28.4485, Review: Language Acquisition; Morphology; Pragmatics; Sociolinguistics; Typology: Müller, Olsen, Rainer, Ohnheiser (2015)

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Subject: 28.4485, Review: Language Acquisition; Morphology; Pragmatics; Sociolinguistics; Typology: Müller, Olsen, Rainer, Ohnheiser (2015)

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Date: Thu, 26 Oct 2017 15:01:58
From: Karen Chung [karchung at ntu.edu.tw]
Subject: Word-Formation Volume 3

 
Discuss this message:
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Book announced at http://linguistlist.org/issues/26/26-4668.html

EDITOR: Peter O. Müller
EDITOR: Ingeborg  Ohnheiser
EDITOR: Susan  Olsen
EDITOR: Franz  Rainer
TITLE: Word-Formation Volume 3
SUBTITLE: An International Handbook of the Languages of Europe
SERIES TITLE: Handbücher zur Sprach- und Kommunikationswissenschaft / Handbooks of Linguistics and Communication Science (HSK) 40/3
PUBLISHER: De Gruyter Mouton
YEAR: 2015

REVIEWER: Karen Steffen Chung, National Taiwan University

REVIEWS EDITOR: Helen Aristar-Dry

SUMMARY

The 44 chapters of “Word-Formation: An International Handbook of the Languages
of Europe”, the third volume in a set of five, provide a coherent,
wide-ranging picture of the morphology of a variety of European languages,
examined from both a contemporary and historical point of view.

A quick skim of the table of contents is probably the best way to get a feel
for this and the other volumes in the set:

https://www.degruyter.com/downloadpdf/books/9783110375732/9783110375732-toc/97
83110375732-toc.xml

The central theme of the first 12 articles is modernization of the lexicon
through borrowing. It explores in depth the tension between foreign loan words
and notions of language “purism”. Ch 92 suggests that purism is often more
approved of in smaller languages than in larger, more international ones [p.
1608-11]. English, for example, seems to have few qualms about directly
importing and assimilating just about any loan word as needed, with or without
adaptation to established English spelling, phonotactics and stress patterns.
English has thus ended up with a motley vocabulary hailing from all over the
globe and a complex spelling system, in addition to existing inconsistencies
due to historical phonological change and early borrowing [ch 94, 110]. Part
of the reason for this devil-may-care attitude is the cultural dominance of
Anglo culture and a concomitant high level of self-confidence. The single
biggest source language is of course Latin, which comprises around 60% of the
English vocabulary, and 90% of English scientific vocabulary:

 “…It has come to be felt that the whole Latin vocabulary…is potentially
English, and when a new word is wanted it is often easier, and more in
accordance with our literary habits, to anglicise a Latin word, or to form a
compound from Latin elements, than to invent a native English compound or
derivative which will answer the purpose…” [p. 1599-1600]

Greek also contributed, however all Greek word components in English came
through either Old French or Latin, never directly from Greek [p. 1646].

Many languages, on the other hand, have at different points in time resisted
linguistic encroachment by launching purism movements, and/or attempted to
regulate language development institutionally, with varying levels of success.
French, German, Turkish and many others have gone this route.

Some languages, in an effort to avoid letting in too many outright foreign
loans, have turned to a related language of a country with a higher level of
development, for example, Estonian has borrowed heavily from Finnish [ch 100].
The new words tended to feel less “foreign” and closer to one’s own roots [p.
1731]. Specific individuals played a major role in lexical renewal in
Estonian. In the early 20th century, language reformer Johannes Aavik believed
that language could be engineered, and tried to do so, based on the principles
of beauty, expedience (also interpreted as brevity), and originality (or
refinement). In addition to Finnish loans, Aavik drew on words from dialects
of Estonian, which often preserved words from an earlier stage of the
language, and directly from ancient forms [p. 1737]. A minority of Aavik’s
coinages survive in modern Estonian.

