The uses of linguistics By Alfred Bammesberger (review)

BOOK NOTICES Die Morphologie des urgermanischen Nomens. By Alfred Bammesberger . (Untersuchungen zur vergleichenden Grammatik der germanischen Sprachen, 2. Band.) Heidelberg : Winter, 1990. Pp. 290. DM 34.00. The book under review is the second volume of B's projected five-volume comparative Germanic grammar, following by four years Der Aufbau des germanischen Verbalsystems (Heidelberg : Winter. 1986). After a brief introduction (9-10). an overview of the nominal system of Germanic (1 1-7), and a chapter dealing with the characteristic features of the Indo-European noun (18-34), B canvasses the stem-classes of Germanic in a sequence of seven chapters, followed by a chapter on the adjective. In each instance B presents inflectional paradigms from the old Germanic dialects, reconstructs the PlE and PGmc. forms of the various case endings, and discusses their general historical developments . This is followed in each chapter by a listing of Germanic nouns (or adjectives) belonging to the stem-class in question, together with a short discussion of each. It is this feature that gives B's book its unique value. B frequently ventures analyses that carry us back to PlE, taking into consideration recent work on the PIE noun. The book is therefore an important new scholarly tool in Germanic linguistics. I will limit the following discussion to a few points that may be considered controversial. B states (38) that eight cases are to be postulated for PGmc. This seems questionable to me, particularly with regard to the ablative. Although it is true that the many Germanic adverbs in *-<5 (e.g. Goth, sniumundo, OS, OHG sniumo 'quickly' ; ON giarna 'gladly'. OE geara 'formerly') may be derived from PIE ablatives in *-oad, the fact that such forms are already on the PGmc. It vel relexicalized suggests that the ablative did not exist as such in PGmc. At a later point B himself notes (43) that as a proper case form the ablative was in PGmc. 'kaum mehr lebendig' . On p. 36 B somewhat awkwardly lists Goth, dat. sg. daga as an instrumental. True, this form may provide an exact counterpart to OS dagu and OHG tagu, both instrumentais, but it may also be derived from a PIE locative in *-oi (cf. Gk. oíkoi, Lith. namië 'at home', OCS grade 'in the city'). B seems to support such a derivation , at least as a possibility (42), although at a later point (103) he supports derivation from an instrumental. B is inconsistent in his treatment of PGmc. long vowels resulting from contraction of two vowels, sometimes reconstructing them with circumflex intonation (trimoricity) and sometimes not. Thus, the PGmc. dat. sg. of /-stems is presented as *-ai (125), but the corresponding //-stem form is given as *-aii (151), despite the morphological parallelism of the two stem classes. The «-stem genitive plural ending is reconstructed variously as *-ö" (154, ?. 257) and *-on (154). Apropos of //-stems. B derives the voc. sg. in au of Gothic from an extended-grade *-ew (151-2). But extended grade in a vocative hardly imposes itself, and such forms as Skt. vaso 'good one (voc.)', OCS synu 'son (voc.)', and Lith. siinaii 'id.' all point to simple *-eu or *-«//. At the same time. OCS synovii 'sons (gen.)', Gk. péheôn 'forearms (gen.)', and Lat. cornuum 'horns (gen.)' provide much better combined evidence for the //-stem gen. pi. than does Skt. bâhùnâm 'harms (gen.)' (157). Much of B's discussion involves etymological considerations. A good etymology involves both a formal and a semantic side; and I find the treatment of the latter to be somewhat weak in a number of instances. For example, B treats *daig-ijön- 'female breadmaker' (OE deege) (181-82) as a Weiterbildung to *daigi. itself a feminine built to *daigaz 'dough' on the pattern familiar from Skt. devás 'god': devi 'goddess'. But why should a kneader be called '(feminine dough)-er'? Rather, *daig-ijon- is a direct feminine agentive formed to *daigaz like *fisk-ijan- 'fisherman', the masculine agentive to *fiskaz 'fish'. The meaning is therefore 'dougher (fern.)'