LINGUIST List 12.2103

Fri Aug 24 2001

Disc: Malcukov's Review of Song, Linguistic Typology

Editor for this issue: Karen Milligan <karenlinguistlist.org>

Directory

1. Jae Jung Song, Malcukov's Review of Song, Linguistic Typology

Re: Linguist 12.2068

Andrej Malcukov's review of my book "Linguistic Typology: Morphology and
Syntax" (Pearson Education, 2001) is a fair one. Needless to say, there are
some points in his review I disagree with, but I won't go into them because
at the end of the day these will turn out to have more to do with
differences in focus, preference, orientation, style, etc than with
substance. But I would like to respond to two of Malcukov's comments.
First, he writes "issues of diachronic typology are ... left unaddressed,
which is somewhat surprising given that they are given much prominence
within the Greenbergian tradition ...". This is not correct because
diachronic typology is one of the topics dealt with in Chapter 6. Second,
he points out that "[t]he chapter on causatives could have profited from
the more detailed presentation of the author's own research results". Very
much as I had wanted to give a more detailed discussion of my own research,
this was a consequence of an editorial decision (because my earlier book on
causatives had appeared in the same series). In fairness to the publisher,
I would also like to say I happened to agree with it.
Finally, I take this opportunity to thank Andrej Malcukov for taking the
time to review my book.

Jae Jung Song
Linguistics
University of Otago
Dunedin
New Zealand