</SECTION "art"><SECTION "rrt" TITLE "Review Article">

Review Articles

Studies in Language 27:2 (2003), 361–395.

issn 0378–4177 / e-issn 1569–9978�©John Benjamins Publishing Company

<TARGET "wie" DOCINFO AUTHOR "Björn Wiemer"TITLE ""SUBJECT "SL, Volume 27:2"KEYWORDS ""SIZE HEIGHT "220"WIDTH "150"VOFFSET "4">

Östen Dahl & Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm (eds.). 2001. Circum-BalticLanguages, vol. 1: Past and Present; vol. 2: Grammar and Typology.Amsterdam-Philadelphia: Benjamins. xx + 761 + 21 (three indexes).ISBN 90–272–3057–9, 90–272–3059–5.

Reviewed by Björn Wiemer (Konstanz University (Germany))

A review which has become a veritable digest…

Not until I sat down to write a review on these two volumes did I realize that itis nearly impossible (and in no case adequate) to do justice to this pioneeringcollective work by just briefly informing which author has written on whichsubject. As the contents of the articles is highly differentiated, practically eachof them presents us with a host of data, whose complexities can only be duelyunderstood if the theoretical and factual background of each particular contri-bution is surveyed in its general outlines. Only by doing so can one appreciatethe enormous work of the authors and, above all, the editors. For this reason theoriginal review has grown into a kind of digest. Even then the whole wealth ofdata and detailed analyses conducted by the author of each contribution can beassessed only fragmentarily. Here I should add that my own competences aresituated in the field of Slavic linguistics and Lithuanian. Thus allow me in thefollowing to offer some more detailed remarks concerning these languages. If Iinsert some critical remarks, it by no means diminishes the high value of thework discussed, and I will mostly refrain from pointing out cases of minorincorrectness and mistakes (see however the last paragraph). I will start withsome remarks on the “pre-history” of the collective work behind these volumes.

The term ‘Circum-Baltic Area’ (CBA) has quite recently been coined for theregion surrounding the Baltic Sea. The reason for this denomination is thatthere is a considerable number of typologically marked similarities shared bylanguages (and their varieties) of different groups and even phyla (Indo-European and Uralic) around the edges of the Baltic Sea. For a long time thisarea attracted much less attention than the Balkan, on the basis of which thenotion of Sprachbund was introduced. Leaving aside the question whether the

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CBA constitutes a certain kind of Sprachbund, some of the features convergingin its various languages were surveyed already, for instance, in Stolz (1991) and

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in a grey copy edition written by Dahl/Koptjevskaja-Tamm (1992). It is thanks

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to these two scholars that an enormous step has now been taken in presentingcomprehensive overviews and research results concerning the peculiarities oflanguages (including dialects) belonging to the CBA and attempting to explainhow their structural similarities have come about. The various contributionshave found a common “roof” in the guise of a monumental two-volumeedition. The novelty of the enterprise undertaken by Östen Dahl and MariaKoptjevskaja-Tamm together with the authors of the particular papers lies inthe endeavor to establish “bridges” between disciplines whose representativesusually communicate with each other rather sporadically, if at all. By addressingthese problems, the editors formulate the need for more unified and joint areallinguistic work in the Introduction (but see also the conclusions of the lastpaper by Koptjevskaja-Tamm & Wälchli): many typologists have becomeinterested in areal biases and begun to make them a subject worth studyingthemselves, whereas areal linguists need a typological background in order tofigure out which of the isoglosses they encounter belong to marked features ona larger, continent- or world-wide scale. Where features prove to be marked andaccumulate in geographically contiguous language varieties, contact linguisticsappears on the floor. Then painstaking work with a host of details — oftenboring for typologists — starts. As a rule, it requires extensive knowledge on thelinguistic history, sociopolitical background and of the linguistic structure ofthe involved varieties themselves, i.e. work often associated to what a traditionalphilologist or dialectologist should be competent in. It is one of the greatestmerits of the CBA-volumes surveyed here that both volumes as a whole and, inparticular, many of the contributions included in them have managed to bringall these different approaches (which often seem antipodal and not reconcil-able) into one place and to make use of the strengths of each of them. This is allthe more amazing as many of the authors are specialists in “several strong locallinguistic traditions, some of them with fairly old roots” (xvi). Such specialistsnow have not only been consulted, but they have been brought together at alinguistic round table, so to speak. In other words: the two CBA-volumespresent us with the first results of a pioneering and promising linguisticenterprise.

Each of the two volumes is divided into three parts and an introduction(identical for both volumes). Part 1 gives a survey of some CBA languages andtheir varieties. It is subdivided into one article on Latvian and one on Lithuani-

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an dialects (both contributed by Laimute Balode & Axel Holvoet), on Swedishdialects (Anne-Charlotte Rendahl) and the Finnic languages (Johanna Laakso)plus two articles on Russian varieties in the southeastern part of the CBA in the19th and early 20th century (both written by Valeriy Cekmonas). Part 2 isconcerned with the early history of two language groups of the CBA, namely:with Scandinavian (Östen Dahl) and Baltic influences on Finnic languages(Lars-Gunnar Larsson). Part 3 focusses on minor CBA languages and the resultsof linguistic contacts manifested in them. It is composed of five contributions:the role of language contact in the formation of Karelian in the past and present(Stefan M. Pugh), syntactic code-copying in Karaim (Éva Ágnes Csató), Yiddishin the Baltic region (Neil G. Jacobs), interference and code-switching in theNorth Russian Romani dialect (Aleksandr Yu. Rusakov), and certain areallyspecific features in the phonetics of the Russian dialects in the region of Pskovand Novgorod (Valeriy Cekmonas). Part 4 deals with selected topics of thegrammar of CBA languages and consists of the following six articles: imper-sonals and passives in Baltic and Finnic (Axel Holvoet), the evolution of thenominative object in East Baltic (Vytautas Ambrazas), lexical evidence for theparallel development of Latvian and Livonian verb particles (BernhardWälchli), on the characteristics of the initial stages in the evolution of an aspectsystem in Estonian (Helle Metslang), considerations on the contrastive descrip-tion of the case and clause system in Latvian and Estonian (Baiba Metuzale-Kangere & Kersti Boiko), and functions of the genitive in Baltic and Finniclanguages (Simon Christen). Part 5 views CBA languages in a broader typo-logical context and is composed of three contributions: an analysis of partitiveand pseudo-partitive nominal constructions (Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm), somepeculiarities in nonverbal predication in the CBA languages (Leon Stassen), andthe evolution and contemporary state of instrumentals and comitatives in theCBA (Thomas Stolz). The concluding Part 6 is made up of one article, whichcovers more than 100 pages, though, and presents a synthesizing view ontypologically remarkable facts about structural convergences in the CBA (MariaKoptjevskaja-Tamm & Bernhard Wälchli). At the end of Volume 2 there aretwo appendixes — (1) language contacts referred to in the volumes, (2)linguistic phenomena mentioned in the volumes for the origin of whichcontact-induced changes have been evoked — and three indexes (names,languages, subjects). Although the first volume is subtitled Past and Present,diachronic development is also amply accounted for in the second volumesubtitled Grammar and Typology. The contributions of the latter volume take abroader look at connecting facts from CBA languages with general typology,

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whereas the first one instead fulfils also the function of giving compact intro-ductions (or surveys) to some particular language group or language varietyspoken in the CBA.

I will now discuss each paper by their order of publication.To start with, Balode & Holvoet’s papers on Latvian and Lithuanian

(including their dialects) give concise information on the historical backgroundof the formation of these two Baltic languages and their substrata. Theirdetailed survey of features both of the standard languages as well as theirdifferent dialect areas is carried out with great accuracy, positing special weighton the presentation of the complicated systems of accents and syllabic tones. Itis noteworthy that the authors sometimes decided to choose non-systemicfeatures — such as non-phonological lengthening of unvoiced obstruents inLow Latvian and gemination in High Latvian (20) — as isoglosses distinguish-ing one dialect (group) from another. These changes can emerge as slightmodifications of the system without yet establishing clear-cut paradigmaticoppositions; quite often they may remain on a non-distinctive level (in astructuralist’s sense). (An analogous assertion could be made for Russiandialects around Pskov and Novgorod; see below Cekmonas’ third paper.)Further one should notice that occasionally not features as such, but theirorigin, namely: substratum influence from Livonian (Finnic), is made adefining property of one of the dialect groups, namely: the Tamian dialects(31). Both points are certainly connected to the general orientation of theCBA-volumes: to show to what extent language contact is responsible for thegradual change of structural features. Somewhat surprising is the fact that Balode& Holvoet did not mention the so-called oblique mood (a kind of quotative; seeKoptjevskaja-Tamm & Wälchli’s contribution at the end): it could have beenmentioned as an innovation together with the debitive (which is referred to on p.6). Instead, the two authors mention the oblique mood in their contribution onLithuanian (43), where this category is less grammaticalized, though. Furthermore,while surveying external influences, the authors present the West Russian Chancel-lory language as a variety of Church Slavonic (45). This is certainly incorrectinsofar as this koiné used for administrative purposes in the Grand Duchy ofLithuania (called also ‘Prosta Mova’, ‘rus’ka mova’, or ‘Old Belarusian’) arose inthe 14th c. on a vernacular basis with relatively few Church Slavonic elements. Notuntil the 16th c. entered such elements (together with Polonisms) this variety,when it became a means of polemics for theological disputes between representa-tives of the Catholic, the Russian Orthodox and the Uniate Church (cf., forinstance, Moser 1998:15, 19f., Stang 1939, and Uspenskij 1987:260ff.).

