26.5101, Review: Lang Documentation; Socioling; Syntax: Nikolaeva (2014)

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Subject: 26.5101, Review: Lang Documentation; Socioling; Syntax: Nikolaeva (2014)

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Date: Fri, 13 Nov 2015 14:42:47
From: Ivan Stenin [ystein88 at gmail.com]
Subject: A Grammar of Tundra Nenets

 
Discuss this message:
http://linguistlist.org/pubs/reviews/get-review.cfm?subid=36066377


Book announced at http://linguistlist.org/issues/25/25-2201.html

AUTHOR: Irina  Nikolaeva
TITLE: A Grammar of Tundra Nenets
SERIES TITLE: Mouton Grammar Library [MGL] 65
PUBLISHER: De Gruyter Mouton
YEAR: 2014

REVIEWER: Ivan Stenin, Institute of Linguistics RAS

Reviews Editor: Helen Aristar-Dry

SUMMARY

The book is the first comprehensive description of Tundra Nenets grammar
written in English. Except for it, the main monographs on Tundra Nenets
grammar include Janhunen (1986) dealing with Tundra Nenets morphophonology,
Salminen (1997) covering phonology, morphophonology and inflectional
morphology, and the morphological dictionary of Tundra Nenets (1998) written
by the same author and giving a key to the synthesis of full paradigms for
almost 20,000 Tundra Nenets words. In Russian, there are also important
descriptions by Natalya M. Tereščenko (1947, 1956) and Svetlana I. Burkova
(2010). However, all the previous sources almost entirely ignore syntax. The
new book by Irina Nikolaeva mainly attempts to fill this gap; although it also
aims to present a coherent and as full as possible description of Tundra
Nenets grammar, the author's focus on syntax is clear. More than two thirds of
the main body of the book discusses syntactic issues, and just the remaining
one third presents an overview of phonology and morphology.

Tundra Nenets, together with Forest Nenets, Forest Enets, Tundra Enets,
Nganasan, Northern Selkup, Central Selkup, and Southern Selkup as well as
extinct Yurats, Kamas (Kamassian) [ISO 639-3 xas; zkb], and Mator, belong to
the Samoyedic branch of the Uralic language family. Among the endangered
minority languages spoken in the Russian Federation, Tundra Nenets is the
least threatened, with the overall number of its speakers being more than
20,000 people (the precise number is unknown) and the total population being
44,640 people (including Forest Nenets people) according to the Russian Census
(2010). However, Tundra Nenets is spoken in a  vast territory from Taimyr in
the east to the Kanin Peninsula in the west, and from the forest boundary in
the south to the Arctic Ocean in the north. Therefore, the actual
sociolinguistic situation is rather diverse in different parts. It is the best
on the Yamal Peninsula where the traditional nomadic style of life based on
reindeer herding and the transmission of language from one generation to
another are fully preserved. By contrast, in the Nenets Autonomous Okrug and
Arkhangelsk Oblast, one can observe the process of language loss.

The dialect diversity is not too sharp. Traditionally, three dialect groups
are distinguished in the literature, namely Western (to the west of the
Pechora), Central (from the Pechora to the Ural), and Eastern (to the east
from the Ural). However, mostly phonological and lexical isoglosses have been
recognized while morphosyntactic ones have been ignored. Phonologically, the
Western dialects are the most innovative. As far as one can understand from
the ''Introduction'' (pp. 1-16), the author undertook real fieldwork in the
traditional territory of Tundra Nenets once in 2003, in the village of Nelmin
Nos (Nenets Autonomous Okrug) where the dialect of Malaya Zemlya (belonging to
the Western group) is spoken. The majority of the data was collected in the
next decade during various fieldwork sessions with speakers of Tundra Nenets
in Finland. Nikolaeva points out that the most language data in the grammar
represents the Eastern varieties of Tundra Nenets, while the remaining part
the Western ones. Anyway, no dialect indication is given for any examples.
Apart from ''Introduction'' and two texts, the book consists of 17 descriptive
chapters, list of abbreviations, thematic index and references.

