Understanding English grammar: A linguistic approach By Ronald Wardhaugh (review)

202 LANGUAGE, VOLUME 74, NUMBER 1 (1998) considered as coronalization or dorsalization is seriously flawed (missing its assimilatory nature). It should be considered corono-dorsalization—the tongue is both raised and fronted. No Polish palatalization is a purely surface phenomenon; it must be described in stages (e.g. many 'palatalized' consonants become alveolare). S notes that theory needs 'detailed, in-depth analyses , not of isolated. . .phenomena, but of large portions of [individual] languages' (248), which S here provides. S examines a model which 'provide[s] efficient tools to describe a large variety ofphonological phenomena in Polish and English' (250). While S may not have finally resolved all the problems she has discussed, this is a brilliant, sedulous, and satisfying contribution to those problems which will be impossible to ignore in future treatments of any ofthem. [James L. Fidelholtz, Benemérita Universidad Aut ónoma de Puebla, México.] Understanding English grammar: A linguistic approach. By Ronald Wardhaugh . Oxford & Cambridge, MA: Blackwell, 1995. Pp. x, 279. Many of us teach 'Structure of English' or 'Linguistics for English Teachers' courses which are supposed to both teach traditional grammar and serve as an introduction to linguistics. This book is one of several recent books which attempt to bridge the gap between these two often conflicting goals. It succeeds in some areas; however, after using it for a semester, I am still searching for the perfect structure of English textbook. The book is intended 'to provide students with necessary information about English so that they can become familiar with some of its essential structural characteristics' (x). The areas covered are parts of speech (Ch. 2), syntax (Chs. 3-8), phonology/phonetics (Chs. 9-10), morphology/morphophonology (Chs. 11-12), and 'sounds in context', a rather odd mix of syllable structure, intonation, and allegro speech phenomena (Ch. 13). The volume also includes a preface, a three-page chapter (Ch. 1), which introduces the concept of descriptivism vs. prescriptivism , a short but useful further reading list (Ch. 14), and an indexed glossary. Each chapter ends with a set of exercises. More than half the book, a total of 147 pages, is devoted to syntax, divided into chapters on constituents and phrases, basic clauses, coordination and embedding, clausal variation (i.e. clause types other than active declarative), underlying relationships, and rules and principles. The approach is vaguely generative. Phrase structure rules and trees are used extensively, though the term phrase structure never appears and is not in the glossary. A transformation for each nonbasic clause type is spelled out with a specific deep structure configuration and structural change. GB theory is mentioned approvingly (138), though with a definition that implies that any theory in which verbs require particular types of arguments is GB. W's method of writing tree diagrams with all the words in the constituent repeated under each node is cumbersome, and some of the labeling seems unnecessarily baroque (the division of quantifier elements into 'determiners', 'predeterminers ', and 'postdeterminers' , for example), but on the whole, these six chapters do a reasonably clear job of identifying the major clause types of English and a possible way to describe them. However, W gives little attention to why a transformational analysis is reasonable or why one would want to identify types of clauses. W's approach throughout the book is 'deliberately eclectic' (ix), meaning no particular theory is favored or even clearly developed. While the impulse to present material in a relatively theory-neutral way is understandable , it results in students being fed facts with no reason to find them interesting. In fact, in spite of its subtitle, the book does not take a very linguistic approach. In particular, it has very few exercises ofthe 'find a generalization' type, in which students are to come up with a rule to account for a set of data. Instead, W gives rules for recognizing or forming a type of construction and typical exercises require students to 'label each of the following sentences as simple, compound, complex , or compound-complex' (116) or 'form a passive sentence from each of the following active sentences' (134). The book begins promisingly enough. The first two chapters do encourage thinking about standard and nonstandard grammar andjustification...