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162LANGUAGE, VOLUME 74, NUMBER 1 (1998) -----. 1993. Interaction between modules in lexical phonology. Studies in lexical phonology, ed. by Sharon Hargus and Ellen Kaisse, 1 1 1 -44. Orlando: Academic Press. Pulleyblank, Douglas. 1982. Accent in Kimatuumbi. Current approaches to African linguistics II, ed. by Jonathan Kaye, Hilda Koopman, Dominique Sportiche, and André Dugas, 195-215. Dordrecht: Foris. Pullum, Geoffrey. 1976. The Duke of York gambit. Journal of Linguistics 12.83-102. Tucker, A. N. 1962. The syllable in Luganda: A prosodie approach. Journal of African Languages 1.122-66. Department of Linguistics University of California, Berkeley Berkeley, CA 94720 [hyman@socrates.berkeley.edu] An introduction to the Celtic languages. By Paul Russell. (Longman linguistics library.) London & New York: Longman, 1995. Pp. xviii, 347. Reviewed by Ioseph F. Eska, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University This is the third recent volume to focus on the description of the Celtic languages (a fourth edited by Kim McCone is in preparation). The previous two are collected volumes: MacAulay (1992) deals solely with the modem languages, while Ball (1993) also pays significant attention to historical and sociolinguistic matters. The present volume is by a single author and is intended for classroom use. The back cover notes that it is meant to be 'an authoritative guide' and a 'general introduction to the Celtic languages for linguists unfamiliar with them', and Russell's general diachronic approach—in which he aims to demonstrate that some of the complex and unusual features of the Insular Celtic languages within the Indo-European (IE) phylum, e.g. VSO clausal configuration and the initial morphophonemic mutations, are the result of a series of straightforward historical developments—deserves much praise. Unfortunately, the volume is poorly organized; inconsistent statements are not uncommon; and there are numerous errors of fact and/or typography. In order to make salutary use of this volume, the reader will need a good knowledge of the Celtic languages so as not to be misled by errors and the compressed presentation . The remarks which follow are meant to indicate the kinds of improvements in a second edition which would turn the volume into a reliable resource for its intended nonspecialist audience . The first part of the volume is concerned with the historical background of the entire Celtic language family and the characteristic features of the two branches of Insular Celtic, Goidelic and Brittonic, and provides surveys of one modern representative from each branch. Ch. 1(1-24) focuses on the place of Celtic within the IE phylum and briefly discusses the growing corpus of evidence for the ancient Celtic languages of the European continent. R sets out what he says (23, n. 23) are four 'uncontroversiaf features of proto-Celtic (PC) phonology, but one is, at least, uncertain, and one is misleading. Under 'Long vowels and diphthongs' (10-1), he fails to mention that the vagaries of Continental Celtic orthography permit the possibility that proto-Indo-European (PIE) */e:/ and */ej/ were preserved in some positions rather than having become PC */i:/ and */e:/, respectively (the case for the latter having been preserved is very strong, and it has been claimed that the former may also have been preserved in Insular Celtic), and while PIE */ew/ and */ow/ may have merged as PC */ow/, the latter certainly had not monophthongized to */o:/ by that stage. As an example of R's inconsistent treatment of issues, he later mentions (201) the existence of /ow/ in Gaulish. In a section on the treatment of the PIE syllabic liquids (12), it is not completely correct to state that, e.g. PIE */r/ > PC */ri/ / C-C; it did before plosives, but it became */ar/ in all other environments. (Overall, it must be said that R's presentation of PC is poorly informed when judged by the evidence provided by new discoveries of Continental Celtic texts in recent decades.) Also in this chapter (13), and throughout the volume, R perpetuates the common descriptive error that the so-called 'infixed' and 'suffixed pronouns' of Insular Celtic were synchronic clitics; in fact, they were personal affixes. REVIEWS163 Chs. 2 (25-68) and 4(111 -36) deal with Goidelic and Brittonic, respectively, from a historical perspective. Though...

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