Modals and periphrastics in English: An investigation into the semantic correspondence between certain English modal verbs and their periphrastic equivalents By Paul West-ney (review)

BOOK NOTICES Lushootseed texts. An introduction to Puget Sound Salish narratives. Ed. by Crisca Bierwert, with annotations by T. C. S. Langen. (Studies in the anthropology of North American Indians.) Lincoln & London: University of Nebraska Press, 1996. Pp. xi. 325. This splendid volume is the work of many hands and many voices. Central to this book are the seven texts in Northern Lushootseed, all of them 'mythage ' tales rather than narratives of personal experience , which were told to Thomas M. Hess in 1 963-64 by Martha Lamont (four tales), Emma Conrad (two tales), and Edward (Hagen) Sam (one tale). Bierwert is responsible for translating these texts into English. Hess provided the linguistic interpretation of these texts with the invaluable assistance of Upper Skagit elder Vi Hubert, herself a fluent storyteller and speaker of this language who knew the first two narrators personally. Langen and Bierwert are principally responsible for editing the texts, the form of presentation of the texts, and the extensive critical apparatus after each text, which enables one to make much use of the texts themselves both as linguistic artifacts and as literary monuments. Indeed the first 62 pages of this volume are taken up with a series ofintroductions which include memoirs (by Hess and especially Hubert) and photographs of narrators and which place these texts in their linguistic, literary, and cultural contexts—and, most importantly, as the works of real people. The texts are presented on facing pages, Lushootseed opposite English, in a phonemic transcription (explained on pp. 40-3) which was furnished by B. They are laid out in the customary 'ethnopoetic ' verse-line format, complete with line indentations , and are divided, where appropriate, into episodes and smaller units. Each stody is treated as a chapter in itself; it is preceded by an introduction and supplied with copious endnotes touching on linguistic , narrative, and cultural features in the texts. Several texts include songs for which transcriptions of words and music are provided by Tara Browner at the end of these chapters. There is no interlinear or endnote glossing of the texts as a whole, a drawback for people who want to know more of the language but who lack the knowledge of Lushootseed and/or linguistics which would enable them to construe the sentences in the texts. Hess has provided a snapshot of Lushootseed grammar in action, however , in the form ofa close analysis of the morphemic and syntactic structure of the sentences in the first six lines of the first text, 'Martha Lamont's changer story' (44-55). The repertory of Lushootseed traditional tales has by no means been exhausted by this publication. Four tales narrated by Edward Sam have been published for primarily pedagogical purposes by Hess (Lushootseed Reader, University of Montana Publications in Linguistics, 1995, reviewed in Language 72.668-9 by Suzanne Urbanczyk), and it is to be hoped that further top quality volumes of tales from this important Northwest Coast people will soon appear . [Anthony P. Grant, University of St. Andrews ]. Modals and periphrastics in English: An investigation into the semantic correspondence between certain English modal verbs and their periphrastic equivalents. By Paul West-ney. (Linguistische arbeiten, 339.) Tübingen: Max Niemeyer, 1995. Pp. viii, 225. DM 118.00. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, two major lines of research into English modal auxiliaries emerged. While the studies by Frank Palmer and Jennifer Coates were corpus-related and synchronic, David Lightfoot, with his controversial 1979 'catastrophe scenario' of the development of the English modals, triggered a diachronic line of research. The past decade has seen a shift towards cross-linguistic, cognitively oriented descriptions of modality, as is reflected in more recent publications by Palmer, Joan Bybee, Eve Sweetser, or Bernd Heine. In presenting a semantic investigation into certain sets of English modal verbs and related periphrastic verbal items (e.g. should vs. be supposed to), Westney 's study is firmly situated within the older, synchronic tradition. Likewise, it is largely based on the spoken component ofthe London Lund Corpus (British English). The 'Introduction' (1-10) sets out the method and the organization ofthe study. On the basis of standard reference grammars, the second chapter (1 1-37) discusses the...