A View of Language (review)

This collection of Seuren’s best essays contains twenty chapters, most of which have already been printed elsewhere. The contributions are grouped under four main sections: ‘Part 1: General theory’ (1–135); ‘Part 2: Syntax’ (137–290); ‘Part 3: Semantics’ (291–418); and ‘Part 4: Creole linguistics’ (419–95). In an introductory chapter (xi–xxiv), S reviews his intellectual itinerary, in particular the evolution of his theoretical position with respect to generative grammar.

One of the essays in Part 1 (‘Autonomous versus semantic syntax’, 30–54) presents arguments against the autonomy of syntax, one of the most important tenets of Chomskyan linguistics. In S’s view, syntax is motivated and even determined by meaning. This claim, of course, is very much in the generative semantics tradition, and can be said to represent the leitmotiv of the book and S’s research in general. Although not always convincing, the arguments given in favor of a semantically driven syntax have the advantage of being thought-provoking. Other essays in Part 1 are: ‘Language, world, and cognitive processing’ (3–11), ‘Grammar as an underground process’ (12–29), ‘Doing sums with language’ (55–87), ‘Internal variability in competence’ (88–118), and ‘The paradoxes and natural language’ (119–35).

Part 2 deals with syntactic empirical issues and begins with an extended discussion on ‘Predicate raising and dative in French and sundry languages’ (139–84) where it is argued that causative constructions in French and other languages are best analyzed syntactically rather than in lexical terms. The chapter ‘Negative’s travels’ (185–208) discusses sentences in which negation takes scope lower than its surface position. The next reprint, ‘Operator lowering’ (209–49), also takes up the scope behavior of negation. The other two chapters in Part 2 are ‘English subject-complementation’ (250–66) and ‘Clitic pronoun clusters’ (267–90).

Part 3 begins with ‘Presuppositions and the universe of interpretation’ (293–311). By far, this is the most interesting part of the book. S’s work on presupposition, donkey-anaphora, and topic in particular is most interesting. The views presented here are both informative and exciting. Apart from the essay just mentioned, Part 3 contains ‘Logical form and semantic form: An argument against Geach’ (312–18), ‘Lexical meaning and presupposition’ (319–32), ‘Presupposition and negation’ (333–83), ‘Why does 2 mean “2”? Grist to the anti-Grice mill’ (384–93), ‘Towards a discourse-semantic account of donkey anaphora’ (394–408), and ‘A discourse-semantic account of topic and comment’ (409–18).

Finally, Part 4 contains what constitutes S’s latest interest in linguistics—creole studies. Four chapters are included here: ‘Semantic transparency as a factor in creole genesis’ (with Herman Chr. Wekker) (421–31), ‘Serial verb constructions’ (432–54), ‘Tense and aspect in Sranan’ (455–83), and ‘The question of predicate clefting in the Indian Ocean Creoles’ (484–95).

Although some of the issues tackled in the book are now rather old and esoteric, especially for a modern reader not ‘brought up’ during the so-called ‘linguistic wars’, this book offers a good example of the variety and quality of S’s work. It is certainly a very good companion to his Western linguistics: An historical introduction (Oxford: Blackwell, 1998), and despite many biased comments against generative grammar, it provides many insights into the cognitive nature of language.