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  • Balkan Sprachbund Morpho-Syntactic Features
  • Andrea D. Sims
Tomiæ, Olga Mišeska. Balkan Sprachbund Morpho-Syntactic Features [Studies in Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 67]. Dordrecht: Springer, 2006. pp. xxi, 749.

In Balkan Sprachbund Morpho-Syntactic Features, Tomiæ sets an ambitious goal. The Balkan Sprachbund is perhaps the most famous example of language convergence, and frequently cited features of Balkan languages include postpositive definite articles, loss of the infinitive, a future construction based on ‘want’, the falling together of the genitive and dative cases, and others. Yet, as Tomiæ notes, “The Balkan languages differ rather dramatically in the extent to which they show the presence of a given feature and the divergences concerning the presence of a feature deserves as much emphasis as the general convergence or any of the specific convergences” (31). Feeling that Balkanists have paid insufficient attention to the differences among the Balkan languages,1 Tomiæ seeks to fill this gap by exploring how the major morphosyntactic features of the Balkan Sprachbund interact with the grammatical subsystems of nine individual languages —Macedonian, Bulgarian, Serbo-Croatian,2 Romanian, Megleno-Romanian, Aromanian, Albanian, Modern Greek, and Arli Balkan Romani. By presenting parallel grammatical descriptions, she aims to highlight both the similarities and differences among the languages. [End Page 331]

This is a laudable goal. Despite the large volume of work on convergence phenomena in the Balkans, the English language material consists primarily of individual works on specific subtopics. The major surveys of Balkan features are not available in English (e.g., Asenova 1989/2002, Banfi 1985, Demiraj 1994, Feuillet 1986, Sandfeld 1930, Schaller 1975, Solta 1980).3 There is thus a need for a comprehensive English reference source on the Balkan Sprachbund, especially one which takes a comparative view of the grammatical systems of the Balkan languages generally.

This book thus has great potential, and I wish I could say that it will become an indispensable resource for everyone interested in Slavic linguistics, languages of the Balkans, the Sprachbund in particular, comparative linguistics, and typology. In the end, however, the book fails to live up to its promise. While there are some interesting and worthwhile aspects, Balkan Sprachbund Morpho-Syntactic Features is often unable to do justice to the details of the data. More disturbingly, the book has a large number and variety of errors, the sheer weight of which make it an unreliable source of information.

Chapter Summary

Balkan Sprachbund Morpho-Syntactic Features contains six chapters: Introduction, Ethno-Historical Considerations, Case and Articles, Clitic Clusters and Clitic Doubling, The Perfect and the Evidential, and Infinitives and Subjunctives. It also contains three appendices: Core Vocabulary, Sample Texts, and Languages Spoken on the Balkans.

Chapter 1, Introduction (33 pp.), is essentially a crash course for newcomers to the topic. It includes a one-page nod to the fact that there is no absolute consensus regarding Sprachbund member languages and two pages devoted to the development of the Sprachbund features. This amounts to one paragraph each for the theories of a Thracian, Dacian, or Illyrian substrate; (mostly) Greek or Latin origin; “relationship between language substrata and superstrata” (28); shared drift with mutual reinforcement; and communicative efficiency. The chapter mainly introduces the classic Balkanisms by way of a summary of major previous works (Go³¹b 1984, Lindstedt 2000, Sandfeld 1930, Schaller 1975, Solta 1980). Overall, the chapter is required to [End Page 332] make the book accessible to general linguists (which it is obviously intended to be), but it is not particularly coherent and the pace is rushed.

Chapter 2, Ethno-Historical Considerations (14 pp.), gives a brief description of the movements of peoples into the Balkans and some of the major historical events that affected the sociopolitical situation of the area. Tomiæ mentions contact between different peoples, but only in passing. Again, this chapter is for the aid of the novice. There is little that will be new to anyone with basic knowledge of the Balkans, as Tomiæ presents only the most broad, sweeping picture of the history of the region.

The meat of the book is contained in Chapters 3 through 6, which present descriptive accounts of the morphosyntactic systems of the nine languages, with regard to the...

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