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The two papers written by Cekmonas on Russian varieties in the(south)eastern part of the CBA (outside of Russia) are for sure the first compre-hensive survey on Russian “diasporas” in a region which can best be designatedby the German term ‘Baltikum’ (= Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia). The first of thesecontributions deals with Russian in the urban metropoles of the Baltikum in the19th c. and the beginning of the 20th c., the second with rural varieties duringthe same time span. The most remarkable fact is the practically complementarydistribution of Russian varieties: while in the capitals and larger towns standardRussian was used, in the countryside Russian was more or less restricted to thespeech of the Old Believers, which represents a dialect from the region aroundand to the south of Pskov. Correspondingly these two Russian varieties ap-peared in the Baltikum at different times and for totally different reasons: theOld Believers appeared in Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia starting at the end ofthe 17th c., when they began to flee from the Orthodox authorities and theCzarist regime, whereas speakers of standard Russian did not come to theseplaces until later and mainly as officials of the Czarist regime. In particular, theyappeared in Lithuania after the partitions of the Polish-Lithuanian common-wealth (the last partition taking place in 1795). Although there are some quiteimportant differences in the concrete history of the Russian-speaking popula-tion in Vilnius, Riga and Tallinn, thanks to Cekmonas’ sober analysis ofstatistical (demographic) and other printed material some things can begeneralized: first, Russians never formed more than 20% of the total populationof these towns; second, we may be quite sure that Russian was never used as adominant vernacular language (i.e. outside the Russian minority). In fact,nobody knows exactly how the inhabitants of these towns spoke with each otherin the 19th c., and we can only guess what Russian “looked like” at that time byinvestigating periodicals, fictional literature and dramas written in Russian.Cekmonas does just this and finds only a handful of deviations from standardRussian. This does not come at a surprise, since periodicals and literature inRussian were surely thoroughly edited by representatives of the standardlanguage (84). That Russian was quite isolated from the “linguistic life” in thestreets can furthermore indirectly be inferred from the fact that in Vilnius (andits surroundings) Russian did not affect the phonetics or morphosyntax of localPolish or Lithuanian (86). However, numerous lexical borrowings from Russianinto Polish and Lithuanian occurred, most of which have not entered therespective standard languages (85f.). Cekmonas correctly points out that it isoften impossible to distinguish such older Russicisms in Lithuanian and/orPolish from more recent, even post-WW II Russicisms. However, some of his

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examples adduced on p. 86 as loans in Lithuanian clearly show Belarusian traits(e.g., cinaunas ‘official of high rank’, sprauninkas ‘district police officer’). Aninteresting question not addressed at by Cekmonas arises here: were thesewords introduced into the speech of Lithuanians directly from Russian orinstead via the medium of Belarusian (with which Lithuanian peasants of theregion around Vilnius had been in continuous contact for a long time)? As forRiga, Cekmonas thoroughly establishes the links with and provenance from thenorthwestern Russian dialect territory (92f.). He concludes that Riga’s Russianwas more of a “mix”, inter alia with German (94). The role of German was evengreater in Tallinn, at least until 1887 (96). Among the general conclusionsdrawn by Cekmonas (97), one should stress here the following two: (a) “in spiteof the Russification policy, bilingualism in Russian and the autochthonouslanguages did not become widespread in the Baltic until the end of the 19thcentury”; (b) “the Russian language was not creolised in any case; that is, theoriginal population was not Russified in any area and the local Russian dialectswere not developed on the local substratum”. Two critical remarks are also inplace here. First, the mistakes made by Lithuanian peasants in their petitionswritten in Russian (p. 89) should have been commented on, since the minorityof the readers of Cekmonas’ articles can be assumed to know Russian sufficient-ly in order to determine the nature of these mistakes without further aid.Secondly, Cekmonas’ inclusion of the so-called prostorecie into standardRussian (94) is misleading. In fact, by this expression Russian authors refer toquite different kinds of sociolects (or their linguistic manifestations), either“provincial” or “urban uneducated speech”, but nobody would use it inreference to the codified standard language (or any of its “sub-varieties”).

Even more interesting is Cekmonas’ contribution on the history andstructure of the speech of Russian Old Believers (OB), which, as alreadymentioned, was practically restricted to the countryside. The comprehensiveoverview of the linguistic peculiarities of the OB dialect (111–124) may be veryhelpful in discriminating typical features of the eastern part of the CBA,although a mere list of them often does not allow us to discern to which degreethe respective feature has been sustained by contact and to which degree it hasmerely been preserved because of the OBs’ very isolated way of life and,consequently, the conservative nature of their speech. To give just one example:the active anteriority participles in {vši} (often called resultative or perfectparticiples) are for sure “inherited” from the Obs’ “homelands”, namely: thedialect group between Pskov and Velikie Luki (by the way, no mention is madehere of the important work done by Maryniakowa 1976 and Trubinskij 1984).

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These participles, however, are also a distinctive trait not only of that Russiandialect area, but also of all Slavic and Baltic varieties spoken on the territory ofthe former Grand Duchy of Lithuania, to which the OBs emigrated (see above).This pertains not only to their form, but also to their functions, which, asrightly stated by the author, are not “completely understood” (117) and whichform “shadow paradigms” in the sense that they can more often than not bereplaced by the simple past tense (119). The same is true of local Polish andeven Lithuanian. Another case in point would be the experiencer dative (129f.),the comparative combined with the preposition za ‘behind’ (compare Lith. už+ acc) (119f.) and, of course, the genitive used for so-called ‘partitive’ objectsand subjects (120) (on this notion see Koptjevskaja-Tamm’s article below).Cekmonas’ account also contains an attempt at classifying the different OBdialects in the Baltikum according to the type of contact conditions. In doing sohe applies two criteria, a geographic and a sociolinguistic one. With thegeographic distinction being between frontier and insular dialects, it is notimmediately clear whether these criteria are of equal importance and how theymight interact; the minor role of the geographic criterion becomes apparentonly indirectly (109). The OB dialects in northeastern Letgalia and easternEstonia count as frontier dialects, because they are prolongations of thenorthwestern Russian dialect group from which OB speech derives. On thecontrary, most other OB dialects have to be qualified as insular dialects sincethey are surrounded on all sides by Lithuanian, Latvian or Estonian vernaculars.No mention is made whether being an insular or a frontier dialect affectslanguage structure in different ways. Instead Cekmonas dwells on a detaileddiscussion of the degree of bilingual competence of OBs in different sub-regions(124–130). This sociolinguistic parameter does indeed have a different impacton the structure of the contact varieties: the influence of Estonian (on all levels)turns out to be greater (despite of OBs speech in Estonian being a frontierdialect) than the influence of Lithuanian in the insular dialects in the southernpart of the Baltikum.

In the introduction of her paper on Swedish dialects around the Baltic Sea,Rendahl addresses a methodological problem which is certainly inherent tomost of the other papers of the two CBA-volumes as well. In characterizing herreview as “something of a Swiss cheese” (138) she complies on the fragmentaryknowledge conveyed by the literature on areal relations and reliable descrip-tions of dialect features, especially beyond the level of phonetics and (mostlyinflectional) morphology. Nonetheless, she surely makes the best out of thisuncomfortable state of the art, and it might somehow console scholars dealing

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with Slavic, Baltic, or Finnic languages that not only “their” language varietieshave hitherto been investigated poorly and that many facts will probably remainforever unknown. Rendahl’s own study rests on dialectological literature whichreflects a relatively simultaneous, but nonetheless not contemporary state (137).The main insights given by her paper are the following. (i) The traditional,rather “horizontal” (north — south) division of Swedish dialects should insteadbe re-arranged into a “vertically” (east — west) oriented one. The reason is thatthe coastal Swedish dialects are more homogeneous and may be set apartaltogether from the western part of Swedish mainland dialects (138 + Fn. 4).Together with this, some phonological features indicate that central Swedishdialect characteristics have spread to the southwest, therefore indicating that adivision into coastal vs. inland dialects might be more appropriate than ahorizontal one (167f. + Fn. 51). This conclusion is corroborated by the observa-tion that the influential eastern dialect group (‘sveamål’) “by and large coincideswith the extension of the Viking and Early Middle Ages military and taxationledung organization” (141, see also p. 170). It would be worthwhile to correlatethese findings from more recent dialect geography with the reconstructionattempt of the Scandinavian languages by Dahl (see below). (ii) Phonological(traditional) isoglosses do not coincide very much with a division based onmorphological and foremost syntactic features. The former would best be givena “vertical” fashion (see above), whereas the latter instead allows for a “horizon-tal” and threefold division of the dialect continuum. However, as Rendahlcomments, the syntactic division is based on “thin” empirical material andrather accidental observations (144–146). (iii) Not all features of Swedishdialects on the eastern shores of the Baltic Sea (‘Trans-Baltic’ dialects) can beexplained by language contact. For instance, in Estonian Swedish dialects nouninflection is “on the whole very reduced” (156). This appears surprising insofaras Estonian has a very elaborated system of cases, and other components ofnoun phrase structure in Estonian Swedish have been subject to Estonianinfluence (e.g. even plural marking is left out when nouns are preceded by acardinal numeral, ibd.; see also pp. 161–163). Furthermore, the lack of pitchtone distinctions in the Swedish dialects spoken on the eastern side of the BalticSea need not necessarily be explained by Finnic substrata, but can be given analternative, “native” explanation: “the Trans-Baltic dialects were alreadyremoved from the centre of innovation (…) by the time the accent distinctionwas established on the Swedish mainland” (166). These and many similardeliberations in Rendahl’s paper leave open a large amount of questions on theparticular impact of contacts between Swedish and Finnic languages as well as

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on the way dialect features diffused inside the Swedish mainland and theScandinavian subcontinent as a whole.