A language may also make a concerted effort to differentiate itself from
closely related languages for cultural, ethnic or political reasons. Conscious
efforts have been made in Croatian [ch 99], for example, to promote the use of
words identified as native Croatian while avoiding Serbian ones; sharing words
with Bosnian, on the other hand, was considered OK. But then, in an example of
“intracorrelational purism” [p. 1721ff], efforts were at the same time made to
maintain the distinctiveness of certain words relative to their equivalents in
two other closely-related dialects of Croatian.

Use of the term “confix” (from the French “confixe”; borrowed into German as
“Konfix”), with its subtypes “preconfix” and “postconfix” [p. 1627] is a
welcome feature of this volume. “Confix” is a useful and convenient term, both
in that it is more concise than “Greek and Latin combining forms”, and also in
that it implies a fuller integration of this relatively information-dense unit
into general morphology than is usually seen in the literature. Another useful
category, “combineme”, which encompasses both affixes and confixes [p. 1616],
highlights the difficulty of distinguishing unambiguously between the two
morpheme types [p. 1622]. 

The focus of the next 18 chapters shifts to historical word-formation. The
chapter on Latin to Romance “-mente” [ch 106] lays out an interesting argument
against viewing -mente in Spanish as a suffix, citing 1. its separability,
e.g. inteligente y profundamente ( = inteligentemente y profundamente), and 2.
the fact that -mente adverbs have double stress [p. 1826-27].

An interesting comparison is made in ch 109 between the different fates of the
verbal prefix “un-” in German and English. It was common in Middle High German
in words like in “unbinden” ‘to untie’, but was later abandoned in Modern
German; while in English it survived and flourished, e.g. in forms like “undo”
and “unwrap” [p. 1895]. 

Ch 113, “From Old French to New French”, describes an interesting
morphological category in French slang, namely “parasitic suffixation”
(suffixation parasitaire), in which word endings are used to change the form
and tone of a word. It is described as a currently popular kind of “playful
deformation” that dates back to the Middle Ages. Examples are américain →
amerlot; chinois → chinetoque; poulet (‘policeman’) → poulaga [p. 1993]. 

Chapters 120-122 address: L1 acquisition – notable is a French child’s
interpretation of “chirurgien” ‘surgeon’ as “sirop de chien” ‘syrup of dog’
[p. 2119]; L2 acquisition – mention is made of the seldom-treated but
significant issue of how even advanced L2 learners seldom approach native
speakers in terms of word association responses [p. 2145]; and aphasia –
studies with aphasics have confirmed the separate mental processing of stems
and affixes and thus favors the dual-route hypothesis of morphological
processing [p. 2155]. 

The themes of the following 11 chapters are Word Formation and: text; brand
names; planned languages; sign languages; technical languages, with a special
focus on Czech and on standardization procedures; literature; orthography,
focusing mainly on English and French; and visuality – the only chapter with
color printing. The final three chapters discuss tools useful in word
formation studies, i.e. dictionaries, corpora and the Internet.

Some unexpected languages were happily included in the volume. Romanian’s
status as a less-studied language made that chapter especially informative.
Turkish is spoken just on the margin of Europe, but its importance as an
immigrant language perhaps strengthens the case for its inclusion, and it
brought in an entirely different language family for comparison. And ch 124,
“Word-formation and brand names”, cites numerous eye-opening examples from
Farsi and Chinese, which are not European by any stretch of the definition,
but which certainly enhanced the chapter and served as useful counterweights
to the European data.  

Further variety is introduced by ch 125, Word-formation and planned languages,
which treats such artificial languages as Volapük and Esperanto, and ch 126,
Word-formation and sign languages, which contains  interesting observations on
similarities between compounds in spoken and sign languages, and the use of
phrasal and serial verbs to express telicity. 

The above is obviously only a small sampling of the gems to be discovered in
this compendious volume. Readers with whom any of this resonates are
encouraged to check the book out for yourselves!

