Linguistic analysis and text interpretation: Essays on the Bill of Rights and on Keats, Shakespeare and Dreiser By Juhani Rudanko (review)

BOOK NOTICES 467 sessives and genitives. Anna Cardbmaletti extends the tripartite characterization of (clausal) pronominal systems to possessive systems, showing how 'clitic, weak, and strong' possessives map onto pre- vs. postnominal positions. Maaike Schoorlemmer describes correlations among possessives with articles, indefinite interpretation of possessive phrases, and morphologically marked forms of the possessive in N-ellipsis contexts, suggesting that the presence or absence of a definiteness feature on the possessive phrase head accounts for the different patterns. LarsOlof Delsing examines the typology of possessive constructions in Germanic and argues for separate syntactic treatments ofpossessive pronouns and genitive phrases. Thomas Lindauer uses the distribution of genitives in German to take a detailed look at the syntactic nature of the Spec DP position. Peter Gallmann accounts for the distribution of case features within DPs using a model of morphology-syntax interaction which allows lexical, morphological, and syntactic items to be either specified or underspecified for case. The next four papers deal more directly with the behavior of DP-internal predicates. Marcel den Dikken identifies a DP-internal parallel to copular sentences with 'commutable' subjects and predicates , the 'N of a N construction' (e.g. that idiot of a doctor), which he analyzes in terms of 'predicate inversion'. In a paper that dovetails nicely with den Dikken's, Norbert Corver presents a predicate inversion analysis for pseudopartitive constructions (e.g. a bottle ofwater). Roberto Zamparelli investigates the syntax and semantics of the 'kind-construction ' (e.g. this kind of car), proposing to unify kind-constructions with partitives and 'of/z' possessives . Artemis Alexiadou and Chris Wilder apply a Kaynean treatment of modifiers as predicates in their analysis of 'determiner spreading' in definite DPs and the availability of different word orders within both definite and indefinite DPs in Greek. Mila Dimitrova-Vulchanova and Giuliana GiUSTi address two issues in the syntax of DPs in Balkan languages: they challenge standard accounts of the enclitic definite article which claim that the enclitic necessarily triggers overt N-to-D movement, and they present evidence that certain nominal modifiers may undergo A'-movement to focus or topic phrase positions at the left edge of DP. In the final paper, Tuan Uriagereka ponders the puzzle posed by the rigidity of proper names in counterfactuals and, drawing inspiration from the syntax of Chinese DPs, argues for a semantically motivated articulation of the DP structure. Although this volume appears under the aegis of the Linguistik Aktuell series, the range of the empirical data discussed extends beyond Germanic to include evidence from Romance and Semitic languages , Albanian, Bulgarian, Greek, and Chinese, broadening the appeal ofthis collection. [Vivian Lin, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.] Linguistic analysis and text interpretation : Essays on the Bill of Rights and on Keats, Shakespeare and Dreiser. By Juhani Rudanko. Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1997. Pp. 136. This book continues the task of applying linguistic approaches to literary texts that Rudanko has laid out in several earlier books. Here, R adds to linguistics techniques of rhetorical analysis in an attempt to move beyond linguistics and literature to a more general approach to language and texts. Although the strain of attempting so much in a brief monograph occasionally shows, R is, on the whole, quite successful . In Ch. 1 R lays out methodological principles that simultaneously constitute the book's greatest strength and potential weakness. Genres covered include poetry, fiction, drama, and the debate in the U.S. House in June of 1789 over the 'Bill of Rights'. To find a single method of treating such a variety of language uses would be a formidable, probably impossible task. R's solution is to apply a variety of analytic tools, each appropriate to 'the properties and peculiarities of the particular texts' (1). This approach enables R to analyze a vast variety of text types. However, the result often reads more like an excellent collection of long papers than a unified book. Chs. 2-4 are the best description of the 'Bill of Rights' and the debate over its adoption in the literature of discourse analysis and text linguistics. Ch. 2 presents the history, context, and flow of the debate. Unless they are historians, Americans are apt to feel embarrassment at R...