A concise grammar of the Old Frisian dialect of the first Riustring manuscript by Dirk Boutkan (review)

BOOK NOTICES 687 A concise grammar of the Old Frisian dialect of the first Riustring manuscript . By Dirk Boutkan. (Nowelle supplement, 16.) Odense: Odense University Press, 1996. Pp. 203. Dkr. 225. Boutkan's book is based on the semidiplomatic (with expansion of standard orthographic abbreviations ) edition of De Eerste Riustringer codex by W. J. Buma (1961. The Hage: Martinus Nijhoff). Buma provides codical background such as manuscript transmission, scribal practice and emendation, dating history, and stylistic considerations, as well as a thorough glossary/concordance, but does not furnish any grammatical analysis of the language of the codex, such as given, for example, in Bo Sjölin's edition of Die "Fivelgoer" Handschrift (1970-75. The Hage: Martinus Nijhoff). B's Grammar, based primarily on the extensive glossary provided by Buma, is designed to fill this gap. B's approach, as stated in his preface, is 'to make an inventory rather than an analysis and a synchronic rather than a historical-linguistic study of the grammar of Rj' (1). It is akin (to take another catalogue based on a medieval legal text) to Willy Görnemann 's Zur Sprache der Textus Roffensis (Berlin: Mayer & Müller, 1901), although more current in linguistic terms. B. includes some historical notes (conveniently printed in smaller type). The introduction, Ch. 1 (8-11), addresses the dialect OfR1 , listing archaic features and linguistic innovations . Ch. 2, 'Phonology' (12-51), opens with a discussion of orthography, then proceeds to examine the inventory of vowels in stressed syllables (with a nice chart of minimal pairs), unstressed syllables according to position, and syncope. The section on consonants discusses inventory, assimilation rules, and what B calls 'other processes and problematic consonants' (45): for example, forms which alternate th - d\ variation between -ath and -at in some third person endings; 'incidental spellings of sandhi variants ' (46). The chapter finishes with an analysis of morphophonological changes brought about by clitic attachment of pronouns, adverbs, and the negation *ne-. Ch. 3 (52-150) turns to morphology, beginning with nouns. After a brief discussion of problems of categorization, B charts the variation in endings, then proceeds to an inventory of forms in which these endings appear. In accordance with B's synchronic approach, this inventory merges declensions which are etymologically distinct; rather than categorizing nouns according to different declensional patterns, B lists the endings followed by the noun forms in which they appear. The same organization is used for the inventory of adjectives (including degrees of comparison and predicative or substantive use). Next comes the listing ofpronouns, adverbs, prepositions, prefixes (such asa-, bi- -be-, of-, etc), conjunctions, and numerals. The volume concludes with a helpful index with glosses (159-203). B's study provides a good databank ofthe attested forms in R,'s dialect. It is too bad that B did not include more background about dating and localization of his source material, even though Buma covers this fairly extensively. The lack of such codical information makes it difficult to use B's grammar as an independent source in comparative study; anyone wanting to cite these forms in their historical context must have access to Buma and a knowledge ofDutch. [Lisi Oliver, Louisiana State University.] Linguistic theory, language contact, and modern Hindustani: The three sides of a linguistic story. By Rajendra Singh. (American university studies. Series XIII: Linguistics, 31.) New York: Peter Lang, 1995. Pp. xiv, 153. The subtitle of this monograph is based on an anonymous quotation: "There are always three sides to a story—your side, my side, and the truth' (vii). In this case, the 'story' Singh presents revolves around certain grammatical facts resulting from contact between Hindustani and English (and also Persian, to a lesser extent), and the 'three sides' he examines as ways in which the relevant facts may be viewed correspond to formalist approaches, functionalist approaches , and a 'synthesis' (9) of the two. Unlike much of the scholarship that has been produced on language contact in the past decade, this work does not attempt to delimit the social and/or structural factors governing the possible outcomes of language contact; rather, it looks at the grammatical structures that have already resulted from such contact and investigates the role they have...