From Space to Time: A Cognitive Analysis of the Cora Locative System and Its Temporal Extensions by Eugene H. Casad (review)

The publication of this volume had to overcome many obstacles from manuscript to finished product. When John Benjamins accepted Eugene H. Casad’s book proposal in late November 2010, he was enthusiastic about completing this book as a milestone in his lifelong commitment to the Cora people and their language. Sadly, he passed away in early 2011, before finishing the last revisions and editorial changes to the manuscript. As a result, the task of preparing the manuscript for publication had to be taken on by the series editors of Human Cognitive Processing, Klaus-Uwe Panther and Linda L. Thornburg. It was completed in 2012.

A short "Author’s Preface" (pp. x–xx) by Casad acknowledges support from the speaker community, advisors, colleagues, and family. An "Editors’ Preface" (pp. xx–xxiv) by Klaus-Uwe Panther and Linda L. Thornburg explains the path from acceptance of the manuscript to publication. They pay particular attention to editorial choices made after the author had passed away. Most notably, they included two maps of Cora territory in the first chapter, and switched the order of the first two chapters, so that background information on Cora precedes theoretical prerequisites. They also decided to leave out the concluding chapter because of its repetitive and inconclusive nature. A "Prologue" (pp. xxv–xxvii) by Betty Casad describes her husband’s enthusiasm and passion for the Cora people and language. She also acknowledges her own contribution to the finished volume in checking all Cora data. Finally, Eugene H. Casad’s long-time mentor, Ronald W. Langacker, provides an "Introduction" (pp. 1–4) and background to the choice of theoretical framework, laying out how his own version of cognitive grammar contributed to the analysis of the Cora locatives.

Cora is a Southern Uto-Aztecan language spoken as several distinct dialects by about fifteen thousand people in northeastern Nayarit, Mexico. The book’s eight chapters provide a thorough analysis of the Cora locative system and its temporal extensions within the framework of cognitive grammar. Of particular interest is the framework’s central notion that "space and spatial conception have a foundational role in language and cognition" (p. 2). It provides a detailed analysis of semantic and conceptual relations between space and time based on original long-term fieldwork.

Chapter 1, "The Cora People and Their Language," provides detailed background on different Cora dialects and their geographical location. It also includes an appendix on the historical development of the Cora people from the early Uto-Aztecan period through tumultuous colonial times until the present day. In chapter 2, "Theoretical Prerequisites" are laid out. The chapter begins with detailed accounts of aspects of cognitive grammar, mainly based on Langacker (1987). Particular attention is paid to semantic domains and figure and ground relations. While this is mainly a summary of Langacker’s findings and theory, some examples from Cora are included, along with references to later chapters. The rest of the chapter justifies the use of grammaticalization in the framework for an analysis of Cora, drawing mainly on Croft (1990), Hopper and Traugott (1993), Traugott and Heine (1991), and Heine and Reh (1984). The chapter thus aims to be a literature review of the current state of the art in the fields of cognitive grammar and grammaticalization theory as they are applicable to Cora. This goal is not entirely met, as the literature reviewed represents a narrow segment of work in cognitive grammar and omits some current publications.

The following two chapters examine the historical roots of the system of locational and directional verbal prefixes and prefix sequences. In chapter 3, "The Inventory of Cora and Huichol Locative Prefixes," the author compares Cora locative-directional prefixes with those of Huichol, a closely related Uto-Aztecan language, in terms of...