The design of language: An introduction to descriptive linguistics By Terry Crowley, John Lynch, Jeff Siegel, and Julie Piau (review)

436 LANGUAGE, VOLUME 74, NUMBER 2 (1998) Insufficient editorial attention was given to citations to the reference lists, but the book ends with an unexpected bonus: an author index (123-28). [Peter T. Daniels, New York City.] The design of language: An introduction to descriptive linguistics. By Terry Crowley, John Lynch, Jeff Siegel, and Julie Piau. Auckland, New Zealand: Longman Paul Limited, 1996. Pp. xv, 471. The origin of this book, the authors explain (vi), was the desire to provide an introduction to linguistics with illustrative data in large part from the languages ofthe Pacific Ocean in order to accommodate speakers of English as a second language who are studying linguistics at the University of Papua New Guinea and the University of the South Pacific. Nevertheless, the value of the book vis-à-vis other introductions goes substantially beyond its database by providing a well-designed combination of the traditional with the more contemporary. The authors are to be commended for the readability, clarity, and comprehensiveness of their effort, which is set forth in nine chapters: Ch. 1, 'Linguistic levels' (1-47); Ch. 2, 'Sounds and phonemes' (48-114); Ch. 3, 'More abstract phonology' (115-88); Ch. 4, 'Grammatical categories' (189-229); Ch. 5, 'Morphemes' (230-71); Ch. 6, 'Morphophonemics' (272-304); Ch. 7, 'Morphosyntax' (305-29); Ch. 8, 'Syntax' (330-72); and Ch. 9, 'More abstract syntax' (373-444). The authors note that the third and ninth chapters, which go beyond fundamental concepts, can be omitted without compromising the integrity of the exposition. An important aspect of this book is its relatively full treatment of the assumptions and methodology of the pre- and early generative periods which, in other introductions, are ignored or treated too briefly to convey their significance for contemporary models of language. In contrast, they are here used as the basis for core chapters (i.e., chapters other than 3 and 9) and thus given the discussion and exemplification they deserve at a level accessible to beginners . Ch. 3 merits some criticism. Taking the pregenerative descriptivist tradition, and particularly that ofthe Bloomfieldian School, as their point of departure, the authors raise, among others, the issues of biuniqueness , linearity, coexistent phonemic systems, boundaries , neutralization, and distinctive features, all of which go beyond the essentials ofphonemic analysis, i.e., contrastive vs. noncontrastive distribution, considered in the preceding chapter. But, although they are justifiably critical of this school's approach to the issues in question, they do not acknowledge that the approach was discussed and questioned by some Bloomfieldian practitioners. Nor do they cite the relevant papers (e.g., Bloch's 'Phonemic overlapping' and Pike's 'Grammatical prerequisites to phonemic analysis') in the bibliography. Further, they do not address as such the issue ofthe domain ofphonology: Should it, contrary to the dominant pregenerative assumption , be broadened to subsume all of the phenomena , including those reflecting allomorphy, related to the realization of morphemes? That is, should the phonetic realization of a morpheme be generated directly from its morphophonemic realization , renamed 'underlying, basic, or systematic phonemic ', without an intervening phonemic realization comprising units defined largely, if not exclusively, by their ability to distinguish meaning? This view, set forth and argued in such well-known works as Postal's Aspects ofphonological theory and Chomsky and Halle's The soundpattern ofEnglish, is characteristic of the generative approach. It is therefore sufficiently widespread in acceptance to justify discussion in an introductory manual. There are two further weaknesses: the absence of exercises and the failure of the authors to discuss recent developments in morphology. With regard to the latter, there is no reference to separationist theories of morphology (e.g., lexeme-based morphology ), which dispute the pregenerative morpheme as a composite of form and meaning. These theories are still relatively new but already important enough to have been included, especially in view ofthe authors' inclusion of recent phonological and syntactic theories . However, neither these weaknesses nor the difficulty with Ch. 3 diminish the overall excellence of this book, one of the best of its kind to appear in recent times. [Mark J. Elson, University of Virginia .] Categories and case: The sentence structure of Korean. By William O'Grady. (Current issues in linguistic theory, 71.) Amsterdam: John...