Theory constraints, he claims that sonority-violating consonants are

best treated by means of a re-adjunction mechanism and that the sonority differential plays acrucial role in the patterning of derived clusters.

The well-known phenomenon of ‘raddoppiamento sintattico’ (RS) is mentioned in severalpapers, but only one deals with it as its main topic, namely Barbara E. Bullock’s ‘Consonantgemination in Neapolitan’ (–). The author points out that Neapolitan differs from StandardItalian in the treatment of this process. Unlike Standard Italian, in the Southern dialect RS islexically determined, i.e. triggered only by certain function words, and stress is neither anecessary nor a sufficient condition for its application. In order to explain this, the authorinvokes the notion of ‘double prosody’, by which monomoraic words can be prosodized asbimoraic, producing gemination of the following consonant.

Despite the value of the contributions in general, the volume does have some infelicities. Aflaw shared by many of the articles is a certain inaccuracy in the data and inconsistency betweenexamples and figures on the one hand and the text on the other, which may be attributed to theediting. Moreover, some of the papers seem to assume greater knowledge of Italian dialects andgeography than might be the case for many non-Romance phonologists.

Overall, however, the volume proves a useful tool in both spreading the knowledge of Italiandialects and contributing to the development of phonological theory in general. In particular,articles like Calabrese’s, Loporcaro’s, Maiden’s, Marotta’s and Repetti’s provide a contributionthat goes beyond the scope of Italian dialectology.

Author’s address: Department of Linguistics, University of Durham, Elvet Riverside, NewElvet, Durham DH� �JT, U.K.E-mail : Nicole.Bosisio!durham.ac.uk, S.J.Hannahs!durham.ac.uk

(Received August )


Pe! ter Sipta! r & Miklo! s To% rkenczy, The phonology of Hungarian (The Phonology of the World’sLanguages). New York & Oxford: Oxford University Press, . Pp. xiv.

Reviewed by G! T! , University of Szeged & University of Toulouse-Le Mirail

The phonology of Hungarian (henceforth PH) is the ninth volume of the series The Phonology ofthe World’s Languages. As noted by its publisher, each volume ‘offers an extensive treatment ofthe phonology of one language within a modern theoretical perspective, and providescomprehensive references to recent and more classical studies of the language’. The present bookis the fruit of a large-scale research project on the structure of contemporary Hungarian initiatedby The Hungarian Academy of Sciences in the early nineties. The new findings and data are nowavailable for the English-reading world. The analyses presented in the book are couched in arule-based framework using autosegmental representations, sonority-driven syllabification,feature geometry and insights of Lexical Phonology concerning the phonology-morphologyinterface. One might consider the use of binary as well as unary features, underspecification,syllabic appendices, rule-ordering, lexical empty nuclei together with inserted nuclei as an over-rich theoretical machinery. However, the choice is conditioned by the primary preoccupation ofthe book: to cover as much data as possible and make them accessible to linguists from variousbackgrounds. PH achieves its goal splendidly.

The book is divided into three main parts : ‘Background’, ‘Systems’ and ‘Processes ’. The firstpart gives a general picture of Hungarian and presents the basic workings of the language.Hungarian morphology is of the agglutinative type: stems are followed by suffixes that have asingle morphological function, which is why the majority of Hungarian stems do not exhibitmorphophonological alternation; the changes we observe are rather due to general phonologicalprocesses like assimilation. The discussion of syntax dismisses the widely held belief thatHungarian is a free word order language; true, the main organising principle is not of the usualNP-VP type, but word order is conditioned by information structure. This chapter‘Preliminaries ’ is complemented by conjugation and declension tables and a comprehensive listof derivational affixes. This chapter can be of great use and interest to a large audience, mainlynon-Hungarian-speaking students and teachers of Hungarian or linguists interested in thelanguage.

