New Books: Functional Linguistics

[Tony Schiavo]

John Benjamins Publishing would like to call your attention to the
following new titles in the field of Functional Linguisics:


CONTENT, EXPRESSION AND STRUCTURE
STUDIES IN DANISH FUNCTIONAL GRAMMAR
Elisabeth Engberg-Pedersen et al. (eds.)
1996  xvi, 510 pp.  Studies in Language Companion Series, 29
US/Canada: Cloth: 1 55619 381 5  Price: $97.00
Rest of the world: Cloth: 90 272 3032 3  Price: Hfl. 170,--
John Benjamins Publishing web site: http://www.benjamins.com
For further information via e-mail: service at benjamins.com

This collection of papers offers an alternative to mainstream functional
linguistics on two points. Especially in American linguistics, function and
structure are often viewed almost as polar opposites; in addition,
structure is often understood as being only a matter of linguistic form -
or expression - as opposed to content. The book tries to illustrate why
function and structure must be understood as mutually dependent in relation
to language - and why the most interesting aspect of language structure is
the way it structures the content side of language. In this, the book
represents a reaffirmation of traditional concerns in structural
linguistics, especially with respect to the structural integrity of
individual languages - but with a reversal of traditional priority:
structure is not autonomous, but must be understood on the basis of
function. Without being hostile to typological and universal
generalizations, the articles suggest that similarities between languages
can only be responsibly discussed on the basis of an understanding that
includes a respect for language differences.
The book contains discussions of a number of different languages including
Nahuatl, Danish Sign Language, French, and Tlapanec, and focuses on the way
meaning is organized in the grammar of Danish. A final section sums up
theoretical perspectives.


PRAGUE LINGUISTIC CIRCLE PAPERS
TRAVAUX DU CERCLE LINGUISTIQUE DE PRAGUE
VOLUME 2
Eva Hajicova, Oldrich Leska, Petr Sgall, Zdena Skoumalova (eds.)
1996  viii, 346 pp.
US/Canada: Cloth: 1 55619 673 3  Price: $79.00
Rest of the world: Cloth: 90 272 5442 7  Price: Hfl. 140,--
John Benjamins Publishing web site: http://www.benjamins.com
For further information via e-mail: service at benjamins.com

Volume 2 of Prague Linguistic Circle Papers constitutes a single whole
together with Vol. 1 of the series, reviving the classical series of
Travaux du Cercle linguistique de Prague which was of a great importance
for the development of European structural linguistics in the 1930s. In the
present volume, nine Czech linguists and eight authors from abroad present
new ideas in various domains from basic properties of the system of
language to discourse types and to history of linguistics in the 20th
century. Fundamental issues of structural linguistics are discussed by C.H.
van Schooneveld and F. Cermak, those of quantitative linguistics by M.
Tesitelova, of sentence structure by H.-H. Lieb, Y. Tobin, J. Panevova, T.
Gross and J. Sabrsula, discourse patterns are dealt with by J. Hoffmannova,
S. Cmejrkova and F. Sticha, phonology and graphemics by E. Battistella, A.
Svoboda and P.A. Luelsdorff with S.V. Chesnokov, and the lexicon by L.
Waugh and V. Strakova.

For further information please e-mail
Bernadette Keck: service at benjamins.com