Semiotic grammar By William B. McGregor (review)

182LANGUAGE, VOLUME 76, NUMBER 1 (2000) My more general complaint has to do with the use of features, and this is not an issue for G&P alone. The minimalist framework puts more emphasis on features and functional projections than the paradigm that preceded it. G&P take seriously the consequences of focusing on features as driving syntactic structure. Since the features themselves encode a good part of the syntax/semantics interface, it is necessary to treat them with great care and rigor, otherwise they become wild cards in the analyses. I would ask the following questions in the context of featuredriven syntax. • What kind of semantic elements should features represent? And are there principles governing translation ofsemantic representations into features? For example, G&P assign a definite feature to certain temporal arguments; but definiteness interacts in complex ways with other elements and occurs at various syntactic loci—can their definite feature accommodate these facts? • What happens when we apply ideas about feature systems in a serious way to morphosyntactic features? Can we make any predictions with respect to underspecification, numbers of forms, language shift, variation, or acquisition? G&P do employ ideas such as unmarked vs. marked features in their analyses. But it would be valuable to spell out, for example, the implications of having all English verbs marked + perfective, in the context of a larger feature system. • When features drive syntactic structure, how directly or indirectly can they do so? G&P propose that you only have projections when there is positive evidence in syntax. However they also say there may be null heads of functional projections which the syntax requires independently. Proposals such as these could provide an angle on this question. These are not questions for G&P alone, and G&P do take some steps towards answering them. Even if they tum out to be wrong in some of the details of their analyses, the book is a step forward in understanding the temporal nature of the syntax/semantics interface. REFERENCES Kratzer, Angelika. 1979. Conditional necessity and possibility. Semantics from different points of view, ed. by Rainer Bauerle, Urs EgIi, and Arnim von Stechow, 117-47. Berlin: Springer. -----. 1981. The notional category of modality. Words, worlds and contexts: New approaches to word semantics, ed. by H. J. Hiekmeyer and H. Rieser, 38-94. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. -----. 199 1 . Modality. Semantik/Semantics: Ein internationales Handbuch der zeitgenossichen Forschung/An international handbook of contemporary research, ed. by Arnim von Stechow and Dieter Wunderlich, 639-56. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. Ter Meulen, Alice. 1995. Representing time in natural language: The dynamic interpretation of tense and aspect. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. 6313 Phillips Avenue Pittsburgh, PA 15217 [tenny@linguist.org] Semiotic grammar. By William B. McGregor. New York & Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997. Pp. xxi, 421. Reviewed by Yishai Tobin, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev Semiotics is an open-ended field. Different linguistic theories define and focus on grammar in quite diverse ways. So at first glance, a volume entitled Semiotic grammar could mean almost anything to anybody. It becomes quite clear in the 'Preface' (vi-xii), however, that McGregor had a very specific purpose for writing this book: to revise the foundations of systemic functional grammar (SFG) associated with William Halliday and his disciples by applying them to descriptions of languages other than English (Aboriginal languages of Australia in general and Gooniyandi in particular). It resulted in what he claims to be a new theory of semiotic grammar (SG). REVIEWS183 Ch. 1, 'Introduction' (1-20), introduces the new theory of SG and places it in its eclectic theoretical and methodological framework in contrast to, as well as combining selected aspects of, other formal and functional theories of grammar (in a way similar to Tobin 1975, 1985); outlines its goals and aims; and delineates its criteria for adequacy concerning language typology, universals, and text analysis based on full-fledged analyses of, or at least references to, a wide set of diverse languages in a way quite different from other semiotic approaches (Tobin 1990, 1993, 1994). Ch. 2, 'Basic concepts of grammatical theory' (21-53), specifically discusses the well-known and fundamental concepts ofconstituency, units and functions, parts of speech, signs, syntagmatic and paradigmatic relations, and meaning. In the tradition of Saussure's signifi...