. In closing, 1 wish to emphasize the importance and usefulness of this book. Its rich detail and informed discussion are deserving of careful and critical reading by scholars interested in the Indo-European basis of the Germanic noun. (Jared S. Klein, The University of Georgia.] The uses of linguistics. Ed. by Edward H. Bendix. (Annals of the New 645 646 LANGUAGE, VOLUME 67, NUMBER 3 (1991) York Academy of Sciences 583.) New York: The New York Academy of Sciences, 1990. Pp. 235. Cloth $59.00. This book contains eleven papers, selected for publication from among presentations made at meetings of the Linguistics Section of the New York Academy of Sciences from 1984 to 1986. Part 1 (15-92) focuses on the uses of linguistics in the study of society and social interaction . Deborah Tannen suggests that 'conversation and literary discourse both can be understood in terms of their use of coherence conventions which amount to a system of aesthetics or poetics' (30). She presents a useful overview of relevant literature and then shows, using data from a conversation, how repetitions serve as dynamics by which conversations achieve an aesthetic effect. William A. Stewart's contribution is a study of a breakdown in black-white communication. He finds that the source of the breakdown is masked by the deceptive surface similarities between mainstream English and Black English Vernacular. Stewart, the author of the earlier terms basilect and acrolect. introduces here the terms xenolect and mimolect. used as in the sentence , 'If pidgin and creóle languages are xenolects , then decreolizing or decreolized varieties are likely to be mimolects' (38). Edward Bendix demonstrates how Puerto Rican racial terms such as hispano, negro, moreno, and bianco can have different meanings in different constructions. In the last paper of Part I, Ana Celia Zentella urges integrating qualitative and quantitative methods in the study of bilingual code-switching, and applies the framework to the speech of Puerto Rican children in New York City. The three papers in Part II (93-142) deal with the uses oflinguistics in studying the acquisition of communicative competence. Katherine Nelson examines language development in context and concludes that, 'unless the context itself is well-understood, language cannot be understood within it' ( 107). Jennifer Ryan Hsu & Helen Smith Cairns attempt to answer the question of how children learn to interpret pronominal reference. In a short paper dealing with aspects of communicative development in physically handicapped toddlers, Gail A. Wasserman & Rhianon Allen report that, while language difficulties are most severe in children with oral clefts and multiple anomalies, children born prematurely and those with other physical anomalies also experience difficulties in language acquisition. Language delays after the age of three are more strongly associated with family background. Part III (143-79) deals with the uses of linguistics in computer analysis of information. In the first of two papers, D. Terence Lanoendoen & Yedidyah Langsam propose a parenthesis-free method of representing grammatical structures; such a method permits the class corresponding to the acceptable expressions of a natural language to constitute a regular set. Naomi Sager then explains how regularities of language usage within a sublanguage are used in computerized information analysis of free-text input. Part IV (181-234) shows how linguistics is applied in comparative approaches. Penny Willis discusses the initial consonant mutations in the Brythonic Celtic languages, and Franklin C. Southworth makes use of linguistic , sociological, archaeological, geographical , and biological evidence to reconstruct prehistoric South Asian language contact. Well printed and free of misprints, the book is a technical but useful and informed contribution to the field of applied linguistics. [Zdenek Salzmann, Northern Arizona University .] Spanish in the United States: Sociolinguistic issues. Ed. by John J. Bergen. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 1990. Pp. ix, 166. Paper $11.95. This volume comprises a collection of fifteen papers presented at the Seventh Conference on El español en los Estados Unidos, held in October 1986 at the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque. Six papers are in Spanish. As the title suggests, the territory covered is extensive, both geographically and topically, and the editor helpfully segments it into four more manageable subareas, which are preceded by his terse introduction . Two papers in the section on 'Language structure and variation' are dialectological studies, and three examine language maintenance. June A. Jaramillo concludes that prescriptive norms continue to govern /// and Usted; both Manuel Gutiérrez and Francisco Ocampo ...