Ibero-Romance: Comparative Phonology and Morphology by M. Francille Bergquist (review)

236Rocky Mountain Review M. FRANCILLE BERGQUIST. Ibero-Romance: Comparative Phonology and Morphology. Washington, D.C: University Press of America, 1981. 175 p. M. Francille Bergquist's new book proposes "a parallel comparative approach based on the histories, sound systems and word formations of the three Iberian romances" (1). Bergquist agrees with Entwistle's proposal that Spanish, Portuguese, and Catalan belong to the same Peninsular group because of their symbiotic relationship and the fact that "they offer similar solutions to the same linguistic problem" (Wm. J. Entwistle, The Spanish Language together with Portuguese, Catalan and Basque [London: Faber and Faber, 1962], 8). In addition, Bergquist attributes the closeness of these languages to historical developments brought about in part by the geographic isolation of the Iberian Peninsula from the rest of Europe by the Pyrenees. The development of three separate languages on the Iberian Peninsula is, therefore, due in part to the topography within the Peninsula itself. After a brief introduction and overview of the historical background of the Ibero-Romance languages, their phonological and morphological developments are systematically compared. Concluding remarks are followed by a selected bibliography, subject index, and word indices (in Latin, Castilian, Catalan, and Portuguese). As might be expected, the historical overview chooses the Roman conquest of the Peninsula as the pivotal point in the external history of the IberoRomance languages. Peninsular languages spoken before the conquest (Iberian, Celtic, etc.) are considered substratum languages while those tongues spoken by invaders after the Roman conquest (Gothic, Arabic) are called adstratum. Bergquist rightly feels that Latin forms the basic framework for Castilian, Portuguese, and Catalan, while influences from sub-and adstratum languages are basically toponymical and lexical in nature. The chapters on phonology and morphology are reminiscent of Menéndez Pidal's Manual de la gramática histórica española (13th ed., Madrid: EspasaCalpe , 1968) in their prose oriented descriptive approach and use oftraditional orthography to represent historical derivations, e.g., SPECULU> espejo, espelho, espij. A much more enlightened approach would have incorporated the use of a phonetic alphabet in the examples themselves (e.g., / spEkulu/ >/espexo/, /espejo/, /espij/) and organizational charts and maps to aid readability and understanding of the text. A structurally-based analysis of the historical development of the three phonological systems would have added more insight than the traditional descriptive approach that Bergquist chooses. Also lacking in this work is a chapter on syntagmatic patterns of combination (syntax) allowed in the three languages, practice exercises at the end of the major chapters (as in M. Resnick's book Introducción a la historia de la lengua española [Georgetown: Georgetown University Press, 1982]), and incorporation of recent insights from current sociolinguistic studies into the complex nature of linguistic variation and language change (Wm. Labov, Sociolinguistic Patterns [Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1972] and U. Weinreich, W. Labov, and M. Herzog, "Empirical Foundations for a Theory of Language Change" [in Directions for Historical Linguistics, 95-195. Edited by W. Lehman and Y. Malkiel. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1968]). Book Reviews237 Despite its shortcomings, Bergquist's book does have several strong points. After each phonological or morphological development from Latin to forms in the three languages in question, illustrative examples follow immediately, e.g., LATIN > Castilian, Portuguese, Catalan. The close proximity of the examples from the three languages makes it fairly easy to see the relationships that obtain among them rather than having to search through different sections of the comparative study in order to comprehend the similarities and differences among the forms (as in Entwistle, 1962). The various indices (by the Latin, Castilian, Portuguese, or Catalan word) in the latter part of Bergquist's book facilitate the use of this work as a reference tool. Moreover, the language of the book is clear and concise and very accessible to a beginning student of Ibero-Romance without a great deal of linguistic training. Overall, Bergquist's book fills a need in the field of Romance Linguistics for a parallel comparative approach to the systematic study of the three IberoRomance languages. BARBARA A. LAFFORD Arizona State University EUGENIO CHANG-RODRIGUEZ, guest editor. Spanish in the Western Hemisphere in Contact with English, Portuguese, and the Amerindian Languages. Special...