New book: Etymology

[LINCOM EUROPA]

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
AFTER ETYMOLOGY:
 TOWARDS A SUBSTANTIVIST LINGUISTICS

PROBAL DASGUPTA, University of Hyderabad, Hyderabad,
RAJENDRA SINGH, Universite de Montreal, Montreal
& ALAN J. FORD, Universite de Montreal, Montreal

The authors argue for a substantivist linguistics that parts company
with the excessive concern with etymology that has shaped much modern
work. Historical linguistics of the 19th century offered an Etymology of
Words, but that Etymology self-destructs, and merges into several
structuralist projects. On our construal, this self destruction arises
from Saussure's attempt to push the Neo-grammarian logic to the point of
demanding total accountability. But no structuralism can offer
synchronic sources for words. Since the linguist's etymological drive
remained intact while the historical wing of the enterprise became first
optional and marginal, the derivational impulse soght new objects. That
impulse seems to us to have exhausted itself in frankly but
unwarrantedly derivational accounts that are still the hall-marks of
contemporary linguistics. We need to go beyond such accounts and beyond
Etymology.
        The book  examines  what seem to be the core postulates of Etymologism
through their descriptive manifestations in grammar and argues for their
replacement with substantivist postulates. It also asks that  all
linguists take a serious look at the substantive compulsions that have
driven generative work not just to a revolution at the formal level, but
also to a continuous substantive follow-up within that revolution.

Table of Contents:

1       Introduction
1.1. Preamble
1.2. Etymological Beginnings
1.3. Substance, Form, and Transparency

2. Morphology, Etymology, and the
        Internal Structure of Words
2.1. Introduction
2.2. On Units Smaller than the Word
2.3. Compounding and Incorporation
2.4. On Liberating Phonology

3. Towards a Non-Paninian Phonology
3.1. Introduction
3.2. Domains and Representations
3.3. Rules and Constraints
3.4. Some Comparisons

4. On Interpretation
4.1. Introduction
4.2. Beginning the Revision
4.3. Continuing the Revision
4.4. Rules, Strategies and  Accomodation
4.5. Does Sense Precede Context?

5. Interpreting Different Expressions
        Differently
5.1. Introduction
5.2. Shaping Interpretations
5.3. The Road to Checking
5.4. Formalizing Sponsorship
5.5. Adpositions and Syntax
5.6. Post-formal Semantics and Syntax
5.7. Theta-marking and its Consequences
5.8. No Single Scene

6.   Syntactic Epenthesis and the
        Rationality of Case
6.1. Introduction
6.2. Syntactic Epenthesis
6.3. Oblique-state Nominals in Hindi-Urdu
6.4. Agreement and Preposing
6.5. Morphological Involvement
6.6. The Empirical Edge
6.7. The Conceptual Edage

7. The Denomination Parameter
7.1. Introduction
7.2. The Locative
7.3. Remarks on Case
7.4. Denominators and Definiteness
7.5. Postpositions and Heterogeneity
7.6. Case, Integration, and Agreement

8. Epilogue: ARE WE READY?

ISBN 3 89586 950 3.
LINCOM Studies in Theoretical Linguistics 18.
Ca. 180pp. USD 51 / DM 112 / # 34.


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