Chapter 2 (''Phonology'', pp. 17-28) is mostly a digest of ideas, observations
and generalizations stated in Salminen (1997, 1998, 1993-2012). The systems of
vocalism and consonantism presented in the grammar coincide with those argued
for in papers by Tapani Salminen, apart from some rather cosmetic changes in
transcription. Particularly, Nikolaeva has preserved Salminen's reduced vowel
° (= 'schwa' in Salminen's terms) which ''is pronounced either as an
over-short vowel or not at all; nevertheless, it is always reflected in the
phonetic substance'' (Salminen 1993-2012). The addition of this vowel to the
phonological inventory makes the transcription more close to the
morphophonological one. On the other hand, it allows in most cases for clear
and simple explanation of many (supra)segmental issues, such as adding a mora
to a preceding syllable; automatic adding of a glottal stop in a word final
position after b, l, m, r; a ''vowel harmony'' after x and, in a few cases, a
glottal stop; it also accounts for stress assignment. In most cases, the
reduced vowel is the result of an automatic phonological reduction ə → ° in
unstressed positions; cf. xər° 'knife' vs. xərə-r° 'your knife
(knife-POSS.2SG)' vs. xər°-da 'her/his knife (knife-POSS.3SG)'. However, in
some cases it stands in contrast with ə; therefore, it is treated as a
distinct phoneme.

As for the consonant inventory, the peculiar feature of Tundra Nenets is the
phonological opposition of palatalized and non-palatalized consonants. This
correlation affects all consonants except for velar k, x, ŋ, glides w and y (=
IPA [j]), and a glottal stop. There are traditionally two glottal stops
distinguished, namely a so-called non-nazalizable one (q), and a nazalizable
one (h). They are pronounced identically in isolated (e.g. word final)
positions but have different phonotactic constraints and trigger different
alternations; cf. nʹeh xən° = nʹeŋ_kən° 'a woman's sledge' vs. nʹeq xən° =
nʹe_kən° 'a women's sledge', toh war° = to_war° 'a shore of a lake' vs. toq
war°q = toq_war°q 'shores of lakes' (Salminen 1993-2012). This chapter also
contains basic information on phonological and morphophonological alternations
and, for some reason, stem types of nouns and verbs.

Chapter 3 (''Grammatical classes'', pp. 29-56) provides some basic data on
word classes that can be distinguished in Tundra Nenets. These are nouns,
verbs, adjectives, pronouns, numerals, adverbs, postpositions, conjunctions,
particles and interjections. Main morphosyntactic properties and derivational
possibilities of two major word classes (nouns and verbs) are discussed.
Special attention is paid to the word classes that exhibit dual behavior which
Nikolaeva calls mixed categories; e.g. proprietive derivatives with affix
-sawey°- as in ŋodʹa-sawey° xidʹa 'a cup with berries (berry-PROPR cup)'.
''They preserve many properties of nouns, but additionally demonstrate the
syntactic distribution of other parts of speech, namely, adjectives, verbs or
adverbs'' (p. 32). Nominal stems of these derivatives allow to a certain
degree for modification by adjectives and, in the few cases, also
demonstrative pronouns. However, the grammar does not contain any statements
about phrase boundaries in such cases or any other possible consequences from
the observed distribution; cf. Nikolaeva (2008) for the analysis of similar
cases in Tungusic.

Chapter 4 (''Nominal inflection'', pp. 57-77) deals with nominal grammatical
categories, namely, number, case, possessiveness and (pre)destinativeness. The
last category may be illustrated by the next example: yid°-h warə-n°h
ŋəno-də-mʹi to-° 'A boat for me came to the shore (water-GEN edge-DAT
boat-DEST-POSS.1SG come-GFS.3SG)'. There is no particular analysis of this
category presented in the grammar. Nikolaeva states literally the following:
''Predestinatives express a TAM-like category; depending on the analysis, it
is either a future tense or some kind of irrealis modality that takes scope
over the possessive relation'' (p. 72). In the literature, there are also
other views on (pre)destinative in Northern Samoyedic; see Daniel (2009) who
considers Nganasan data in line with the typology of prospective
possessiveness, and Khanina & Shluinsky (2014) who treat Enets
(pre)destinative as a benefactive construction.

