In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

Reviewed by:
  • Deskriptive Grammatik und allgemeiner Sprachvergleich ed. by Dietmar Zaefferer
  • Dieter Aichele
Deskriptive Grammatik und allgemeiner Sprachvergleich. Ed. by Dietmar Zaefferer. (Linguistische Arbeiten 383.) Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1998. Pp. 176.

Descriptive grammar being an important basis for both the comparison of languages and their grammatical structures and for the derivation of new grammars that follow the principle of explanatory adequacy, the aim of this book is to support the idea of a standardized electronic database that contains descriptive grammars of as many languages as possible. The authors thereby modify and update a noncomputerized project started by Bernard Comrie in the late 1970s which, on the basis of a standardized questionnaire, resulted in more than twenty descriptive grammars that can be compared to each other for further research. Apart from making the database more accessible and searchable with the help of the computer, the overall structure and the criteria for which data and how they are to be entered and displayed are reviewed as well.

The eight articles in this book are split into two groups; four essays cover theoretical issues of language description, and the remaining four essays are compiled under the topic of practical problems with descriptive grammars.

In stating some weaknesses of the earlier project, namely the lack of distinction between formal and functional data, Bernard Comrie, who takes part in the design of the new database, links the old with the new concept.

William Croft outlines the problems in defining and using formal categories only as a basis of comparison and shows in more detail how comparisons between languages can be achieved more easily when emphasizing the functional aspects of the linguistic elements in question.

Dietmar Zaefferer then presents a systematic inventory of functional descriptors that might be used throughout the new database. The overall classification is based on noncontroversial functional hypotheses referring to linguistic universals widely agreed upon by major linguistic schools.

In the last article within the theoretical section, Christian Lehmann demonstrates that the theoretical foundations and the descriptive database structure outlined before work fine with Yucatese.

The second part of the book deals with practical problems in the field of language description and comparison.

Jürgen Bohnemeyer examines possible functions of sentential topicalization in Yucatese and how these [End Page 401] can be compared to functions of the same phenomenon within other languages. Again the importance of standardized criteria that serve as the basis for comparisons is shown.

With respect to the distinction of nouns and verbs in Chinese, Stephanie Eschenlohr proves that the functional concept is more likely to allow comparisons between languages rather than the formal concept that only indicates whether certain elements are present or not.

Beatrice Primus outlines in her more general article how the concept of semantic roles can be used as one aspect of language typology. Her essay gives more insight into the influence of general language comparison and the description of individual languages.

Finally, Eva Schultze-Berndt presents the interaction of semasiology and onomasiology on the basis of functional or complex verb patterns in the Australian language Jaminjung. Again the interdependency of formal and functional aspects and how they foster language comparison is shown.

Dieter Aichele
Universität Koblenz
...

pdf

Share