Laakso’s contribution concerning the Finnic languages deserves attentionmainly for two reasons. First, she truely succeeds in her aim “to introduce theFinnic languages for linguists not acquainted with the Finno-Ugrian or Uraliclanguages” (179). Her paper actually could be considered as a short basictextbook on this branch of languages for all levels of linguistic description, inwhich reflexes of language contact are accounted for, too. Second, she decidedlyprefers to explain the diversification of Finnic dialects as a result of contact andadmixture phenomena, not on the basis of a “genetic”, i.e. Stammbaum-model:“Proto-Finnic cannot have been a homogeneous language form; its differentdialects were spoken in a large area (…) so that innovations can have spreadbetween dialects already clearly differentiated. This means that the developmentleading from Proto-Finnic to present-day Finnic languages is too complicatedto be explained in terms of a traditional family-tree description.” (205) Let uscome to some specific points. Proto-Uralic is said to have possessed a richerconsonant system with an opposition of palatalized and velar consonants. Thisopposition was probably lost in Proto-Finnic, the reason presumably beingearly contacts with speakers of Germanic and Baltic (182). If this hypothesis iscorrect, it would give a strong argument against the view that the regularcorrelation between palatal and non-palatal consonants in Baltic (especially inLithuanian) is an old feature, and we can ascribe its appearance to the relativelylate impact of (East) Slavic. Further, Laakso comments on suffixes used invarious derivational functions of valence reduction (autocausative, anti-causative and passive-like meanings). In the East Finnic languages Russianinfluence is quite obvious since these languages have extended the scope ofmarkers which are related to reflexivity (195, 198, 200). Two minor criticalremarks on Laakso’s exposition may be allowed. In the section devoted to moodand modality Laakso mentions that the so-called indirect moods in Estonian andLivonian have been connected with the so-called relative mood in Latvian andLithuanian, but that no decision can be made as to the direction of influence (193).This is probably true, but a more fruitful way of thinking about these arealconvergences may be to assume a mutual impact between in any case Latvian andEstonian. Such a view has already been promoted by Stolz (1991) and Wälchli

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(2000). As for terminology, one should criticize Laakso’s anachronistic use of theterm ‘imperfect’, which in fact simply means ‘past tense’. Although this misleadinguse of ‘imperfect’ has been passed over in the literature on Finnic languages, itshould be avoided in a collective volume with a clear typological orientation.

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Dahl’s paper on the origin of the Scandinavian languages, in particular ofSwedish, can possibly be considered the most original contribution to theCBA-volumes. For it demonstrates how views passed down on the pre- andearly history of national languages — insofar as they have normally beenconsidered to be monolithic and only subject to the supposed internal “laws” ofchange — can be “shaken up” by a linguistically trained common sense.Although Dahl does not say it, he practically applies Labov’s UniformitarianPrinciple. The prevalent assumption on the origin of Scandinavian languagescan be called the ‘Common Nordic Hypothesis’, which states (after Noreen):“there existed up to the Viking Age a uniform Germanic language which wasspoken over most of Scandinavia and which is the origin of all modern Scandi-navian languages and dialects” (215). Dahl challenges this opinion, firstlybecause of the age of ‘Proto-Nordic’ and, secondly, for its alleged structuralhomogeneity, which most likely is a fiction. His argumentation is based on awitty and well-weighed discussion of archaeological findings, the testimony ofsome antique authors and linguistic reconstruction, which makes recourse to athorough (re)analysis of two groups of written evidence found in Scandinavia:the Older Futhark inscriptions (300–600 AD) and the Late Runic inscriptions(11th c.). According to archaeological findings, until 800 AD the southern partand the eastern coast of Sweden were not settled densely, nor was there anylinguistically unifying center. Therefore, in Scandinavia a rapid shift to auniform Germanic language, which might have superseded earlier non-I.E.languages, was highly unlikely (218f.). As for the runic inscriptions, Dahlsuggests that each set of them gives evidence not so much of a purportedhomogeneous language, but rather point at the existence of a couple of earlylocal Germanic varieties. It cannot be ruled out that these inscriptions are moreof a West Germanic than of a ‘Nordic’ character. Finally, the younger age of theinscriptions found in the Swedish Mälar province suggests that Germanicspread there later than in Denmark and Norway. The next step in Dahl’sargumentation concerns the “genetic” continuity between the Older Futharkand the Late Runic inscriptions. Contrary to opinio communis, there was nosuch continuity, since the two types of language reflected in these inscriptionsmust have been unintelligible to each other (219–226). If we account not onlyfor the time span of the possible spread of some type of Germanic, but also forthe space it must have covered, a crucial question inevitably arises: why shouldScandinavians (whoever they were ethnically and linguistically) have changedtheir language all at the same time and in the same fashion (227)? Dahl’s answerto this question can be summarized in the following way: the unifying language

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shift was based on a prestige dialect, which probably was situated in southernJutland (near Slesvig) and began to spread in the 9th c. from there to the Mälarprovinces (eastern Sweden). The establishment of a relatively uniform German-ic language in Scandinavia was therefore due to certain economic and politicalélites in central parts of Scandinavia (229f.).

Larsson, who deals with different layers of influence (in particular fromBaltic) in the lexicon and the grammar of Finnic and Sami, adheres to a ratherstrict family-tree model according to which all of the Finnic languages arederived from a common language stage known as Proto-Finnic (237). Hisposition, which actually he does not motivate, is thus opposite to the view heldby Laakso (see above). Independently from this he stresses that linguisticreconstruction ought not to be confused with anthropologically based hypothe-ses. For this reason he rejects the “Proto-Lapp” hypothesis as not being “found-ed on any linguistic evidence whatsoever” (241). As for Baltic influence inFinnic (and Sami) he argues that Baltic loans in these languages give evidenceto the hypothesis that Balts must already have been in contact with (Proto-)Finnic people at a very early stage. One of his arguments is the existence ofBaltic loan words in Sami which do not bear any “Proto-Finnic fingerprint at allin their sound shape” (242) and can therefore be regarded as direct borrowings(not mediated by Finnic). The other important point made by Larsson is thatthe lexical fields in which numerous Baltic loans are attested in different Finniclanguages show that the type of linguistic and cultural bonds must have beenvery intimate; even names for body parts (e.g., Fin. kaula ‘neck’, cf. Lith. kaklas‘id.’), for animal husbandry (e.g., Fin. jäärä ‘ram’, cf. Lith. eras ‘lamb’), forotherwise familiar wild animals (e.g., Fin. lohi ‘salmon’, cf. Lith. lašiša ‘id.’) andfor social concepts (such as Fin. heimo ‘tribe’, cf. Lith. šeima ‘family’) have beenborrowed from Baltic. The quantity and quality of borrowed items speak infavor of a high degree of bilingualism and mixed marriages between Balts andFinnic speaking people (238–242). On the basis of this inference Larsson thengoes on by arguing that the use of the partitive case as a marker of ‘partialobjects’ and ‘partial subjects’ in Finnic languages can be viewed as the result ofsyntactic calquing from Baltic, which uses the genitive in such contexts. Notevery detail of his argument (244–247) is totally convincing, but he is carefulenough about his hypothesis. By any means, further research is necessary here,and Larsson’s investigation might well be complemented with the findings ofKoptjevskaja-Tamm in her article on partitives and pseudo-partitives (seebelow). Larsson’s argument with respect to so-called agentive participles is notvery strong, i.e. participles with the suffix {mV} in Finnic and Baltic (247–249):

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Lithuanian m-participles do not always serve as components for a genuinepassive and are by themselves unoriented in terms of their diathesis (and thederivative relation to the stem); cf., inter alia, Holvoet (1995). Thus, Lithuanian

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and Mari m-participles share features which distinguish them from Finnicparticiples that are etymologically related to the Mari participles. Lacking othercriteria and data it is impossible to decide whether this common syntacticbehavior is derived from parallel internal evolution or from language contact.And if the latter applies, which is the proper direction of influence betweenBaltic and the earlier stages of Finno-Ugric from which Mari descends.

The article written by Pugh presents a concise and very informativeoverview of the consequences of long-lasting one-sided Karelian — Russianbilingualism. The contacts between (predecessors of) Karelians and East Slavs(Russians) have lasted for more than thousand years, in the course of which“the position of the Karelian people gradually shifted from one of coexistenceto de facto subordination (but without suppression) as an ethnic and linguisticminority within a large and powerful state” (257). Pugh’s main issue is to showthe distinction between ‘borrowings’ and ‘usings’ of Russian vocabulary (orforms) in the speech of Karelians who are also fluent in Russian and have untilrecently attended exclusively Russian schools. ‘Borrowings’ can be determinedif they occur “in a number of dialects of the same language, or in the languageof a significant number of speakers of the same dialect” (258), whereas ‘usings’are only casually encountered words (or forms) of language L2 (here: Russian)in the speaker’s L1 (here: Karelian). A clear-cut distinction between bothmanifestations of linguistic contact is difficult the more the impact of Russianextends to the phonological and morphological level as well. Pugh’s analysis(261–266) includes the following phonological features: consonant palataliza-tion, which can increasingly be observed not only in Russian borrowings andusings, but also in native Karelian words (forms). Consonant clusters, unusualas they are for Finnic languages, are, as a rule, shortened by cutting off one ofthe consonants, but often a group of 2–3 consonants is left anyway. On the levelof morphonology Pugh draws attention to an even more interesting fact:prefixes are often copied from Russian in such a way that they determine thevowel quality in the following syllables of the word form. In fact, this rule worksonly for back vowels in the prefix. This means that, on the one hand, vowelharmony, as a typical feature of Uralic languages, is not totally reduced even byintensive contact with Russian. On the other hand, prefixes, which are anelement otherwise alien to Finnic, are at least partly integrated into the struc-ture of the word form in such a way that their inherited suprasegmental features

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are preserved. That the prefixes have been integrated into the bilinguals’competence can be seen inter alia from their productive use with verbs ofmotion (265). The profound impact of Russian can be determined in othermeans of stem formation, but have not (yet) affected inflectional morphology.

