A Hindi Reference Grammar by Stella Sandahl (review)

HUMANITIES 177 Stella Sandahl. A Hindi Reference Grammar Peeters. x, 156. 20 EURO As the title indicates, this is not a coursebook for Hindi beginners, like Stuart McGregor=s 1972 Outline of Hindi Grammar, with Exercises (which is rather a primer arranged in lessons consisting of exercises on Hindi grammar, the grammar not being presented separately and systematically), but is meant as a tool that can be referred to either by students who are following, or have completed, an introductory Hindi course and may need a systematic survey of the grammar for their revision; or by people who want to continue reading Hindi texts and need now and then a little help for dealing with unfamiliar constructions. With its numerous examples illustrating the points at issue, it makes pleasant reading for those who want to refresh their Hindi grammar B which one needs to do from time to time if one is not actually teaching Hindi and has no immediate and continuous practice with Hindi speakers. Its main aim is a >practical= one: to make the grammatical features of Hindi as easily understandable as possible. This is not an easy task, especially if one takes into consideration the complicated (and still somewhat controversial) system of the Hindi verb. Here the author tries not to conform with any linguistic theory. She in fact introduces a few terms which seem to be her own, some of which may be translated from Hindi or Sanskrit technical terms, such as >object-taking= and >non-object-taking= (for transitive and intransitive) verbs: unlike the other categories of Hindi grammar, the verb is introduced with its Sanskrit/Hindi grammatical term (kriy~), divided into sakarmak (transitive) and akarmak (intransitive) verbs (' 286), later (in ' 420) abbreviated as (s) and (a). Another of what she refers to in her preface as >idiosyncratic= terms is the replacement of >compound verb= by >combined verb,= >compound verb= being used for the category which is termed >conjunct verb= by other authors. The term >future= is replaced by >presumptive,= since it is often used in presumptive statements (should the first person of this category not then be called >intentional=?). The choice of the adjectives >subjective= and >objective= for constructions in which the verb agrees with the subject (= agent) and the object (= grammatical subject in the ergative construction of the past/perfective tenses) does not seem very fortunate (why not >object construction,= etc, if the term >ergative= has to be avoided at all costs?). The problem of presenting the interwoven categories governing the verbal system (aspects, tenses, and moods) is probably not ultimately solved. Here one has to digest quite an amount of general theory, before the details are explained by examples. The main subdivision is presented, quite radically, as based on the >aspect markers= ø (zero), -t-, and rah-, to which then G(ender/)N(umber) markers are added (these are what one used to think of as past participles, present participles, and the continuous auxiliary rahn~, which are then used, with or without the auxiliary hon~, to form the 178 LETTERS IN CANADA 2000 various aspects and tenses); at this stage, no examples are given. The section on the verbal system concludes with an alphabetical list of auxiliaries (mainly second members of >combined verbs=), which may still be improved. The grammar is rounded off with a short introduction to Hindi syntax, demonstrating, with a few examples, how one has to set about analysing and understanding more complex syntactical structures. This will prove especially useful for students who are not used to looking at a language analytically. The book has an attractive outward appearance and is impaired by only a few (printing) mistakes. If it is reprinted, the author might consider providing it with a list of abbreviations (they become clear somewhere in the book, but not necessarily at their first appearance), and perhaps an index and select bibliography. (RENATE SÖHNEN-THIEME) Tadao Miyamoto. The Light Verb Construction in Japanese: The Role of the Verbal Noun John Benjamins 1999. xiv, 234. US $87.00 A light verb is a type of verb whose semantic content is >light= (or has little lexical meaning), as opposed to >heavy= (or lexically more specified), and much of the...