An introduction to linguistics By Bruce L. Liles (review)

BRIEF NOTICES An introduction to linguistics. By Bruce L. Liles. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1975. Pp. xiv, 336. This book is designed as a text for students with no previous background in linguistics. There are fifteen chapters, grouped into four main parts: I, Language and communication (1, The uses of language; 2, Nonverbal communication ; 3, Features ofverbal communication ); II, Syntax (4, Basic sentence structure; 5, Underlying structures; 6, Relative constructions ; 7, Noun clauses, infinitives, and gerunds; 8, Functions and meanings of nomináis; 9, The influence of higher sentences ); III, Phonology (10, The sounds of speech; 11, Redundancy and distinctive features; 12, Phonological rules); IV, Acquisition , change, variation (13, Language acquisition and language universals; 14, Change in language; 15, Contemporary variation). There also are a general bibliography and an index. Each chapter also has a list of selected references , some of which are not included in the general bibliography. The chapters in Parts II and III have accompanying exercises. Since this book is ofinterest mainly as a text for an introductory course in general linguistics, my remarks will be limited to the syntax and phonology sections, which occupy about twothirds of the book. Liles states (p. xi) that an introductory text should have two characteristics: 'First, it should not assume any detailed background; and second, it should not exhaust the subject.' But there are at least two other, perhaps more important, characteristics that such a text should have: first, it should present those principles and practices that are well-accepted by practitioners in the field (here, transformational -generative grammar); second, it should prepare students to understand more advanced work in thefield. Unfortunately, L's book is not entirely satisfactory on either count. The syntax section is fully and competently developed. Certain original and worthwhile touches are included; e.g., on pp. 49-50 L compares phrase-structure trees to traditional sentence diagrams, with which many students will be familiar. Many well-established transformations are discussed and illustrated (Conjunction Reduction, Particle Movement, Dative Shift, rules for relative clauses and sentential complements, etc.) The syntax section occupies a proportionately greater share of the volume than comparable sections in other introductory texts (158 out of 328 pages—48% of the book). One might justify this much space being devoted to syntax, since the greatest advances in the study of language which "have been brought about by TG theory have been in syntax. However, it is also generally agreed that an important contribution of TG theory has been the formal precision that it has brought to linguistic description; and after reading L's section on syntax, one realizes that his book does not contain a single formalized phrase-structure or transformational rule! It indeed seems welladvised in such a text to avoid a preoccupation with formalism, but a very important part of the practice of TG grammar has been the study of the nature of formal linguistic rules. The beginning linguistics student will have been done no great service if he leaves his introductory course not knowing how to interpret rules used in articles he may encounter , much less knowing how to formulate such rules himself. Another shortcoming of L's syntax section is the inclusion of numerous details and theories not appropriate for an introductory text; e.g., the discussion of factive and nonfactive verbs (116-18) is virtually certain to confuse students, especially since verbs such as hate maybe 'exceptions' tothe rules suggested. The long expositions of case grammar (14670 ) and performative analysis (Ch. 9) seem completely out of place. Neither concept has been generally accepted by linguists, and their value in an introductory text is dubious. It is hard enough to get a beginning student to understand how to relate the sentences / looked up his name and / looked his name up, let alone try to convince him that the question Are you happy ? has as its underlying structure ' I X to you [you will Y me [whether you are happy] [or you are not happy]]'. The phonology section occupies only 61 pages (18% of the book), of which 25 pages are devoted to articulatory phonetics. The 493 494 LANGUAGE, VOLUME 53, NUMBER 2 (1977) chapter on phonological rules is only...