Introduction to Cambodian By Judith M. Jacob (review)

654 LANGUAGE, VOLUME 67. NUMBER 3 (1991) field's death, is exceptionally fair-minded for a historical memoir. Despite this unfortunate ending, I think that this volume is essential to anyone interested in the history of linguistics in the United States during the 20th century, not least for the updated list of Bloomfield's publications. I wish that H had striven for a more detailed intellectual biography, but I also want to stress that the brief biographical memoir that he has chosen to write is a moving tale. Perhaps it is just because H brings Bloomfield back to life as a human being (not just as the promulgator of a doctrine or as the producer of this or that analysis) that the reader, at least this reader, wishes there were more. [Stephen O. Murray. El Instituto Obregón, San Francisco.] Introduction to Cambodian. By Judith M. Jacob. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990. Pp. xii, 341. This is a reprint, with corrections, of a pedagogical grammar of Khmer first published in 1968, covering phonology, the writing system, and major grammatical constructions. The systematic presentation of the grammatical material and the detailed general index also make the book usable as a reference grammar. The discussion of phonetics (based on an educated Phnom Penh pronunciation) is detailed and accompanied by both repetition and dictation exercises. The complex Khmer writing system is presented systematically; a useful feature of the book is that the transcription used includes diacritics referring to features of the orthography that are not realized phonetically in the reference dialect (though radically irregular spellings are listed on pages 211-12), thus facilitating the shift from transcription to orthography . The body of the book is presented in transcription (thus increasing its value as a reference work to those who do not intend to learn the writing system), though exercises and keys to exercises are repeated in orthography in Part IV. Khmer grammar is presented through the 'grammar-translation' method, contrasting with the emphasis on pattern drills in North American publications of the Foreign Service Institute and Yale University Press. Each of lessons 1438 includes a systematic discussion of grammatical topics, a vocabulary, and exercises comprising isolated sentences for translation from and into Khmer. Lessons 39-45 introduce other grammatical topics, in particular derivational morphology (with its typologically interesting reliance on prefixing and infixing to the exclusion of suffixing), with connected reading passages. The presentation of grammar is primarily by means of grammatical patterns, as when N (a noun construct, i.e. a noun phrase) is said to consist of ? (a noun) optionally followed by one or more of the following, in the order specified: ? (a verb, subsuming translation equivalents of English adjectives), ? (a noun, i.e. typically a genitive attribute), x (c) (a numeral , followed in some instances by a numeral coefficient, i.e. a classifier), and a post n.p. (postnominal particle, i.e. determiner). The terminology will probably strike many linguists as unfamiliar, and perhaps it even requires some revision in its own terms (e.g., the second ? of the formula ? (? ? x (c) post-n.p.) can take attributes of its own, i.e. is N rather than n); but it does provide a useful means of representing basic structures. The grammatical framework is summarized on pp. 329-33. The book also includes consolidated KhmerEnglish and English-Khmer vocabularies and a key to exercises. The tapes accompanying the book, alas, no longer cost £4 4s., as still stated in the Preface; they are in fact available for£13.80, plus £2 for surface postage or £3 for airmail postage, from the Publications Officer, School of Oriental and African Studies. Thornhaugh Street, Russell Square, London WClH OXG. OUP is to be congratulated on making available once again this useful contribution to the limited literature on Khmer. [Bernard Comrie, University ofSouthern California.] An outline of English lexicology: Lexical structure, word semantics, and word-formation. By Leonhard Lipka. (Forschung und Studium Anglistik, 3.) Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1990. Pp. xi, 212. This book developed out of lectures given between 1976 and 1987 by the author, who teaches English at the University of Munich. Following the introductory chapter (1-39), Lipka deals with the linguistic sign...