In Chapter 5 (''Verbal inflection'', pp. 78-115), main verbal categories,
tense, mood, and agreement, are discussed. There are three cross-reference
series in Tundra Nenets, traditionally called subject, (subject-)object, and
reflexive (or medial) ''conjugations''. Nikolaeva follows Salminen in
distinguishing four classes of verbs in Tundra Nenets: intransitive ones
taking subject agreement markers, intransitive ones taking reflexive agreement
markers, transitive ones taking subject and (subject-)object agreement
markers, and labile verbs which can be either transitive or reflexive. The
recent account of interdependencies between cross-reference series, argument
structure and actional properties of a verb by Tatevosov (ms.) suggests that
the number of verbal classes in Tundra Nenets in this respect might be
somewhat larger. The category of mood in Nikolaeva's description is treated
traditionally and includes modal as well as evidential forms, with their total
number (apart from indicative) being 15. On the contrary, the treatment of a
tense system is rather innovative in the grammar. Nikolaeva recognizes five
distinct tense forms: present, past, future, habitual, future-in-the-past. The
aspectual system of Tundra Nenets is mostly Slavic-style: there are no
perfective or imperfective inflectional categories. The perfective vs.
imperfective distinction is a lexical property of a given verb. Moreover, the
opposition of perfective vs. imperfective coincides with the opposition of
telic vs. atelic in this language. For derived verbs, the rightmost
derivational affix is responsible for the aspectual characteristics of a verb.

Chapter 6 (''Clitics and multi-based affixes'', pp. 116-140) deals with
clitics and transcategorial markers. Items that occupy a final position after
all inflectional affixes in a word form are called clitics in the book. They
are normally attested only on a finite predicate and express exclamation,
emphasis and so on. Transcategorial markers do not constitute a uniform class:
one kind attaches maximally close to the lexical root and expresses various
kinds of evaluation (augmentative, diminutive, pejorative, attenuative),
another kind takes a position after all derivational and before all
inflectional affixes. The last group is considered as focus-sensitive items.
Chapter 7 (''Noun phrases'', pp. 141-173) places emphasis on the structure of
possessive noun phrases. In case a possessor is expressed by a lexical NP (and
not a personal pronoun), possessive marker on a head is not obligatory in
Tundra Nenets. Possessors that control agreement on a head and those ones that
do not differ in their position inside NP as well as their semantic and
pragmatic properties. This chapter also discusses attributive concord and
quantificational adjectives. The basic structure of a Tundra Nenets NP is as
follows: Peripheral possessor - Determiner - Regular possessor - Adjectival
form of noun - Quantifier - Adjectival modifier - Nominal modifier - Head (p.
171). In Chapter 8 (''Adjectival, adverbial and postpositional phrases'', pp.
174-193), analytical comparative and superlative constructions, a structure of
postpositional phrases, agreeing and predicative adverbs, in particular, are
discussed.

In Chapter 9 (''Syntax of simple clauses'', pp. 194-223), the notion of the
subject as well as certain constraints on pronominalization, reflexivization
and zero anaphora in dependent clauses are considered. However, the key topic
of this chapter, which is relevant for many parts of Tundra Nenets grammar, is
the differential object marking expressed via subject vs. object
cross-reference markers on a finite predicate. Transitive verbs in Tundra
Nenets may agree not only with their subject but also with their direct
object; in the latter case a verb takes object cross-reference series markers.
Object agreement controls only a number of a direct object since a person is
always fixed (third). First and second person pronouns as DOs cannot trigger
object agreement. In most idiolects, the same is true for third person
pronouns, too. For lexical NPs in a position of DO, the possibility of
triggering object agreement depends on the information structure of a clause.
Object agreement is not accessible if DO is in the scope of a narrow focus,
e.g. contains wh-question words or focus-sensitive items. In contrast, topical
DOs always trigger agreement. In Chapter 10 (''Valence patterns and
alternations'', pp. 224-249) valency classes as well as valency-changing
derivations are sketched. A passive construction exploiting participle form is
discussed in more detail, since it is the most productive valency alternation.
In Chapter 11 (''Non-verbal predicates'', pp. 250-264) main types of
non-verbal predicates, as well as constructions (existential, locative and
equative) they are used in, are considered. Some non-verbal predicates require
obligatory presence of auxiliary verbs, the rest take finite (person and
number) agreement markers. Chapter 12 (''Non-declarative clause types and
negation'', pp. 265-282) presents data on question, imperative, exclamative
and negation constructions. Standard negation is expressed in Tundra Nenets
through a construction that consists of a negative verb, taking all
inflectional affixes, and a special non-finite verb form called connegative.

