Spanish in contact: Issues in bilingualism ed. by Ana Roca and John B. Jensen (review)

682 LANGUAGE, VOLUME 74, NUMBER 3 (1998) evidence, F remarks that it is difficult to assess the stylistic or sociolinguistic values associated with onbin versus non-onbin forms. While he disclaims the need to consider such values in this chapter, it is precisely these values that F appeals to in Ch. 4 when he proposes an explanatory account of onbin sound changes grounded in hearer/speaker-based innovations in interpretation. Here, and throughout the book, F takes his data from the secondary literature and omits any reference to the source texts in which the data actually appear. Ch. 2 provides the theoretical framework for the analysis. F uses the set of acoustically defined distinctive features of Jakobson and Halle, which he terms 'diacritic signs'. The phoneme is a 'structured syntagm' consisting of diacritic signs which are ranked in terms of their conceptual importance. Production of language involves realization rules which consist of implementation rules (including the subtypes variation rules and neutralization rules) and adaptive rules. In the theory of language change adopted from Andersen, change arises through innovations which are either adaptive or evolutive and deductive or abductive. Ch. 3 discusses the phonology of Old Japanese, with focus on tenues, mediae, and nasals, the segments involved in the onbin changes. The status of the koo-otu vocalic distinctions and the role of tonality in the context ofthese changes are also addressed. Ch. 4 interprets the onbin sound changes as phonological abductions based on the reduced realizations of certain forms. The reduced forms, representing familiar variants, were reinterpreted as politeness neutral on the one hand or, on the other, reinterpreted semantically, with the 'familiar' feature ofthe familiar variant assigned as a lexical property of the reduced form. Ch. 5 briefly touches on 'relative signantia' which F views as abductions based on the outcome of the onbin sound changes. Ch. 6 analyzes segmental oppositions in the reduced style of speech in terms of salience of contrast and the potential for segmental innovation in the direction of 'phonemic monophthongization'. Ch. 7 points to sonority as a key factor: the onbin sound changes appear only when a reduced segment is higher in sonority than the following segment. F focuses on the processes of valuation, segmentation, and ranking in the interpretation of reduced variants ofcertain syllables as the post-peak nuclear segments of the preceding syllable. It was this innovative process of syllabification which gave rise to the new type of long syllable in Japanese. F's main contribution through this application of Andersen's framework is to account for the onbin sound changes as a process of 'phonemic monophthongization '. His view ofthe onbin changes thereby contrasts with the interpretation of those changes as the result of segment loss, proponents of which view he cites as Mabuchi, Miller and Okumura (161, note 95). A descriptive view of the onbin sound changes which is similar to F's may be found in Samuel Elmo Martin (1987. The Japanese language through time, 37. New Haven & London: Yale University Press). F's analysis will also contribute to the debate on the extent to which underlying representations must reflect surface phonotactic constraints and the extent to which synchronic derivations are a reflection of diachronic change, as discussed by Timothy J. Vance, (1987. An introduction to Japanese phonology , 194-95. Albany: State University ofNew York Press). [Ann Wehmeyer, University ofFlorida.] Spanish in contact: Issues in bilingualism . Ed. by Ana Roca and John B. Jensen . Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Press, 1996. Pp. xi, 226. Paper $23.95. Most of the fourteen papers in this volume are revised versions of papers presented at a conference in Miami in 1991. Like many conference proceedings , the papers are varied in topic and theoretical orientation, but they are loosely united around the theme of bilingualism involving Spanish. A general introduction by the editors (v-xi) locates the papers in the field of bilingual studies and summarizes each contribution. In the first section, 'Spain', Robert M. Hammond (1-11) suggests mutual grammatical influences between Spanish and Basque in Spain; Jasone Cenoz (13-27) compares Basque-Spanish bilinguals' degree of success learning English with that of Spanish monolinguals; and Hope Doyle (29-43) surveys attitudes toward Spanish and...