Papers in Korean linguistics Ed. by Chin-W. Kim (review)

244 LANGUAGE, VOLUME 57, NUMBER 1 (1981) Proto-Yue, based on Szeyap dialects and Standard Cantonese (pp. 7-8). In his introductory chapter, T describes his assumptions, goals, and the dialects he considers : Rongxian, Cenxi, Binyang, Yulin, Nanning (Ping-hua), Shinan, Cangwu, and Sihe. These are all spoken in Guangxi province, except for Sihe ofGuangdong province. T gives no explicit justification for regarding these particular dialects as representative ofthe Yue group, but the data raise no obvious problems with this assumption . AU the dialects exhibit the same tonal register distinction; similar mergers of the Ancient Chinese dental, palatal, and retroflex series ; and the deplosivization of AC *k' etc. In Chap. II, T presents short outlines of the phonologies of the eight dialects, and of two Szeyap dialects taken from McCoy, namely Haixin and Taishan. Only one of these dialects, Rongxian, is given a complete treatment; for the others, T relies on their parallels with Rongxian. The Rongxian description itself is primarily composed ofcharts and tables, showing the distribution of rimes and initials, followed by feature charts and hierarchies which allow T to write morpheme-structure rules. Each dialect description also contains tables indicating the correspondences with Karlgren's 1957 reconstruction of Ancient Chinese, McCoy's ProtoCantonese , and the traditional categories of the initials and rimes. For the tones, only the traditional categories are given. These descriptions are short, with little phonetic detail, so that some ofthe outlines arejust segmental and tonal inventories with their correspondences. T's final chapter is devoted to his revised reconstruction of Proto-Yue. Its core is his positing of a series of murmured stops and fricatives , corresponding to the Ancient Chinese and to the Guangxi Yue murmured series. McCoy did not reconstruct a murmured series for ProtoCantonese because Szeyap and Standard Cantonese initial consonants show no contrasts corresponding to murmur. Since the murmured series of Ancient Chinese and of Guangxi Yue establish a strong primafacie case for Proto-Yue murmured initials, T's suggestion might be considered obvious. By considering new dialects, he has pushed ProtoCantonese back to Proto-Yue. However, a number of questions remain unanswered. How are the murmured nasals and liquids of Rongxian to be dealt with, given that Ancient Chinese has been reconstructed without murmured sonorants ? Also, it was plausible to think of the register split in Yue as triggered by the merger of the voiceless obstruents with their murmured counterparts. If this merger did not take place in Guangxi Yue, as T claims, how is it that Guangxi Yue exhibits the same register splits as Szeyap and Standard Cantonese? T makes other revisions, mostly in the rimes; but he generally fails to formulate his arguments in terms of general sound changes, instead of the traditional categories. Finally, T gives a word list ofsome 800 items, each glossed for the eight Guangxi dialects, Haixin, Taishan, Standard Cantonese, Ancient Chinese, and Revised Proto-Yue. The word list is extremely useful, but flawed in that some traditional rime categories are insufficiently represented ; e.g., Guo kai-kou grade three and Guo he-kou grade three have only one representative each. On the whole, this book is well designed; it is illustrated with many charts and tables, and is probably accessible both to traditional Chinese scholars and to linguists unfamiliar with the traditional literature. The text is marred by typographical and grammatical errors which should have been caught in the proofreading; but it is still a welcome contribution to the scant literature in English. [Michael Hammond. UCLA.] Papers in Korean linguistics. Ed. by Chin-W. Kim. Columbia, SC: Hornbeam Press, 1978. Pp. x, 304. $6.75. This is a collection of twenty-six papers on various aspects ofKorean linguistics, presented at the Symposium on Korean Linguistics held at the University of Hawaii, August 18-20, 1977. The first section, historical linguistics, contains five papers on the reconstruction of Middle Korean and still earlier forms of the language . Worthy of special mention is S. Robert Ramsey's 'S-clusters and reinforced consonants ', discussing the nature of the Middle Korean consonant clusters that gave rise to the modern reinforced consonants. Section II, on phonology, includes several papers treating the vowel system of modern Korean, the Korean...