Csató discusses data from her own field work with the last group of Karaimspeakers in Trakai (near Vilnius, Lithuania). She thus gives an insight into thestructure of a Turkic minority language in a Lithuanian and Slavic environ-ment, which is on the verge of extinction. Her theoretical approach is situatedin a larger framework developed by Johanson and called ‘code-copying’. Thisnotion refers to processes by which elements (words, morphems etc.) of acontact language are inserted into another language (code); in this process theyare also adapted to the structure of the “borrowing” code. Because of theirsociolinguistic situation Karaims are in permanent need of multiple code-copying. Csató is careful to distinguish between the different “borrowing”languages and also admits that it is not always feasible to determine from whichSlavic language (Polish or Russian) a certain “copy” comes (272). Quiteremarkably, Karaim vowel harmony generally seems to be retained even withcopied items (273f.); this is a parallel to Pugh’s observations on the speech ofKarelian — Russian bilinguals (see above). Csató’s central issue, however, liesin the demonstration of consequences of code-copying for constituent orderpatterns (which at the beginning she somewhat hazily calls “frame-changinginnovations”). Starting from Greenberg’s work on word-order universals, sheargues that Karaim has changed the typically Turkic SOV order to SVO, whichcoincides with the basic word-order of its contact languages. She derives herevidence mainly from postpositional constructions and divides postpositionsinto those with apparent nominal properties vs. those which have lost (part of)their nominal properties and turned into some kind of particles. The latterbehave prosodically like enclitics, and they correlate with syntactically right-branching devices. A couple of Karaim postpositions prove to be closer to thislatter type, and this brings Karaim typologically closer to the languages bywhich it is surrounded (276–281).

Surveying the history and structural peculiarities of Yiddish in the Balticregion, Jacobs is particularly anxious to distinguish the results of externalinfluence from internal developments. This concerns in particular soundchanges and the evolution of the gender system. However, the evidence doesnot lend itself to unequivocal conclusions. For instance, on the one hand, thegeographic and social diffusion of Lithuanian loans does not coincide with theLithuanian linguistic geography (296). On the other hand, the Yiddish spoken

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in Samogitia (zameter yidish) retains the distinction between long and shortvowels, whereas in the Yiddish of eastern Lithuania (stam-litvish) this distinc-tive opposition was lost (297). Though Jacobs does not elaborate on it, this maywell signify that Lithuanian dialects of Samogitia, which practically did not haveany direct contact with Slavic varieties, sustained this opposition in the vowelsystem, whereas east Lithuanian dialects did not maintain it, since they them-selves were subject to the levelling of distinctions of vowel length, probablybecause of direct contacts with Slavic (Belarusian). Yiddish may have founditself under the same influence. Beside this, voicing sandhi with sequences ofobstruents can in principle also be ascribed to Slavic influence (291). Jacobs’detailed and insightful analysis of structural features is preceded by a conciseintroduction to the history of the Jewish (Ashkenazy) settlement and thedialectal differentiation of Yiddish in the CBA. Most attention is paid to theterritory of Northeastern Yiddish (NEY), which covered Lithuania, Latvia,Estonia, Belarus, parts of northern Poland, and the northern Ukraine (288) —i.e. in its central part it coincided with the territory of the former Grand Duchyof Lithuania. In sum, Jacobs states that Baltic contact features in Yiddish wereprimarily lexical (305) and that it was not until the 18th c. that significantLithuanian influence on Yiddish began (289, cf. also pp. 299f.). By and large,the impact of Slavic seems to have been greater; in Courland Yiddish theinfluence from Baltic German was more considerable than that of Latvian(304). Jacobs’ discussion of the loss of neuter gender in NEY shows a verycomplicated picture and ends with an algorithmic flowchart, in which thesubsequent steps disclose a complex interplay of semantic, morphological andphonological factors (293), but leaves open the question as to the externalimpact of Belarusian and/or the two-gender Baltic languages.

Rusakov has contributed a very insightful paper on interference from andcode-switching with Russian in the North Russian Romani dialect. The paperis divided into two parts: in the first, Rusakov investigates the role Russian hasbeen playing in the evolution of an aspect system based on stem derivation viaprefixation, which is morphologically similar to the Slavic one. The second partis devoted to a broader discussion of code-switching phenomena and theirstructural consequences in Romani. Let me begin with the first part. Theexamples given by Rusakov clearly show how a distinction between perfectiveand imperfective aspect based on the opposition between simple stems andprefixed stems (derived from the simple ones) has begun to establish itself bycopying verbal prefixes from Russian. However, the opposition between simpleand prefixed stems has not yet reached a stage at which one could speak of an

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aspect system, one of the reasons being that the simple stems can often be usedinstead of their prefixed derivatives without any discernible difference infunction. Along with this Romani does not show productive suffixation ofalready prefixed stems, but only occasional borrowing of Russian imperfectivestems in functions that are in accordance with the Russian aspect system(315f.). Unfortunately, Rusakov’s discussion demonstrates some shortcomings,which are not merely of a terminological nature. For instance, his understand-ing of ‘terminativity’ is not very clear (why is te aves ‘to come’ terminative, butgyja ‘(s/he) went (away)’ not?; 316f.). Then, what should be the differencebetween ‘aspectuality’ and ‘actionality’ (315); maybe Rusakov had in mind thedifference between aspect as a grammatical category (opposition) and ‘aspec-tual’ (=‘actional’) functions which are basically inherent to any verb? (Oftencalled also ‘lexical aspect’. Similar terminological confusion is continued byother authors of the CBA-volumes; see below.) The crucial point, however, isthat it is simply inappropriate to say that the Russian aspect system can becopied by just borrowing and productively applying its prefixes. What has beenborrowed is, at first hand, simply a morphological technique (stem derivation).In order for this technique to become a grammatical opposition it is necessarythat not only the lexically identical pairings of simple vs. derived prefix-stem beused in more or less complementary functions (Rusakov does point out thatthis is not the case; see above), but also that this affixing technique affects thepredominant number of (simple) stems in the language (here: Romani). Onemay assume that both processes are interrelated, although this is very difficultto analyse, even if one had more data with some time-depth. It is for thesereasons that Rusakov himself admits to feeling unable to determine the degreeof grammaticalization from lexical prefixation to an aspect system based onderivation in Romani (321). The elaboration of criteria on the degree of thegrammaticalization of this kind of aspect system would be extremely desirable,among other things because such criteria would allow for a comparison withother language varieties in the eastern part of the CBA which show the sametendencies, first of all with different varieties of Lithuanian (and, maybe,Latvian). A great merit of Rusakov’s paper lies in his considerations concerningthe “stored” vs. “on-line” nature of prefixes and stems in the Roma’s bilingualcompetence. These considerations are excellent, and here Rusakov takes fulladvantage of his own data and experience from field work and questionnairesas well as from much earlier work. His global conclusion on this topic is thatRomani speakers “can borrow Russian syntactic and word-formation modelson-line”; they dispose of “the possibility of this kind of borrowing itself” (321).

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This high degree of linguistic interference (Romani — Russian bilingualism)can also explain how such a marked system of opposing aspectual distinctionshas remained relatively stable for more than 100 years. This brings us to thesecond part of Rusakov’s paper. He starts out with a distinction between code-switching (“a shift from one language to another during a monologue ordialogue”) and code-mixing (“the use of unadapted lexical elements of anotherlanguage in speech”) (322) and then sets on a detailed account of interferencetypes in speech. The following observation belongs to the most remarkable oneshe made: Roma do not mix when they speak Russian (to Russians), but onlywhen they speak Romani among themselves. Real code-switching does occur,but only as a stylistic device in (re)narrative genres; this device has not changedsince the 19th c. (326–330). Russian verb forms are mostly included in Romanispeech in an unadapted manner, the reasons probably being (i) the morecomplex morphonological rules in the declension of verbs than of nouns andadjectives in both Roma and Russian and (ii) the lack of the infinitive in Roma.By analogy, “the use of unadapted Russian infinitives might trigger the unadapteduse of finite verb forms” (325). It does not make much sense to suppose different“underlying structures” in Romani — Russian bilinguals’ speech: both unadaptedand adapted Russian elements are felt to be normal elements of Romani discourse,and both are recognized as Russian elements (325f.). Rusakov concludes his paperby deliberating whether the high degree of Russian influence, which extends evento the doubling of grammatical elements (via code-mixing) as free variants, wouldat some stage lead to a “para-Romani” dialect, i.e. a dialect whose grammaticalstructure has become totally Slavicized (Russified).

Cekmonas’ third paper in the volume deals with the cokan’e (the pronoun-ciation of [c] instead of [c]), the confusion of the distinction between [š] and[s] and some similar phonetic features peculiar to the Russian dialect grouparound Pskov and Novgorod. He gives a good overview of (pre)historical factsthat are related to the question whether these features arose on a southernFinnic substratum (he answers this question in the positive). His account alsoincludes Latvian and Lithuanian dialects. He suggests that Slavic dialects of thatarea must have formed a tight association with varieties of Estonian, Latvianand Žemaitian (sometimes referred to as “Peipus-Bund”; see pp. 355f.).Cekmonas thereby rejects Šaxmatov’s and others’ idea that these features aredue to Lechitic influence, and he duely criticizes Slavic dialectologists for theirdeliberate neglect of Finnic substrata in northern Russian dialects (350).