Part II, ‘Systems’, subdivides into three chapters that outline the vocalic and consonantalsystems together with the syllable templates. There are various regularities that involve vowellength, for instance, low vowels have to be long before suffixes. There is another regularityinvolving vowel length: some stems appear with a short vowel when followed by a suffix. Theclass of stems that undergo this process or the set of suffixes that trigger it cannot be characterisedin a uniform way: it is not phonologically conditioned. Vowel harmony is perhaps the bestdocumented phenomenon of Hungarian phonology. It is of the stem-controlled type: harmonicsuffixes agree in backness with the stem. Chapter presents a classification of stems based ontheir behaviour with respect to harmony and whether they contain neutral vowels. Chapter treats the consonantal system and proposes a classification of consonants into subclasses. InHungarian, obstruent clusters must agree in terms of voicing: the pattern is a staticdistributional regularity in the lexicon and it is an assimilatory process in suffixation. The divisonof consonants into obstruents and sonorants is not straightforward though: for instance, [v] isa ‘Janus-faced consonant ’ in that it undergoes voice assimilation but does not trigger it. [h] isits mirror image: it does not undergo assimilation but devoices a preceding obstruent.

Chapter discusses Hungarian phonotactics in terms of (i) syllable structure constraints, (ii)transsyllabic constraints and (iii) morpheme structure conditions. On comparing initial vs.internal consonantal clusters, the authors conclude that Hungarian does not tolerate complexonsets : all word-internal triconsonantal clusters are the result of either analytic suffixation orcompounding, where phonotactic restrictions do not hold. Word-initial consonant clusters arenot thus analysed as branching onsets but as sequences of an appendix plus a simplex onset.Hungarian seems to tolerate branching codas though. An example of a transsyllabic constraintcould be the ban on hiatus : vowel clusters created by synthetic suffixation are eliminated, where-as those emerging from compounding or morpheme-internally are repaired by postlexical hiatusfilling. Morpheme structure conditions involve minimal word phenomena, for instance. In sum,part II provides the reader with a range of challenging data in appropriate quantities and couldserve as an excellent springboard for future discussion in other frameworks than the one usedin PH. The authors present data in a very conscientious manner, without falling into the trapof looking at the data with textbook orthodoxy.

The text is very rich in cross-references to corresponding chapters in part III, where theprocess-oriented analyses are given. Part III mirrors part II and subdivides into ‘Processesinvolving vowels ’, ‘Processes involving consonants ’ and ‘Processes conditioned by syllablestructure’. The analyses are clear and very well motivated: several alternative solutions aresketched and dropped before the final proposal is made. Vowel harmony is given a newapproach whereby all three place features (COR, LAB, DOR) float in stems and spread toalternating suffixes that are assumed to lack place features, whereas non-alternating suffixes havetheir vocalic place features anchored. One can find a detailed discussion of various assimilatoryprocesses targeting consonants such as palatalization, nasalization and voicing. The chapterdevoted to syllabically motivated processes discusses vowelC zero alternations : in Hungarianthe unstable vowel is a short mid vowel whose place is determined by vowel harmony and showsup both in stems and suffixes. The authors provide an analysis that refutes the traditionally heldclaim that defective vowels are epenthetic and that they repair ill-formed clusters. The authorspresent various processes that are triggered}undergone by an arbitrary set of stems or suffixes,for instance, unstable vowel lowering. What makes their analysis attractive is that, althoughitems have to be marked in the lexicon, the ‘mark’ is a structural description which is differentfrom that of the well-behaved set, so the exceptional behaviour falls out as an inevitableconsequence of phonetic implementation. Part III concludes with a discussion of severalsurface processes such as compensatory lengthening, closed syllable shortening, hiatus filling,degemination and cluster simplification.

The book has the quality of being extremely clear : it has been well proof-read, the glosses arereliable, the symbols}fonts are used consistently throughout the text. I believe that the book willbecome the key reference for Hungarian phonology for many years.

Author’s address: Institute of English & American Studies, University of Szeged,Egyetem u. �, �� Szeged, Hungary.E-mail : turcs!sol.cc.u-szeged.hu


Review of Beukema, Frits and Marcel den Dikken, eds. 1999. Clitic phenomena in European languages...

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