EVALUATION

Formatwise this book is typical of large-scale “doorstop” volumes in De
Gruyter series and sets on various specific areas of linguistics. But as thick
and dense as it is, with almost solid wall-to-wall text, it was a
discovery-filled joy to read, and its pages in my copy are now covered with
notes. Working through this volume whetted my appetite for the others in the
set.

Some relatively minor points and suggestions:

An index would be a great help in locating references one remembers
seeing…somewhere…

A small suggestion regarding format: The name and home city of the author of
each paper don’t appear till the very end of each chapter, after the list of
references. I suggest the publisher include the author’s name under each
chapter title in future volumes to make it easier to keep track of who wrote
what while you’re reading. I penciled them in under each chapter title as I
read.

The slightly unexpected use of wider spacing of words for  e m p h a s i s 
adds a quaint German touch to the typography, while also serving its original
purpose. 

Overall, the editing is very good; still, a number of minor typos, some of
which are listed below, did slip through. All would be easy to fix immediately
in the ebook; the list should also be useful to keep on file if or when a
second printing or edition of the paper book is issued.

At this size and price, this book is clearly meant mainly for libraries, but
it’s one that I personally would actually consider getting for myself, even at
this price – its rich content would be well worth it. Highly recommended, five
stars. 

Errata:
adjectival compounding stronger restrictions → adjectival compounding,
stronger restrictions [p. 1632]
out of use, → out of use; [p. 1771]
Columbia → Colombia [p. 1776]
-heit (cf. English -hood), -schaft → (cf. English -ship) [p. 1798]
inspite of → in spite of [p. 1800] 
gnom → gnome [p. 1802] 
a happy-go-luck → lucky person [p. 1816]
it only combine → combines with [p. 1819]
transitory → transitional stage [p. 1819] 
in → at the centre of attention [p. 1845] 
The → this article offers… [p. 1867 and 1914]
conversions…are seldom → few OR seldom encountered [p. 1906]
sentence beginning “To what extent here…” in middle of p. 1908 is too complex.
to brake → break to pieces [p. 1919]
splippery → slippery [p. 1947]
scarsely → scarcely [p. 1950]
This lead → led to the [p. 2033]
and others more. → and others. [p. 2034]
pettycoat → petticoat [p. 2119]
flower which are friend to → with each other [p. 2121]
there are two forms to choose → from, [p. 2121]
with a view of → to helping learners cope [p. 2143]
to different extent → extents. [p. 2150]
gained grounds → gained ground [p. 2159] 
two components compound → two-component compound [p. 2169] 
has been provided, data favoring → has been provided, with the data favoring
[p. 2171]
apart from few exceptions → apart from a few exceptions [p. 2178]
and have gained increasingly → increasing attention [p. 2178]
do usually not → do not usually [p. 2181] 
must have been weighting → must have weighed several tons [p. 2182]
substitutes → for the whole compound [p. 2182]
punctuation glitches at the bottom of 2184 and 2188 and top of 2189 
on the 25.2.2011 → delete “the” [p. 2188] 
“*these* three interwoven principles” is mentioned before its antecedent in
the next paragraph, where the principles are first introduced [p. 2220]
none → neither of the two words [p. 2202]
spezialization → specialization [p. 2257]
chrystal → crystal [p. 2257]
excitement → excitation (of electricity) [p. 2259]
For a long time, rhetoric remains → has remained the reference par excellence
[p. 2268] 
death and transformation are the inclusive → ineluctable condition of man. [p.
2269]
is → has been increasingly encroaching…since the 1960s. [p. 2326]


ABOUT THE REVIEWER

Karen Steffen Chung is an associate professor of English and linguistics in
the foreign language department of National Taiwan University in Taipei, and
also teaches English over the radio and Internet. Her areas of specialization
include phonetics, teaching of pronunciation, and Chinese morphology. She is
the author of Mandarin Compound Verbs, which received an NTU excellent
research award in 2007.
http://homepage.ntu.edu.tw/~karchung/Karen/Karen_Chung_publications.htm





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