Holvoet has written a very valuable contribution on passives and relatedconstructions in Baltic, Finnic and actually also in areally contiguous Slavic

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languages. First of all, this is a marvelous concise account of a very complexpicture of passives with agreeing (nominative) subjects and without suchsubjects (‘i.e. of impersonal passives’) as well as of functionally related construc-tions with zero subjects (e.g., Russ. Pokrasili.past.3.pl kuxnju.acc.sg.fem

‘They/somebody have/has painted the kitchen’). The diachronic relationbetween agreeing and impersonal passives, however, does not become clear. Inparticular, it is not obvious whether impersonal passives develop from agreeingones or, the other way around, whether agreeing passives are to be seen as adiachronic extension from impersonal constructions (inter alia, with a retainedaccusative or genitive object). To some extent Holvoet even contradicts himself,since, on the hand, he refers to the “natural shift from a passive towards animpersonal construction” (376f.), on the other hand, he admits that impersonalpassives might precede agreeing ones (378). Similar contradictions, however,can quite often be encountered in the literature on this topic. In fact, on theempirical synchronic and diachronic basis at hand it is hardly possible to decidein which direction passive (or more general: agent-defocussing) constructionsevolve and which direction has to be considered more “natural”. An analogousproblem arises with the question whether there is any connection between theobject-marking in impersonal passives and the development of obliquelymarked agent phrases. As it seems (also from data based on other languageslike, for instance, Romance or Celtic), different processes are at work in eachcase. At least, the data discussed by Holvoet do not allow for a clear decision,one of the reasons being that the lack of agreement in simple clauses is probablyan archaic Indo-European feature, so that we can hardly decide on the syntacticstatus (subject or object?) of the relevant NPs. Holvoet does take this intoaccount (376). One could, however, add that Polish constructions with neuterparticiples (-no/to), for instance, had been syntactically ambiguous for a periodof at least 300 years before they were unanimously re-analysed as constructionswith an implied, but syntactically blocked human agent and a possible accusa-tive (or genitive) object. A minor remark concerns the question of whatdetermines the human character of agency in the Polish passive with theinchoative auxiliary zostac ‘to become’. Holvoet comments that the decisivefactor is the syntactic realisation of an agent phrase (przez ‘through’ + acc),“though the semantics of the verb may suggest it” (366). This is not quitecorrect: what determines the human character of the agent is the auxiliaryzostac, regardless of whether an agent phrase in the sentence exists or not(because zostac presupposes such an agent). On the contrary, a passive with theauxiliary byc ‘to be’ may sound strange or deviant if an agent phrase is added,

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irrespective of the semantics of the lexical verb; compare (i) Ksiøzka byłazniszczona (?przez Jana) ‘The book was frayed/torn out (?by Jan)’ vs. (ii) Ksiøzkazostała zniszczona (przez Jana) ‘The book was frayed/torn out (by Jan)’. Afurther point to be made concerns the relation between internal (i.e. structural)and external (contact-induced) factors in the invention, change or disappear-ance of a particular construction. Thus, for instance, Holvoet suggests that inFinnish one rarely uses zero subjects with the 3rd plural of verbs (comparableto the Russian example above) because there is already an impersonal construc-tion doing the same services in the language system, but he also immediatelyadmits that “in those Finnic dialects which were exposed to a strong Slavicinfluence (…) the 3rd person plural came to be widely used”, e.g. in Veps (381).Likewise, Livonian (a Finnic language) has given up its impersonal passiveunder the strong influence of Latvian (385f.). It seems that, in fact, contact-induced changes are not concerned with the “blocking” of new structures or theretention of “inherited” ones if only the contact is intensive enough — a pointmade, e.g., by Thomason/Kaufman (1988). From this we can infer that it is

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exactly the relation between “structural predispositions” and contact-inducedchanges of such “predispositions” that deserves more intent attention in futureareal-linguistic and typological research.

In his paper on the development of the ‘nominative object’ in East BalticAmbrazas presents a nice illustration of how important it is to arrange factsrelated to changes in the representation (or interpretation) of a syntacticconstruction into an adequate relative chronology. Two competing views on theevolution of this construction (e.g., Lith. Reikia.pres.3 vanduo.nom.sg.masc

gerti.inf ‘(It is) necessary to drink water’) have been discussed. As for the first(Potebnja, Stepanov, V. Kiparsky), an ancient Indo-European origin is as-sumed, whereby “the nominative is regarded as the former subject and theinfinitive is treated as a reflection of the purposive dative of the action nomi-nal”. Adherents of the alternative hypothesis (in particular, Timberlake) holdthat the NP in this construction is always to be treated as the object. This viewis based on an analysis of early East Slavic documents, in which this construc-tion “arose as a syntactic borrowing from some West Finnic language(s)”(391f.). Ambrazas argues that both hypotheses need not contradict each otherif only one tries to chronologize different steps in the development of thisconstruction and admits for the possibility that it has no invariant underlyingstructure, i.e. that different layers of reanalysis may coexist on a synchroniclevel. Ambrazas himself qualifies this construction as an object construction inits contemporary state. However, in some contexts the relevant NP can clearly

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be analysed as a subject, and this most probably reflects a more ancient stage (inaccordance with the first view mentioned above). The crucial data comes fromthe Baltic languages, in which case-inflected participles agreeing with nominat-ival NPs can be used as main predicates; e.g., a sentence with the obliged personin the dative and the patient of the infinitive in the nominative: Man.dat

vienai.dat buves.nom.sg.masc tas paršas.nom.sg.masc šert.inf ‘I alone had tofeed that pig’ (397). The agreement pattern unequivocally shows the NP tasparšas to behave like a subject. There are also some parallels from ancient I.E.languages, e.g. Vedic (398), which support the first of the hypotheses quotedabove. Slavic data (on which Timberlake’s conclusions are founded) does notallow us to detect the syntactic status of the concerned NP, because the availableevidence of participles with “syntactically dubious” NPs (like the one above)does not contain any criteria such as agreement. In fact, there is a plethora ofexamples with non-agreeing participles, but these do not allow the conclusionthat the respective NPs are not to be treated as subjects. Furthermore, there arein both Baltic and Slavic (in past and present) sentence patterns which consistof a nominatival NP and a copular be-verb (cf. contemporary CzechJe.pres.3.sg videt.inf hora.nom ‘(One can) see the mountain’ = ‘The mountaincan be seen’). A comparable sentence type still occurs in contemporary Balticlanguages, in which an infinitive of purpose is attached to a predicative adjec-tive in the nominative; e.g., Žeme.nom.sg.fem buvo.past.3 sunki.nom.sg.fem

arti.inf ‘The earth was heavy/difficult to plough’ (398). These facts also speakin favour of the first hypothesis. However, they are only part of the history,since the respective NPs can also be encoded in the accusative, so that at presentalternative realisations are possible; e.g., Tevui.dat beliko.past.3 pirkt.inf tassodas.nom / tøø sodøø.acc ‘It remained for my father to buy this garden’ (401).This looks like a reanalysis whose both stages (the earlier and the later one) stillco-exist on a synchronic level. As indicated by Ambrazas, it is reasonable toconnect such a reanalysis to the grammaticalization properties of the East Balticand Slavic infinitive and the expansion of the competing alternatives in thelexicon (400–403). As for Finnic influences, Ambrazas comes to the conclusionthat the construction with the nominative object was not borrowed fromFinnic. Instead, contacts with Finnic served as a conserving factor, oncereanalysis had begun to work. His arguments against Timberlake’s “borrowinghypothesis” are based on the distribution of the two competing syntacticinterpretations in contemporary Baltic dialects, on the comparatively recentorigin of the East Baltic infinitive ending in -ti (< *tei, being originally thedative of an action noun), and on the fact that Baltic — Finnic bilingualism was

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most probably not possible before the 5th-6th century AD (405–407).Wälchli’s paper aims to demonstrate the mutual partial transfer of morpho-

logical structures between Latvian and Livonian (to some degree also Estonian).He is concerned with the morphological and semantic relationship betweenverb stems and prefixes or verb particles (i.e. modifiers of the verbal actionwhich are separable from the stem). The crucial point is that between Latvianand Livonian one can observe systematic coincidences concerning the function-al tie of stem and “satellite”, which cross-cut the genetically different affiliationof both languages. The coincidences between the verb particles can hardly beconsidered as random because the original lexical meanings of the words theycome from are too specific (e.g., ‘in the power/will of ’ > ‘open’, ‘hard’ >‘closed’, ‘in the free field’ > ‘out(doors)’) and they are, of course, unrelatedetymologically. Thus, intense language contact (bilingualism) should beassumed here. In a broader areal perspective a continuum from north(east) tosouth(west) can be outlined with respect to the “frequency load” of prefixes andverb particles: Estonian does not have prefixes, in Livonian verb particles clearlydominate over prefixes, in Latvian prefixes outnumber (as types and as tokens)verb particles, whereas in Lithuanian verb particles are nearly absent (except forsome dialects in the NW corner bordering with Latvia). As both prefixes andverb particles are usually treated as ‘bounders’ of the action denoted by the verbstem (cf. Bybee/Dahl 1989), they are relevant for the degree of telicity and/or

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the modification of the action denoted by the respective verb. In pointing thisout, Wälchli demonstrates that neither prefixes nor verb particles can beconsidered as markers of aspect in any of these four languages, one of thereasons being that verb particles have different implications for the temporalstructure of the predicate in Latvian and the two Finnic languages. He thusclearly distinguishes lexical content (to which telicity belongs) and grammaticaloppositions (414–420). Despite this, i.e. on the basis of independent parame-ters, verb particles can be considered to be more grammaticalized in Latvianthan in Livonian and Estonian: Latvian verb particles are fewer in number, theycannot be separated from the stem by intervening morphemes, and they are notlonger than a syllable (414). In the rest of his paper Wälchli gives a detailed (andby no means tiresome) analysis of seven such Latvian and Livonian “satellitemorphemes” (all of them derive from different lexical sources) and of the dativecase used predominantly with prepositions. Among the interesting results andobservations, the following may be considered the most noticeable: (i) InLatvian, Livonian and Estonian a particle meaning ‘away, off’ has become “themost important marker of verb determination” (i.e. bounding) (Latvian nô-; on

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its Estonian counterpart see Metslang below) (429). (ii) On the one hand,Latvian has had a serious impact on (Kurzeme) Livonian in that the latter hasdeveloped a dative case (etymologically different from the allative and genitive);among the Finnic languages this is a unique feature. On the other hand, Latvianitself has alienated itself from the original situation in (East) Baltic insofar as itsdative is now used together with verb particles functioning as pre- or postpos-itions, which often are derived from case-inflected relational nouns. This canonly partly be explained by the loss of case distinctions in Latvian itself, and thefrequent use and type of adpositions should best be ascribed to Livoniansubstratum. The impact of both languages was thus mutual and the sources ofthe ultimate outcome very different (430–433). (iii) Beside mutual impactbetween Latvian and Livonian, Middle Low German may well have triggered, orat least enhanced, the parallel semantic-functional development of verbparticles in these two (and other CBA) languages (433, Fn. 14+28). Althoughthe concluding section (433–436) is of particular significance, suffice it to repeathere after Wälchli that in order to uncover the structural impact of languagecontact cumulative effects are necessary. Since lexical structure is richer thangrammatical structure and can be specific enough to demarcate a special areafrom others, it should be the primary object of study “whenever the origin ofgrammatical features of areal character is the object of inquiry” (434).

