A case study in diachronic phonology: The Japanese onbin sound changes by Bjarke Frellesvig (review)

BOOK NOTICES 681 245-50), endnotes that are as informative as the main text (253-68), bibliography (269-71), and index (273-79). With fewer than 200 fluent speakers remaining, most of whom are over 50 years old, St'át'imcets —like all Salish languages—is in urgent need of continued documentation, and in this regard, this book is an example ofthe most important work that a linguist can undertake. Extensive use of The Lillooet language in the field has revealed how thorough and accurate it is; the book endlessly yields previously unnoticed information and yet is accessible to the undergraduate linguist. It can only be hoped that the author's St'át'imcets dictionary eventually might also be published with the same care and attention to detail. [Taylor Roberts, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.] El complemento directo preposicional. Ed. by Carmen Pensado. (Col. gramática del español, 1.) Madrid. Visor, 1995. Pp. 233. This volume brings together six papers on the Spanish prepositional direct object (PDO) published in different journals and collections of conference papers; English papers have been translated. It is the first volume in a series intended to bring together published papers on grammatical phenomena of Spanish. The PDO is a characteristic property of Spanish: Definite direct objects headed by a human noun require the prepositional accusative case marker a, as in veo A Juan ? see a + John' (cf.: *veo Juan), whereas inanimate direct objects are unmarked or non-PDOs as in veo la casa ? see the house' (cf.: *veo a la casa). Thus, only a proper subset of direct objects is marked with a. The editor summarizes and briefly discusses the state ofthe question in the first part. The summary is based on 100 titles, and it is followedby an annotated bibliography of 75 other titles. She notes that the PDO shows a 'monotonous behavior', that is, there is little variation in the Spanish speaking world. Studies on PDO in standard Modern Spanish try to assess how the few clear cases ofPDOs containing inanimate heads fit in and how the variation PDO/ non-PDO in indefinite, quantified, and generic human direct objects can be interpreted. Semantic differences between PDOs and non-PDOs in older stages of Spanish have been studied by corpus analysis . The selection of references reflects the opinion of the editor that it is not difficult for the child acquiring his/her native language or for the adult learning a secondlanguage toinclude orto 'omit' the accusative preposition a correctly. She observes that the issue has not been treated much in generative studies, which is surprising in view of the fact that she has not 'seen' two doctoral dissertations mentioned in the annotated bibliography which deal with PDO extensively . Most studies on PDO are concerned with its history and emergence, andthe selection mirrors this: 50 pages on Modem Spanish, 64pages on early Spanish, and 54 pages on its emergence. The introduction, the bibliographical information given in the introduction and the annotated bibliography will be useful to anyone interested in the PDO. [Jan Schroten, Utrecht University.] A case study in diachronic phonology: The Japanese onbin sound changes. By Bjarke Frellesvig. Aarhus: Aarhus University Press, 1995. Pp. 168. Bjarke Frellesvig applies Henning Andersen's theory of language change to analyze the series of sound changes grouped under the term onbin, commonly translated as 'sound euphony'. This theory explains the results of sound change as the outcome of decisions made by the hearer in interpreting acoustic input. F notes that the onbin sound changes, which first appear in written texts around the beginning of the ninth century, are of interest for the following reasons: (1) While Old Japanese (700-800) had only short syllables, Early Middle Japanese (800-1200) acquired long syllables through the onbin sound changes. (2) The onbin sound changes were not automatic . (3) In some instances, the onbin changes involved 'bifurcation', or change in two directions. (4) The onbin changes represent monophthongization and should not be characterized as segment loss. Ch. 1 gives an overview of the onbin sound changes. The source syllables of the changes were nonmorpheme initial and included one of the consonants Ip, b, k, g, m, n/ and one of the...