Chapters 13-16 are devoted to dependent clauses. ''Overview of dependent
clauses'' is presented in Chapter 13 (pp. 283-314). Chapter 14 (''Relative
clauses'', pp. 315-340) discusses main strategies of relativization in Tundra
Nenets: 1) participial gapping strategy; 2) gapping strategy based on action
nominals and converbs; 3) resumptive strategy. The participial strategy is the
primary one to relativize the subject and the direct object. The
non-participial gapping strategy is used for relativizing lower grammatical
functions: indirect and oblique objects, and some objects of postpositions. If
one needs to relativize a possessor, then one should obligatorily use the
resumptive strategy. As a resumptive pronominal affix, Nikolaeva analyses in
such cases the third person possessive marker. A more detailed and
theory-driven analysis of the data on relativization in Tundra Nenets is given
in the recent book by Ackerman and Nikolaeva (2013). In Chapter 15
(''Complement clauses'', pp. 341-366), of special interest is the discussion
of subject and object control constructions that may exhibit distant
(cross-clausal) agreement. Chapter 16 presents an overview of adverbial
clauses (pp. 367-385).

Chapter 17 (''Anaphoric relations'', pp. 386-413) provides data on anaphoric
deletion, pronominalization, reflexivization, reciprocalization etc. Tundra
Nenets is characterized as effectively a pro-drop language. Nikolaeva
accurately mentions a pronominal force of subject and object markers. A
discourse-neutral way of saying 'You hit him' is lad°-ə-r°
'hit-GFS-2SG.OBJ.SG', ''in which person/number morphology on the verb does not
function as grammatical agreement. Rather, it conveys the pronominal values of
the subject and the object arguments, in this instance, cumulatively'' (p.
386). In Chapter 18 (''Coordination'', pp. 414-431) conjunction and
disjunction of NPs and other phrasal categories are addressed. For
coordination of NPs one can use juxtaposition, conjunctions, a special
comitative postposition and a comitative converb, as well as the double dual
construction. In the last case, both coordinated NPs take the dual form,
juxtaposed to each other and trigger dual morphology on the verb; cf. a
typical beginning of a fairy tail: wǣsako-x°h puxacʹa-x°h yilʹe-we-x°h 'Once
upon a time there lived an old man and an old woman... (old.man-DU
old.woman-DU live-NARR-3DU)'. The last chapter (Chapter 19, pp. 432-495)
contains two glossed texts previously published in Labanauskas (1995).

EVALUATION

The grammar under review is undoubtedly a very important book for specialists
in the Samoyedic and Uralic languages. It is also useful for typologists and
all interested linguists, since the description is in line with high standards
of modern scholarship, is written in English and covers all major aspects of
the language. The grammar offers a profound consideration of many grammatical
topics that have not been examined at all or been only sketched in the
previous literature, namely, the structure of possessive NPs, agreeing
adverbs, non-verbal predicates, properties of the subject, relative clauses,
control constructions, coordination, anaphoric relations. At the same time,
such traditional problems of Tundra Nenets descriptive studies as the
phonological status of the reduced vowel, peculiar morphosyntactic properties
of past and future tense forms, the boundary between epistemic moods and
evidential forms etc. are not sufficiently discussed in the grammar. Although
Nikolaeva's description highlights many interesting features of Tundra Nenets
grammar, it is in no sense typologically oriented. There are just isolated
cases of comparison with other languages. In my view, this is one of the most
disappointing shortcomings of the book. Another one is that the main body of
the grammar almost entirely lacks references to the previous literature
(neither on the Samoyedic languages nor on any theoretical point).

My critical remarks in the next few paragraphs concern some more specific
issues such as the exactness of transcription, glossing and translation, the
precision of statements and validity of interpretations, the comprehensiveness
and completeness of coverage as well as the insufficiency of proofreading.
Unfortunately, the grammar contains many errors and misprints in the language
examples. The most commonly confused phonemes are a, ə and °; e.g. the
Durative marker is erroneously presented in most cases as -(m)pa-/-ba- instead
of correct -(m)pə-/-bə-. Sometimes this may lead to a real confusion when, for
example, 'tribe-POSS.1SG' is transcribed as paŋk°-mʹi instead of pəŋk°-mʹi
while paŋk°-mʹi should receive the gloss 'log-POSS.1SG'. Apart from a, ə and
°, there are also ǣ and e; a and e after y and palatalized consonants; ī and
i; i and e; o and u often mixed up. Absence of a glottal stop is also one of
the most common mistakes. There are also problems with phonemization of
clusters ŋk, bt, bk, and transcription of Russian loans.