The object of Metslang’s contribution is similar to Wälchli’s in that itdiscusses the use of the Estonian verbal particle ära ‘off, away’ as an aspectuallyrelevant bounder, especially its development since the 1890’s. AlthoughMetslang does show that one cannot speak of aspect proper in Estonian,throughout her text she uses ‘aspect’ and ‘aspectual meaning’ (‘aspect of thesentence’ and the like) as synonyms. Her study is divided into two parts: thefirst shows the functional distribution of ära in the contemporary language andthe way it interacts with five different groups of transitive verbs. The classifica-tion is founded on lexico-semantic criteria (inter alia, the degree of telicity ofthe stem) and on the different degree of compatibility of ära with the respectiveverb. Lexical and aspectual functions are explicitly distinguished each time(445–453). Such a classification also discloses different stages of grammatical-ization of ära (from a deictic directional meaning to a mere bounder). Thesecond part of the paper consists of a short discussion of ära in old literaryEstonian and considerably longer corpus analyses (with rich illustrations) offive synchronic cuts, namely: from the 1890’s, the 1930’s, the 1950’s, the 1980’s,and the 1990’s. These periods have been chosen for the varying externalconditions of existence of Estonian, reflected inter alia in the strength of

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purifying tendencies. Metslang considers the impact of Russian in the post-warperiod and, in particular, of German in the preceding periods. In sum, hercorpus study very nicely illustrates the repeated increase and decrease of äradepending, first of all, on contact conditions and purism.

The article written by Metuzale-Kangere & Boiko is devoted to a contrast-ive study of the contemporary Latvian and Estonian case systems. The datapresented are thought as a first step within a more general project aiming at acontrastive description of the syntax of both languages. In this article, compari-sons are conducted only in the direction of Estonian Æ Latvian correspondenc-es. The fundamental problem with this study is that the authors do not presenta tertium comparationis; Estonian and Latvian basic clause types are classifiedon very different grounds, each classification resting on some specific “nation-al” approach to describing case functions. Furthermore, the grammaticalnomenclature is partly misleading: on the one hand, the authors apply usuallabels for case roles such as ‘agent’ or ‘experiencer’ and the terms ‘subject’ and‘object’ as names for syntactic relations. On the other hand, they occasionallyseem to use the two latter terms with respect to semantic roles as well. Forinstance, the Latvian clause Janim.dat sap galva.nom ‘Janis has a headache’ (lit.‘To Janis aches the head’) is said to combine a “dative subject experiencer” witha “nominative object” (484). ‘Object’ seems to be used in the place of a case roleterm, e.g. ‘stimulus’. The expression “nominative object” is unfortunate also forthe reason that another phenomenon is usually given the same designation (seeAmbrazas’ article above). Similar confusion between the semantic and thesyntactic level occurs in the authors’ discussion of the Latvian debitive (489).Beside this, the authors do not clearly define their notion of ‘aspect’, but sincereference to Verkuyl (1993) is made, one can infer that aspectuality (on

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sentence level) is actually meant here. The authors also make observationsconcerning the perception of case morphology and the clause syntax by nativespeakers familiar with school grammar (486). These observations are bythemselves interesting, but it is not apparent how they are related to the rest ofthe exposition.

Christen dwells on genitive positions in Baltic and Finnic (Finnish, Esto-nian). He investigates systematically possible types of NP-internal word orderand their variation, including also adjectival attributes. Part of his data wascollected by questionnaires. His analysis takes account of a distinction betweenspecifier genitive and descriptive genitive (512–517), the former being highlyreferential, the latter generic and, thus, low in referentiality. Christen thenproposes three criteria which prove helpful in determining specifier vs. descriptive

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genitives in Finnish, Estonian and Latvian, but to a much lesser degree inLithuanian. The reason is to be sought in the less restrictive NP-internal wordorder of Lithuanian and a wider range of adnominal genitives. The interpretationof genitival attributes rests thus entirely on semantic grounds, whereas thepossessive interpretation represents the default if two genitives follow each otherwithin a single NP. Contrary to this, the criteria decisive for the use of adnominalgenitives in Finnish are basically syntactic; specifier and descriptive position canclearly be distinguished. If a nominal head does not allow for two structural slots,only one genitival attribute can be used at all. Estonian is very close to Finnish inthis respect, Latvian occupies an intermediate position between the two extremesof Lithuanian and Finnish, but seems to have “moved towards” Finnic. Thereis thus (again!) an areal continuum from north to south, to be delineated by themore syntactic vs. more semantic nature of choices for adnominal genitives.

Koptjevskaja-Tamm has written a very instructive and stimulating article,in which she sketches the outlines of a more general typology of subject andobject marking depending on quantification. At the beginning she introducesa distinction between partitive proper and ‘pseudo-partitive’ meaning.‘Partitive’ proper refers to subsets of definite (super)sets (as in, e.g., a bit of thisgood cake), whereas the term ‘pseudo-partitive’ refers to what in traditionaldescriptions is misleadingly called ‘partitive’ (object, subject, meaning), namely:definite quantification (as in, e.g., a cup of tea, They met some boys). With thisbackground she settles on an analysis of practically all CBA-language families.Her argument aims at showing two basic things: first, the grammaticalizationprocesses of distinctive marking techniques for partitive and, first of all, forpseudo-partitive objects/subjects; second, the place and changes of nominalquantifiers on a cline between “ordinary” nouns and numerals. Nouns, by beingused as heads of quantifying NPs, lose some of their “nouny” properties, forinstance, they often no longer require the genitive (e.g. Germ. zwei Tassen Tee∆‘two cups (of) tea’). Furthermore, rules of the internal syntax of numeral as wellas nominal quantifying are complex; they are very often not semanticallymotivated and in this sense become syntacticized. An areally salient feature ofsyntactic groups with numeral quantification in the Slavic and Finnic languagesof the CBA is the mixed use of agreement and government rules; this can byitself be treated as a sign for a high degree of grammaticalization (537–539). Wemay conclude that since Slavic and Finnic are genetically unrelated and thepattern they display is typologically very unusual, these coincidences are hardlydue to an accident, but are consequences of language contacts. The “source” of thepartitive, both in terms of functions and of morphological cases or prepositions, is

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the “separative” (ablative), of which the genitive and the Finnic elative (for thepartitive proper) seem to merely be particular cases. As the pseudo-partitive ismore abstract than the partitive proper and also shows more often merejuxtaposition (e.g. in Germanic; see above), we may consider it as a moreadvanced stage in grammaticalization. The process from concrete separativemeaning via the expression of a real part-whole relationship towards a pseudo-partitive use consists in different steps: (i) the part-expression is extended fromconcrete parts to a larger class of measure expressions, (ii) the measure expres-sion (= head) and its dependent are syntactically re-analysed as one constituent,(iii) partitive proper constructions develop into pseudo-partitives. Koptjevs-kaja-Tamm suggests that step (iii) is prepared by utterances in which theexpression of the ‘substance’-part can be interpreted either as ‘set’ (token) or as‘kind’ (type), e.g. Eng. Give me a glass of this wine (535f.). This step can thus becharacterized as referential extension. Steps (i-iii) look like an entirely language-internal process. Nonetheless Finnic and at least East Slavic (and East Sami)display a few close similarities in detail, which are typologically very infrequent.Together with this, the way of coding pseudo-partitives (not juxtaposition, butinternal case marking) makes Finnic languages look more like their immediateIndo-European neighbors (East Slavic) than their Finno-Ugric relatives, andlikewise Slavic (especially its eastern branch) demonstrates a more archaic stage,certainly sustained by Finnic influence. This justifies the conclusion that theircommon patterns are induced by mutual contact influence — similarly to whatWälchli has found for Baltic and Finnic with regard to verb particles (seeabove). Among the general conclusions made by Koptjevskaja-Tamm oneshould mention here a methodologically important point: although single stepsof a grammaticalization process and even the whole process may be testified ascross-linguistically frequent patterns and therefore justify explanation oninternal grounds, the accumulation of typologically unique or rare details inthis process occurring in areally neighbouring languages of different origin criesout for a contact-induced (external) explanation (563f.).

