The acquisition of Maya phonology: variation in Yucatec child language By H. Stephen Straight (review)

748LANGUAGE, VOLUME 54, NUMBER 3 (1978) Hoher, Harry. 1945. The Apachean verb, I: verb structure and pronominal prefixes. IJAL 11.193-204. ------. 1946a. The Apachean verb, II: the prefixes for mode and tense. IJAL 12.1-13. ------. 1946b. The Apachean verb, III: the classifiers. IJAL 12.51-60. ------. 1948. The Apachean verb, IV: major form classes. IJAL 14.247-60. ------. 1949. The Apachean verb, V: the theme and prefix complex. IJAL 15.12-23. Kari, James. 1973. Navajo verb prefix phonology. University of New Mexico dissertation . [Published by Garland, New York, 1976.] ------. 1977. Linguistic diffusion between Ahtna and Tanaina. IJAL 43.274-88. Krauss, Michael E. 1970. Review of Sapir & Hoijer 1967. IJAL 36.220-28. Pinnow, Heinz-Jürgen. 1974a. Bemerkungen zum Imperfekt im Navaho. Indiana 2.33-45. ------. 1974b. Studie zur Verbstammvariation im Navaho. (Indiana, Beiheft 2.) Berlin: Mann. Reichard, Gladys. 1951. Navaho Grammar. New York: Augustin. Sapir, Edward, and Harry Hoher. 1942. Navaho texts. Iowa City: LSA. ------, ------. 1967. The phonology and morphology of the Navaho language. (UCPL 50). Berkeley & Los Angeles : University of California Press. Stanley, Richard. 1969. Navajo phonology. MIT dissertation. Swadesh, Morris. 1932. Navaho notes, ms 2390, Library of the American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia. Young, Robert, and William Morgan. 1943. The Navaho language. Phoenix: United States Indian Service. [Reprinted by Deseret Book Co., Salt Lake City, 1962.] ------, ------. 1951. A vocabulary of colloquial Navaho. Phoenix: United States Indian Service. [Received 29 July 1977.] The acquisition of Maya phonology: variation in Yucatec child language. By H. Stephen Straight. New York: Garland, 1976. Pp. xxiii, 255. $28.00. Reviewed by Brian Stross, University of Texas, Austin Very few language-acquisition data have been garnered from any of the thirtyodd Mayan languages located in Mexico and Guatemala, though these languages are particularly appropriate for such studies for purposes of comparison with data from the structurally different and more thoroughly studied European languages. Several of them, e.g., are VOS languages, descendants of a Proto-Mayan that may well have been the same. Being somewhat rare, VOS languages have been largely ignored in typological schemes, and we have no knowledge about how dominant VOS order might influence the language-acquisition process. Since Mayan languages all have a glottalized stop-affricate series, and some have contrasts of k vs. q and ? vs. h, unusual dissimilation rules, and odd morpheme structure constraints, they are also phonologically interesting from a child-language perspective. Yucatec, the only Mayan language with phonemic tone, is an extra challenge in this respect. Straight's monograph, the published version of a 1972 doctoral dissertation, contributes substantively both to Mayan linguistics and to child-language studies, emphasizing the latter, by utilizing Yucatec child speech to investigate both the extent of individual variation and inferred patterns of phonological development. Based on fieldwork in the small peasant community of Pustunich in Yucatan, the REVIEWS749 study uses recorded speech data from 22 children ranging from 3£ to 14 years, elicited by means of some carefully constructed imitation tests. The data are painstakingly analysed, and turn out to support the hypothesis that 'phonology acquisition proceeds in a relatively piecemeal and idiosyncratic manner, despite presumedly highly limited and homogeneous sources of input data from adult speakers' (216). In the context of Straight's meticulously presented data, this is by no means an insignificant conclusion, and several subsidiary generalizations lend further importance to his study. The first chapter, 'Methodology', describes selection and composition of the child subject sample, elicitation procedures and materials, and recording procedures. Even the most carefully devised work and sampling schedules are likely to require revision in accordance with unanticipated realities of the actual field site, and that is what happened in Pustunich. Based on suggestions from the Field manual for cross-cultural study of the acquisition of communicative competence, ed. by Dan Slobin (Berkeley, 1967), the sample was to have included three malefemale pairs (at ages 2, 2\, and 3) that turned out to be unavailable. The actual sample further deviated somewhat from the suggested ideal for the remaining pairs in terms of age and sex distribution; but Straight is reasonably certain that no age- or sex-related developmental trends have been camouflaged by the deviation, because of the great variability between...