The Nilo-Saharan languages: A comparative essay By Lionel M. Bender (review)

BOOK NOTICES 883 tic) approach to meaning, 'which leaves the bulk of "explanation" to the pragmatics' (93). Ideally, the basis for pragmatic approaches to meaning should be the utterance within its situational context. This, however, is at odds with the fact that most analyses are confined to the sentence level—a problem the author himself realizes. A related problem is that W commonly invokes 'default', 'core' or (proto)- 'typical' meanings of his examples. As with many semantic analyses, it is often hard to see how W arrives at such default interpretations since he largely dismisses the 'chimera of intuition' (219) as the basis for his investigation. The potential of analyzing frequency patterns to that end, a method which would have conformed more closely to W's theoretical preliminaries , has apparently been overlooked. In the empirical chapters, many individual proposals and example sentences are taken up that are already discussed in the three introductory chapters. This is perhaps the greatest weakness of the study. It fails to provide exhaustive discussions of previous proposals in the relevant place. The book has its merits, though. Given the enormous literature and the terminological profusion in the field, a consistent presentation ofthe semantics of related modals and penphrastics alongside a critical review of the relevant literature is an achievement in itself. Second and more rewarding, unlike many previous researchers, W does notjump to grand conclusions . Instead he disproves, or at least questions, some strong claims that have so far gone unchallenged . W has done a lot of the tedious work of testing previous hypotheses against empirical data. This is also one reason why the book's main results echo scholars from the 1960s and 1970s: Modals are unmarked , less specific semantically, and generally more subjective relative to their corresponding periphrastics , which in their turn fill the syntactic and semantic gaps left by the modals' defective paradigms . Unfortunately, there is another reason why W is right in being so cautious: the scarcity of new, conclusive data offered in this study. It is not always satisfying to read that matters are complex. More hints at alternative explanations would have been welcome. Nor are the results produced convincing throughout. 'Confirmation' of rather uncontroversial issues such as the relative formality of the will future when compared to the be going to future is gathered from two text samples that are by no means balanced or even representative (19Of.). Finally, it seems rather premature to rule out differences between American and British English in the relevant area when this has not been investigated. In sum, this book provides a very readable account of the state of the art, but it leaves open many questions for further research into English modals and periphrastics. [Manfred Krug, University of Freiburg .] The Nilo-Saharan languages: A comparative essay. By Lionel M. Bender. (Lincom handbooks in linguistics 6.) Munich & Newcastle: Lincom Europa, 1996. Pp. 253. After the preface and acknowledgments, m which the National Science Foundation is recognized as his primary source ofsupport, Bender surveys the historical development of African linguistics with special emphasis on the Nilo-Saharan language grouping, in which earlier and different theories of relationships are exhaustively discussed. In Section 2.2.2, (Proto-segments and modern reflexes , 66-7), B offers a conservative reconstruction of Proto-Nilo-Saharan phonemes and then carefully supports his reconstruction with sections devoted to labials, alveolare or dentals, palatals, velars, and vowels, which first list the phoneme then conveniently key its occurrence to the roots discussed in the following pages, e.g. *g-: #35, 36, 121, 124 (all families) . . . *-g: #111. An appreciated hallmark of B's general approach is facilitating investigation of any of his assumptions through copious cross-referencing. His approach is consistently conservative and, as a result, very convincing . He presents several lists of isoglosses, graded for reliability according to their attestation m two major groupings: Outliers (Songai, Sanaran, Kuhak) and Satellite Core (all others). He characterizes as 'excellent' those isoglosses which 'are found in all the Outliers (A, B, K) and in Satellite-Core.' In this category, 16 items are presented. A typical entry (77) is: '3. SS40: work = cultivate, builds make = mold = create2, change3, hoe4, dig5(8)', which he then details...