Datos de la lengua Iñapari By Stephen G. Parker (review)

218 LANGUAGE, VOLUME 74, NUMBER 1 (1998) basic linguistic theory. This will be an effective textbook for senior undergraduates and for graduate students . [R. M. W. Dixon, Australian National University.] Datos de la lengua Iñapari. By Stephen G. Parker. Yarinacocha, Pucallpa, Peru: Summer Institute of Linguistics, 1995. Pp. 209. This book contains materials on Iñapari, a littleknown Arawak language. The language had been thought to be extinct until a family of last speakers was discovered in 1990. Stephen Parker is well known for his work with the last speakers of Chamicuro , a fascinating isolate within the Arawak language family. However sketchy, this is another valuable contribution to the field. Previous work on Iñapari consists of a few word lists and a fine attempt at a comparative analysis of these by Pilar Valenzuela ('Comprobación del lugar de la lengua Iñapari dentro de la rama pre-andina de la familia arahuaca', Revista Latinoamericana de Estudios Etno-Lingüisticos, 6.209-40. 1991). She showed that it belongs to the Preandine Arawak subgroup (together with Piro, Apurina, and Campa). The phonemic system of Iñapari is relatively simple and similar to other Peruvian Arawak languages such as Campa (no voicing distinctions; one fricative alveolar, s, and one affricate alveopalatal f; palatal nasal ?). P warns the reader that his analysis is preliminary ; no velar stop is apparent at present (but further study might alter this). Iñapari seems to have a large vowel inventory compared to other Peruvian Arawak languages (i, e, u, o and /). It has contrastive vowel length and nasalization. Similar to Campa Nomatsiguenga , it has a pitch-accent system. It is a head-marking polysynthetic language with verb-initial constituent order and postpositions. Cross-referencing prefixes are used to mark possessors , transitive subjects (A), and subjects of intransitive active verbs (Sa); cross-referencing suffixes are used to mark direct objects (O) and subjects ofintransitive stative verbs (S0). This split-ergative pattern is typical for an Arawak language. A/Sa cross-referencing can be omitted if the A/Sa is topicalized and fronted. Inalienable possession is marked by a pronominal prefix on the possessed noun (indicating the possessor ). Alienable possession is marked with the same pronominal prefixes and also a suffix (-ne, -te, -e) (181). This strategy is found in almost every Arawak language. A few nominal derivational suffixes are etymologically related to classifiers in other Arawak languages . Reflexive, reciprocal, and causative are marked with verbal derivational suffixes, another verbal suffix is used to mark subordination. Texts, example sentences, and long vocabulary items are not supplied with intramorphemic glosses, or word for word translations, which makes this volume not very user-friendly. Much attention is given to phonological processes and much less to morphological analysis. P hardly mentions that Iñapari is a Preandine Arawak language; there are no references to other works on Iñapari or on any other Arawak languages. But even this sketchy and highly preliminary collection of data shows that Iñapari is a fascinating language which desperately needs a full description while there are still a few speakers left. We hope this will be a priority for linguists in Peru (and elsewhere ). [Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald, Australian National University.] Lithuanian dictionary: English-Lithuanian , Lithuanian-English dictionary. 2nd edn. By Bronius Piesarskas and Bronius Svecevicius. With a supplement by Ian Press. London & New York: Routledge, 1995. Pp. xlvii, 799. According to the authors, this dictionary is geared to persons of various degrees of language proficiency and will help them understand and translate English and Lithuanian texts of moderate difficulty (5). The first edition of this dictionary was published by Zodynas Publishers in Vilnius in 1994; this second edition appears to have been reproduced by photo-offset with the addition of a brief but useful supplement on Lithuanian grammar by Ian Press (i-xlvii). This supplement, curiously enough, is inserted after the English-Lithuanian section, which ends on p. 405 and before the Lithuanian-English section, which begins on p. 406. The apparent reason for this relatively unusual placement of the Roman numeral pages is that this supplement should immediately precede the Lithuanian-English section which would be more likely to be used by English speakers...