Possessive markers are glossed and segmented inconsistently throughout the
grammar; cf. xada-xəna-nʹi 'grandmother-LOC-1SG' (ex. 11b, p. 63) vs.
to-xənanʹi 'lake-LOC.1SG' (ex. 32b, p. 72). There are also other multiple
errors in glossing, e.g. xar°də-x°nan° is glossed as 'house-LOC.1PL' (ex. 20a,
p. 393) instead of 'house-LOC.1SG', mʹat°mtʹih is analysed as 'tent.ACC.3DU'
(ex. 43, p. 161) instead of 'tent.DEST.ACC.POSS.3DU'. The grammar contains
also a few impossible forms such as mər°kə-x°na 'city-LOC' (ex. 38, p. 429)
instead of mər°-kəna (< mər°q + -xəna-), ŋəno-wəna 'boat-PROL' instead of
ŋəno-w°na etc. The following statement looks rather mysterious in the light of
what is known from the previous literature: ''The 1st person singular variant
-mʹi is typical of the Eastern dialects and is reflected in most examples in
this book. In the Western dialects it is typically represented as -w° or
-mʹih'' (p. 67). In Salminen (1998: 31), it has been stated that it is in the
Eastern dialects that a first person singular possessive affix is replaced
with a first person dual possessive affix, i.e. -mʹih. One of my greatest
complaints concerns Nikolaeva's decision not to divide verbs into a lexical
root and general/special finite stem markers, which obscures the phonological
make-up of many derivational affixes and makes the analysis of verb forms more
problematic.

Nikolaeva's statements and interpretations are, as a rule, informal, which is
normal and typical for a descriptive grammar, but sometimes they are not
sufficiently argued. This is, for example, the case when distinguishing five
tense forms. The same can be said of the hypothesis about the origin of the
emphatic negation verb wunʹə- and some other cases. On p. 123 Nikolaeva writes
that she recorded rather unexpected ''third person objective forms where the
[dubitative] clitic =m°h appears to be positioned between the stem and the
agreement inflection. They appear to express mild inducement, e.g.
temtaə-m°-da 'let him buy it (buy-DUB-3SG>SG.OBJ)'''. The actual phonemization
and glosses seem to be temta-ə-mta 'buy-GFS-OPT.3SG.OBJ.SG'; thus, such forms
are the objective series of the optative mood, which is consistent with the
translation given. Nikolaeva's analysis does not hold by definition, since an
initial m of the dubitative marker as well as an initial m of any other marker
must change into w between vowels as Nikolaeva herself points out. Nikolaeva
does not list second connegative forms of verbs ŋǣ- 'to be', xǣ- 'to go' and
mah- 'to say' used in a special construction of emphatic affirmation. The list
of transitivizing affixes is not comprehensive. Nikolaeva does not mention the
productive derivation that is expressed via vowel alternation and has a
decausative (sʹidʹo- 'to wake up' < sʹidʹe- 'to wake') or resultative (ŋamtʹo-
'to sit' < ŋamtə- 'to sit down') meaning; see Gusev (2010) for a detailed
discussion. The grammar lacks phonograms or any other usual methods of
phonetic analysis; therefore, any claims about vowel length or vowel sequences
are not proved experimentally. Due to space limitations, I cannot proceed with
this examination; some other critical comments can be found in Stenin (2015).

As I have already said, chapters on phonology, inflectional morphology and
morphophonology provide only basic information and ignore other important
issues. Therefore, if one wants to truly understand what happens inside Tundra
Nenets words, one should firstly investigate the fundamental descriptions by
Tapani Salminen (1993-2012, 1997, 1998). As for Tundra Nenets syntax, the new
grammar is the major publication in the field. To conclude, the new book by
Irina Nikolaeva, despite many inconsistencies and drawbacks in presentation of
the data and their interpretations, sets a high bar for the next researchers
and should be recommended to all linguists interested in the fascinating
languages of Siberia.

REFERENCES

Ackerman, Farrell & Irina Nikolaeva. 2013. Descriptive typology and linguistic
theory: A study in the morphosyntax of relative clauses. Stanford, CA: CSLI
Publications.