Stassen dwells on nonverbal predication in the CBA languages by compar-ing their patterns of variation with a general typological picture of ‘doubleencoding’ of nonverbal predicates. On a world-wide scale such coding proce-dures are quite rare, but they are not restricted to the CBA. The Slavic andBaltic CBA-languages show variation between nominative and instrumental,the Finnic between nominative, essive and adverbial, while Germanic does notshow any comparable variation. Furthermore one has to distinguish betweenbe- and become-copulas, with the latter generally requiring predicate nominals

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in the instrumental (Baltic, Slavic) or translative (Finnic). In general, differentdegrees of relative time stability have been made responsible for this variation,with the nominative tending to denote stable states and inherent properties ofthe referent of predication. Stassen shows that this factor is too coarse and doesnot do justice to the empirical situation, although it may well be understood asa starting point in the development of double encoding. The increasinginvolvement of double encoding into the language’s grammar manifests itselfin such a way that the choice of case becomes more and more “influenced byother, probably not semantic, factors” (575). Very often double encoding alsobecomes subject to stylistic or sociolinguistically relevant rules, bare of anysemantically motivated function. Stassen’s presentation of the situation in Balticand Slavic languages is basically correct. However, the distribution of predica-tive case marking in Lithuanian is not as clear-cut as he illustrates (followingFraenkel and Senn; pp. 573f., 578), and there are some shortcomings with thePolish data. First of all, among the Indo-European CBA-languages contempo-rary standard Polish certainly shows the most advanced stage of grammatical-ization insofar as the choice of case is almost entirely determined by the part ofspeech of the predicate nominal: if it is a noun the instrumental has to be used,if an adjective the nominative appears. Stassen does not mention this, althoughthe role of parts of speech for the distribution of case in predicative nominalsturns out to be similar to what Stassen shows for Spanish (580f.), except thatPolish does not have the same opposition of two be-copulas. As for exclusionsto the instrumental in predicative nominals, Stassen quotes examples fromsources which — being otherwise excellent descriptions of Polish grammar —present facts that have by now become obsolete (see pp. 574f.). In particular,Meckelein’s grammar from 1926 reflects the pre-WW II situation, in which theinstrumental for predicative adjectives with finite verbs was still a viable, thoughalready somewhat archaic option (e.g., Marysia jest chorø.ins ‘Marysia is sick’),but is obsolete today. Stassen draws three general conclusions: (i) The nomina-tive : instrumental distinction in Russian and Polish fits into the typologicalpicture (for languages in which double encoding occurs at all). (ii) Doubleencoding is not an inherited Indo-European feature, but appears on the edgesof the Indo-European area. Therefore, contacts with non-I.E. languages can beviewed as a triggering factor. (iii) The predicative instrumental is a relativelylate innovation in the northeastern part of the Slavic dialect continuum, whichalso may be explained by contacts with Finno-Ugric languages.

The starting-point of the investigation presented by Stolz on the distribu-tion of instrumental and comitative marking was the assertion by Lakoff/

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Johnson (1980) that the syncretistic expression of the comitative and theinstrumental relation (encountered in English and other European languages)might seem to be a natural metaphor. Contrary to what one might expect onthe basis of this, Stolz found that two-thirds out of a sample of 323 languagesdid not show this kind of syncretistic coding technique (case and/or preposi-tional marking). In accordance with this parameter Stolz then distinguishesthree language types: (a) languages with this morphological syncretism (‘cohe-rent’), (b) languages without such a syncretism (‘incoherent’), (c) languagesbetraying co-occurrence of coherent and incoherent morphemes (‘mixed’)(593). Coherent languages cluster in Europe (594). All three types are encoun-tered in the CBA, but the preference for the coherent type cuts across geneticboundaries in such a way that coherence turns out to be an innovation at leastin the eastern part of the CBA. Lithuanian is presently the only ‘mixed’ CBA-language, as it allows for the preposition su ‘with’ to mark also an instrumentalrelation. This must have been the case for Latvian, Estonian as well as Samisome time ago, before they reached their contemporary coherent pattern. TheGermanic languages show a more consistent (and probably older) coherentpattern than CBA-languages of other language families; Swedish and LowGerman most probably served as contact-induced “inroads” to a coherentpattern in Estonian, Sami and Latvian (597f., 603f.). In “pre-conquest” timesthe languages in the eastern part of the CBA (Finnic, Baltic, Slavic) must havebelonged to the incoherent type throughout (609). The fact that the twoneighbouring languages Estonian and Latvian changed their pattern into acoherent one and, by this, dissimilated from their Finnic or Baltic relatives,could be regarded as another piece of evidence for the view that they both havebeen constituting a subarea within CBA with particularly intensive languagecontacts (bilingualism) (cf. Stolz 1991). Stolz, however, considers it much more

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justified to make the common Germanic super- or adstrata mentioned aboveresponsible for this particular case of convergence (606f.). Beside these resultsStolz settles on an instructive and well-considered discussion of patterns ofchanges from an incoherent to a coherent pattern and back to an incoherentpattern. Changes “to and fro” are possible because of cyclic developments,which must run through the ‘mixed’ pattern. Of interest for grammaticalizationtheory is that it is not clear how the change from a coherent to an incoherent(via a mixed) stage can be explained on the assumption that an erstwhilecomitative marker also acquires instrumental functions, but not vice versa, asit would be implied by Heine et al. (1991). This question arises from Stolz’s

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discussion on pp. 605f., although he himself does not formulate it this way. The

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historically attested CBA-languages do not exemplify this direction of changeeither. Instead, a much earlier coherent pattern for Finnic and the Indo-European languages can be reconstructed, which later developed towards anincoherent pattern. From a methodological point of view, Stolz comes to thesame conclusion as Wälchli and Koptjevskaja-Tamm (see above): althoughmany (or even most) developmental patterns encountered in the CBA-languages confirm to typologically widely attested cases, we cannot dismisshypotheses that language contacts were the triggers for some particular changes,the reason being that “the accumulation of isoglosses which distinguish certainlanguages from their linguistic next of kin while tying them more closely totheir geographical neighbours” (606).

The concluding contribution by Koptjevskaja-Tamm & Wälchli woulddeserve a review of its own, not so much due to its length (126 pages of maintext + notes) as because of its wealth of cross-linguistic data, the stimulatingand insightful analyses and, first of all, the attempt at giving a synthesis ofvarious features which constitute the CBA as an area of its own. This synthesisby far exceeds all earlier surveys by its factual and typological background. HereI can only give a rough outline of this study and restrict myself to some remarkson details. In any way, the paper shows amazing background and sourceknowledge not only of linguistic, but also of extra-linguistic facts from practi-cally all branches involved in the CBA and typological circumspection goingbeyond this area. The authors start with a historical survey. From this survey itfollows that the CBA has never been united in political or linguistic terms. Ifonly on this basis we can hardly expect a significant number of isoglosses (ifany) to cover the whole area (616–622). After a brief survey of existing studiesthe authors suggest ‘Contact Superposition Zone’ to be a more adequate termthan the worn-out notion of ‘Sprachbund’. In their opinion ‘Sprachbund’ ismuch too loaded with the presupposition that the entire area can be character-ized by massive macro-contacts. Their own term would instead suggest “thatintensive micro-contacts superimposed on each other sometimes create animpression of an overall macro-contact among the languages in an area, whichhas not necessarily been there” (626). They then inquire into how areal conver-gence may come about. First of all, they take into consideration the generaliza-tion of latent (inherited) constructions, loss of (typologically) marked inheritedstructures and changes in the frequency pattern of constructions (626–628). Inalmost the whole rest of their paper they go through features of the CBA (orparts of it), beginning with a convergent tendency of pluralia tantum with theircentre in East Baltic and East Slavic (629–637) and features of suprasegmental

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phonology, among which initial stress and polytonicity are singled out(637–646). The authors conclude that polytonicity in the CBA-languages comesfrom three different sources and shows overlap only to a rather limited degree.They continue then with case variation in the marking of subject and object.This part of their contribution is particularly valuable because they are able topropose comparable algorithms of case marking procedures for Finnish,Lithuanian, Russian (standard and dialectal), and Polish. By operating with thecriteria [± sentential negation], [± perfectivity] (which here, again, is mislead-ingly called ‘perfective aspect’) and [± indefinite quantity], they can demon-strate in an elegant manner what kind of relation exists between the indefinitequantity and aspectual characteristics of the sentence. Along with this, they havefound a way to explain why the case for “partial” objects (partitive) is used inimperfective contexts in Finnish, while in Slavic and Baltic the respective case(genitive) is predominantly used in perfective contexts (and as a rule cannot beused with imperfective verbs). Differences in the markedness relation betweenFinnish and the Baltic and Slavic languages also arise from this: in Finnish thepartitive is the unmarked choice, because there are more context types trigger-ing “partial” objects, whereas in Slavic and Baltic the genitive (used for the samepurpose) is evoked by considerably less context types and therefore a markedchoice (652–654). In their discussion on subject marking the authors stress therole of the extension of patterns which have arisen in existential sentences,which are by themselves “not a good place to look for normal[ly behaved]subjects” (656). They show that the notion of existential clause can be broad-ened in accordance with the types of verbs that allow for subjects marked“partially” (even in non-negated clauses). Finnish shows the widest extension,allowing for subjects in the partitive even with verbs like ‘to cough, sneeze,bark’, provided there are appropriate contextual conditions. Russian andLithuanian are less free in this respect and Polish is even considerably morerestrictive (656–660). Given this excellent analysis, the middle part of Table 5(648) is somewhat confusing, since it is too simplistic to say that Russian andPolish completely mark “partial” subjects by the genitive (instead of thenominative). Polish shows only remnants of such a marking device, whereasRussian and Lithuanian are very close to each other in this respect. The nextfeature discussed is nonverbal predication. The authors refer to Stassen’sstudies, one of which is part of the same volume (see above). In agreement withhim, they suggest that an Uralic substratum should be considered responsiblefor the use of an oblique case (the instrumental) in predicative nouns. However,they apply the term ‘double marking’ not only in Stassen’s sense of ‘double

