The Linguist's Linguist: A Collection of Papers in Honour of Alexis Manaster Ramer (review)

Polish-born Irwin Ramer was one of the most promising linguistics students at the University of Chicago in the mid-1970s. He bypassed the B.A. degree, going directly for his Ph.D., and shortly after his twentieth birthday was among the 1,776 new citizens sworn in on July 4, 1976 at Soldier Field. Around the same time, he changed his name (adopting Manaster, his mother’s maiden name, and Alexis, which he never explained). His interests have grown from Indo-European and Semitic to embrace ‘long-range’ controversies (to which he always brings a philologist’s attention to factual detail), leading him to North American linguistics, especially Uto-Aztecan, as well as to mathematical linguistics generally. In addition he is among the few professional linguists who participate extensively and vigorously in various internet discussion fora, making his name and work familiar to many around the world who have not had the privilege of face-to-face interaction. All these areas, and more, are represented in the 44 articles by teachers, colleagues, and friends; a simple overview of topics and authors indicates the interest of this collection to specialists in many fields.

Linguistic theory: J. G. Amores and J. F. Quesada, LFG; M. B. Kac, ‘intuitive syntax’; S. Kelstrup, ergativity.— Mathematical linguistics: M. Davis, the work of E. L. Post; C. Hitchcock, statistics and linguistic relationship; C. Martín-Vide and G. Păun, Watson-Crick finite automata; D. Radzinski, Chinese adverbial distributive numerals.— Phonetics: J. Kreiman and B. R. Gerratt: taxonomy of nonmodal phonation; R. F. Port, phonetics and motor activity.— History of linguistics: W. H. Baxter, comparative method.— Historical-comparative: P. A. Michalove, Ockham’s razor. Long-ranging: J. D. Bengtson, Dene-Caucasian noun prefix *s-; B. Vine, *b^her in Slavic ‘take’ not evidence for Nostratic. Etruscan: A. R. Bomhard, its IE connections; H. Eichner, -šnla [in German, with Malkielesque footnotes]; A. Gluhak, etymologies of numerals.— Indo-European: V. Blažek, ‘ten’; M. Carrasquer Vidal, pre-PIE morphology; J. E. Rasmussen, IE/Slavic/Tocharian verbal system; G. L. Windfuhr, ‘siblings of spouse’ terms in IE. Anatolian: B. J. Darden, Hittite verb; H. C. Melchert, possessive compounds; V. Shevoroshkin, Milyan and Lycian gods and priests (philological treatment). Latin: P. Baldi, possession. Germanic: T. Vennemann, a Semitic ‘etymology’ for a Gmc word; Yiddish: J. M. Sadock, ‘ecological’ model (cf. S. Mufwene on AAVE) of its origin; Dutch: W. Klooster, adverbial phrases; English: P. S. Cohen, s-mobile etymologies; L. Prager, suffix -cide. Iranian: J. R. Perry, Afghan grammaticalization; Nuristani: I. Hegedűs, ‘young of an animal’. Armenian: B. A. Olsen, preverbs/prepositions.— Basque : J. I. Hualde, analogy in morphological change. Kartvelian: S. Georg, affricates and ‘six’, ‘seven’.— Dravidian: K. Baertsch, reconstructing voicing distinction. Mon-Khmer: P. Sidwell, classification of Bahnaric. Japanese: T. J. Vance, vocabulary stratification; A. Vovin, interpretation of an obscure poetic passage in Old Japanese as Old Korean.— Athabaskan: L. M. Faltz, Navajo aspect. Macro-Siouan: D. S. Rood, a syntactic reconstruction favoring the existence of the superphylum. Uto-Aztecan: E. H. Casad, Cora biverbal constructions; K. Dakin, PUA final consonants; J. H. Hill, ‘water’. Mixe-Zoquean: J. T. Faarlund, Zoque ergativity.

There is no bibliography of the honoree; proofreading is spotty.