LINGUIST List 8.1236

Thu Aug 28 1997

Books: Phonology & Phonetics, Grammars

Editor for this issue: Martin Jacobsen <martylinguistlist.org>

Directory

1. GLSA - UMass, New Book: Phonology
2. Christoph Eyrich, New Book: Grammar of Meithei

1. Patterns of Reduplication in Lushootseed by Suzzane Urbanczyk page:
xii+317 price: $16 + S/H ($3 for domestic/$4 for foreign)

 The thesis examines the reduplicative patterns of Lushootseed
(Central Salish), arguing that the range of patterns are best
explained by Generalized Template Theory (McCarthy and Prince 1994),
in which reduplicative morphemes are specified for morphological
category. Each reduplicative morpheme is specified as either root or
affix, and exhibits canonical properties such as shape and segmental
content. Constraints interact to derive the 'emergent' templates. In
each case the root is more marked than the affix reduplicant.
Generalized Template Theory is argued to have greater explanatory
power than prosodic templates because both shape and segmental content
can be related to morphological class membership (whereas prosodic
templates can only refer to shape).

2. The Phonology of Liquids by Laura Walsh Dickey
page:xvi + 193
price: $16 + S/H ($3 for domestic/$4 for foreign)

"The Phonology of Liquids" is an investigation into the nature of
liquid consonants. This dissertation principally addresses questions
of the featural content of liquids along with the hierarchical
relations among those features. A major finding of this study is that
both the class of rhotics and the class of liquids (defined as rhotics
and sonorant laterals) are phonological valid classes. While
traditional analyses have used manner features to distinguish among
liquid consonants, Walsh Dickey demonstrates that rhotics and laterals
are instead defined and differentiated by complexes of Coronal and
Dorsal place features.

GLSA
Department of Linguistics
South College
UMass, Amherst
MA 01003 USA

glsalinguist.umass.edu

			 Shobhana L. Chelliah

			 A GRAMMAR OF MEITHEI

		 1997. 24 x 17 cm. XXV, 539 pages.
		 Cloth DM 348,-/approx. US$ 218.00
			 ISBN 3-11-014321-6

		 Mouton Grammar Library 17

 Mouton de Gruyter * Berlin * New York


This is the first comprehensive reference work on Meithei, a
little-known yet important Tibeto-Burman language spoken in Manipur
State in Northeastern India by approximately 1.2 million people.

Both the presentation and the analysis of data are conducted within an
easily accessible generative framework. In nine chapters the author
accounts for the phonology and morphology (phonemic contrasts, tone,
the interaction of phonology and morphology, a word syntax for the
description of the agglutinative morphology of Meithei) and syntax
(the structure of root sentences, nominalization and other dependent
clauses, case marking, the marking of grammatical relations) of
Meithei. The interaction of phonology and morphology is described in
terms of the theory of Lexical Morphology and Phonology. It is shown
that while this theory is effective in describing the
morphophonological facts of Meithei it makes wrong predictions about
word level semantics. The author argues that an appropriate grammar of
Meithei should allow for autonomous semantic and morphophonological
representations. A functional perspective dealing with the signalling
of evidentiality and indirect speech acts is given in the final
chapter.

The book is rich in data: both elicited and naturally occurring speech
acts are used in the analysis. Included are texts with interlinear
translation, a Meithei word glossary, a subject index, a comprehensive
bibliography of Meithei linguistics, maps and pictures of
consultants. Written primarily for the linguist, this grammar will
also be of use to teachers and students of Meithei.

_______________________________________________________________________

Mouton de Gruyter Walter de Gruyter, Inc. 
Postfach 30 34 21 200 Saw Mill River Road 
D-10728 Berlin Hawthorne, NY 10532 
Germany USA 
Fax: +49 (0)30 26005-351 Fax: +1 914 747-1326 
email: moutondeGruyter.de

Publications by de Gruyter can also be ordered via World Wide Web: 

 http://www.deGruyter.de

The following contributing LINGUIST publishers have made their backlists available on the World Wide Web:

• Blackwells
• Cascadilla Press
• Cornell University Linguistics Dept.
• CSLI Publications
• Garland Publishing
• Holland Academic Graphics
• Irvine Linguistics Students Association
• John Benjamins
• Kluwer Academic Publishers
• MIT Working papers in Linguistics
• Mouton de Gruyter
• U. of Massachusetts Graduate Linguistics Association
• Pacific Linguistics Publications
• Routledge
• Summer Institute of Linguistics