Burkova, Svetlana. 2010. Kratkij očerk grammatiki tundrovogo dialekta
neneckogo jazyka (po materialam govorov, raprostranennyx na territorii
Jamalo-Neneckogo okruga) [A short outline of Tundra Nenets grammar (based on
the data of Yamalo-Nenets okrug idioms)]. In: Svetlana Burkova, Natalya
Koškareva, Roza Laptander, Neiko Jangasova, Dialektologičeskij slovar'
neneckogo jazyka, 179-349. Ekaterinburg: Basko.

Daniel, Michael. 2009. The сategory of destinative in Nganasan,
North-Samoyedic, and typology of prospective possession. Materials for the
report at the conference ''Uralic Typology Days'', Institute of the Estonian
Language, Tallinn. November 26-27, 2009.

Gusev, Valentin. 2010. Stativy i dekauzativy na *-w v samodijskix jazykax
[Statives and decausatives with *-w in Samoyedic languages]. In: Svetlana
Burkova (ed.), Materialy 3-j meždunarodnoj naučnoj konferencii po samodistike
(Novosibirsk, October 26-28, 2010), 54-65. Novosibirsk: Ljubava.

Janhunen, Juha. 1986. Glottal stop in Nenets. Helsinki: Suomalais-Ugrilainen
Seura.

Khanina, Olesya & Andrey Shluinsky. 2014. A rare type of benefactive
construction: evidence from Enets. Linguistics 52(6). 1391-1431.

Labanauskas, Kazys. 1995. Neneckij fol'klor. Mify, skazki, istoričeskie
predanija [The Nenets folklore. Myths, fairy tales, historical legends].
Krasnoyarsk: Krasnoyarskoe Knižnoe Izdatel'stvo.

Nikolaeva, Irina. 2008. Between nouns and adjectives: a constructional view.
Lingua 118(7). 969-996.

Salminen, Tapani. 1993-2012. Tundra Nenets. University of Helsinki. Available
at: http://www.helsinki.fi/~tasalmin/sketch.html.

Salminen, Tapani. 1997. Tundra Nenets inflection. Helsinki:
Suomalais-Ugrilainen Seura.

Salminen, Tapani. 1998. A morphological dictionary of Tundra Nenets. Helsinki:
Suomalais-Ugrilainen Seura.

Stenin, Ivan. 2015. Grammatika tundrovogo neneckogo jazyka I. A. Nikolaevoj i
problemy opisanija samodijskix jazykov [I. A. Nikolaeva's Tundra Nenets
grammar and some issues in Samoyedic descriptive studies]. Voprosy
jazykoznanija 4. 91-133. Available at:
https://www.academia.edu/14189997/Грамматика_тундрового_ненецкого_языка_И._А._
Николаевой_и_проблемы_описания_самодийских_языков

Tatevosov, Sergei. Ms. Struktura i interpretacija neneckogo glagola.
Aktantno-akcional'nye klassy i tipy sprjaženija [Structure and interpretation
of the Nenets verb. Argument-actional classes and types of conjugation].
Lomonosov Moscow State University. Available at:
http://otipl.philol.msu.ru/staff/people/tatevosov/tundra_nenets_3.2.pdf.

Tereščenko, Natalya. 1947. Očerk grammatiki neneckogo (jurako-samoedskogo)
jazyka [An outline of the Nenets (Yurak-Samoyed) grammar]. Leningrad:
Učpedgiz.

Tereščenko, Natalya. 1956. Materialy i issledovanija po jazyku nencev
[Materials and studies in the Nenets people's language]. Moscow; Leningrad:
Academy of Sciences of the USSR.

ABOUT THE REVIEW

This review is mostly a short English digest of a rather volume review article
by the same reviewer which has been published in Russian as Stenin (2015) in
the Russian journal ''Voprosy jazykoznanija'' (''Topics in the study of
language'', http://www.ruslang.ru/agens.php?id=vopjaz_eng, ISSN 0373-658X).
The journal is published by the Russian scientific publisher ''Nauka''
(http://www.naukaran.ru/index.shtml). The reviewer is grateful to the
editorial board of the journal and to the publisher for the permission to use
Russian article as the initial point while writing the present English review.


ABOUT THE REVIEWER

Ivan Stenin holds a specialist degree (roughly an equivalent of MA) in Russian philology. He is a PhD student in linguistics at the Institute of Linguistics, Russian Academy of Sciences (Russian Federation). His research interests are linguistic typology with a focus on argument structure and valency-changing derivations as well as information structure. He works primarily on Tundra Nenets and other Uralic languages.




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