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encoding’ (i.e. ‘choice in case marking’), but also in the sense of‘case/number/gender agreement between the argument and its nominalpredicate’ (compare the Lithuanian term ‘dvigubiniai linksniai’ = ‘doublecases’), as in, e.g., Jono.gen.sg.masc buta gudraus.gen.sg.masc ‘Jonas (theysay) was clever’ (674). In their discussion of predicative possessionKoptjevskaja-Tamm & Wälchli pay particular attention to the fact that differentpatterns may co-exist in one language (variety). Following Heine (1997), they

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determine four basic types: (i) the ‘locative’ type with the possessor either in theadlative (as in Finnish) or coded by an “adlative” preposition (as in Russian, u‘at’ + gen), (ii) the ‘goal’ type represented by the possessor in the dative(Latvian and some minor varieties), (iii) possessive suffixes on the possessed(Mordvin, Mari), (iv) transitive model with a have-verb (as in most Europeanlanguages). The last type is not listed, but accounted for in the authors’ discus-sion (677f.). They then demonstrate that there appears to be an interestingopposition in the marking of temporary vs. permanent possession. This isillustrated on colloquial Latvian. Unfortunately, the generalisation drawn fromthis turns out to be hasty, as they state: “Finnic and Russian and the ‘have’-languages of Europe make no distinction in the encoding of permanent andtemporal possession” (678). Russian indeed does not distinguish this semanticopposition, but languages with a have-verb frequently used for predicativepossession do make this distinction. One can easily show this in Lithuanian andin standard Polish (the regional Polish spoken in the CBA shows an enhancedpattern, “mixed” from standard Polish and Russian). Compare Lith. withhave-verb (1a) Turiu šuni.acc ‘I have a/the dog’ vs. ‘locative’ (1b) Šuo.nom yrapas mane lit. ‘The dog is at me’ (= ‘At this moment the dog is staying with me’);the locative model in (1b) can only be used for temporary possession, whereasthe transitive model in (1a) is basically free for both readings. Exactly the sameapplies to standard Polish: with have-verb (2a) Mam córke.acc ‘I have adaugther’ vs. ‘locative’ (2b) Córka.nom jest u mnie lit. ‘The daugther is atme/my place’ (meaning: ‘she is now staying with me’). With respect to compar-ative constructions, the CBA lies on the border of two zones with differentpreferences for the marking of the standard of comparison, namely: by aparticle (typical for SAE languages) and by a “separative” technique (withelative, ablative or genitive < ablative, or with prepositions meaning ‘from’),encountered in Finnic and East Slavic. The Slavic standard languages make useof both ways. The Baltic languages, however, show a typologically very rarepattern by using prepositions meaning either ‘behind’ (Lith. už) or ‘above,about > before’ (Ltv. par). This pattern has spread into some Slavic varieties in

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their neighbourhood (684). As for the concise overview of passive constructionsin the CBA area (685–692), no remarks concerning the essence of what is laidout there need be added. In their noun phrase section (692–704) Koptjevskaja-Tamm & Wälchli elaborate on adjective agreement, changes in the gendersystems and the syntax of numeral constructions. Among their findings on theloss of gender, the most remarkable one probably concerns Low Latvian dialectswith a Livonian (i.e. Finnic) substratum: what we observe there “is the loss ofmasculine-feminine gender distinctions in pronouns (stage 1) long before theyare lost in nominals (stage 3 or 4), in contradiction to Greenberg’s Universal 43:‘If a language has gender categories in the noun, it has gender categories in thepronoun’” (697). The subsection on the syntax of numeral constructionsreiterates much of the discussion in Koptjevskaja-Tamm’s separate contributionon partitives and pseudo-partitives (see above), but it also includes a tablewhich allows a comprehensive look at such constructions (702f.). Turning toword order phenomena the authors are particularly concerned with sheddinglight on the fact that Baltic and Finnic are the only European VO-languageswhich also show consistent GN order. They suggest that this typologically quiteunique situation reflects an earlier change from OV to VO in the Finniclanguages (as belonging to the Uralic stock); as for Baltic (and ContinentalScandinavian) clarifying the situation is much more difficult and still requiresfurther research in areal linguistic terms. In any case, we are witness to theresults of a transition from the predominant Eurasian type (OV/GN) towardsthe pattern typical for SAE-languages (VO/NG) (705–709). A similar transition-al picture opens up when we look at the systems of adpositions in CBA-lan-guages. Some of them, in particular Estonian and Latvian, show a mixed systemof pre- and postpositions (see also Wälchli’s separate paper above). Suchsystems are typologically rare (less than 10% in a world-wide sample of 700languages), but whether the existence of such adpositional systems in CBA-lan-guages should be ascribed to internal development or instead to languagecontacts (or both), cannot yet be answered satisfactorily (710–712). The wordorder section is closed by a discussion of the CBA-internal distribution ofclause-initial particles used in yes/no-questions. It turns out that the eastern partof the CBA is divided up into a region where such particles are used (westernhalf) and another one where they are absent or uncommon (eastern half)(712–714). The last analytic section concerns the marking of evidentiality,understood to “indicate something about the source of information in thespeaker’s assertion” (715). The authors abide by Willet’s (1988) threefolddivision: direct (attested) evidence is opposed to indirect evidence, which is in

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turn subdivided into inferring and reported (narrated) evidence. One problem-atic point is that, at least in Baltic, evidential marking is never obligatory.Another stumbling-block is that the forms denoting evidentiality with anteriorreference are derived from the perfect tenses, from which they are not entirelyindependent in paradigmatic terms. The assertion constantly found in academygrammars and textbook descriptions of, e.g. Lithuanian is that the “paradigmof the oblique mood is in complete correspondence to that of the indicativemood” and that the forms of this “mood” differ from the perfect by the absenceof the copula verb buti ‘to be’ (716). However, this assertion does not do justiceto the empirical picture, at least in Lithuanian. (Here the critical account inRoszko 1993:63ff. could have been consulted.) For this reason Koptjevskaja-

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Tamm & Wälchli are correct when they state: “The phenomena covered by‘modus relativus’ and ‘modus obliquus’ are highly dependent on particularpragmatic conditions and discourse types, whereas most of the examples quotedin the literature are given without any context” (716). The other source formarking indirect (in particular, hear-say) evidence in the CBA are participialclauses depending on verbs of saying, mental states and (self-)perception. Now,two interesting points with respect to areal convergence have to be made: (i) atleast in Estonian and Latvian the so-called oblique mood functions only forreported, but not for inferring evidence, whereas in at least a few Lithuaniandialects and the standard language it serves also for marking inferring evidence;(ii) contrary to Lithuanian, Latvian has been influenced by Estonian dialects inits preference for non-inflected participles descending from earlier object caseforms. This (again!) shows a specific coincidence between varieties of these twolanguages, which crosses “genetic” boundaries and dissimilates these languagesfrom their closest sister-languages. In the concluding section Koptjevskaja-Tamm & Wälchli deliberate on the question whether the CBA should becharacterised as a spread zone or rather as a residual zone; these terms and thetheory behind it are taken from Nichols (1992). They come to the conclusion

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that the CBA reveals features of both types of zones. They stress that there is “nobundle of isoglosses cutting the CBA-areas neatly in two parts” and that thesignificance of this area can be fully evaluated only if we realise that “it is thecombination of several features” that makes the peculiarities of this area (orsome of its subareas) unique, “whereas most of its components find cross-linguistic correlates” (732). Finally, they also stress the following point: “Wefind that the consideration of dialects and minor languages in the CBA area isvery important for the understanding of the language contacts. It is in borderdialects and minor languages that language contact has been most intensive and

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where we find the most exciting structural changes.” (728) Unfortunately, suchinvestigations have hitherto been neglected, and we have to hurry up in orderfor them to be done at least partly before the respective varieties (populations)will become extinct forever. The paper discussed here (as well as many othercontributions to the two CBA-volumes) make a strong appeal towards dimin-ishing this glaring desideratum.

Beside this, many of the contributions in the two volumes converge, by andlarge, on the following points: (i) Many details suggest that taking mutualinfluences into account seems to be a better way of explaining what has beengoing on than assuming contact-induced impact only in one direction (see inparticular Wälchli’s and Koptjevskaja-Tamm’s papers). (ii) Linguistic purismand the role of “exogenic” (“imported”) prestige varieties (like Middle Low orLate High German and Swedish) should be accounted for, too (see especiallyMetslang’s article). This may even pertain to cases where a parallel developmentin neighbouring languages (varieties) can be observed (see, first of all, Stolz, butalso Wälchli). First and foremost, however, the following should be emphasized:(iii) We have seen repeated evidence for particularly close contact-induced“affiliations” between Latvian and Estonian (plus Livonian) and for arealcontinua from north(east) to south(west), i.e. from Finnish down to Lithuanianor even Polish. (iv) Many articles in the two volumes contain very valuableobservations (or, at least, well-motivated suggestions) concerning the rise ofgrammatical marking relations not only from “lexical material” (see, in particu-lar Wälchli’s and Metslang’s papers), but even more so from sources which canhardly adequately be described on the basis of predominantly morpheme-basedapproaches towards grammaticalization. The reason is that the grammatical-ization process there cannot be captured on the assumption of clines from(more) lexical towards (more) grammatical morphemes which gradually lose theirmorphological and semantic autonomy. Particularly instructive in this sense arethe articles by Koptjevskaja-Tamm, Ambrazas, Rusakov, Stassen, and Stolz.

Some further words concerning the overall coherence. In spite of (or rather:because of ?) the pioneering character of the CBA-volumes and their well-considered internal division into sections the contributions gathered under thiscommon “roof” show that most of the authors were writing their papers inisolation, i.e. that, as a rule, they did not profit from each other very much. Ifthe two volumes are not to be regarded as a looser collection of papers (most ofthem excellent by themselves) with just the common heading of being relatedto the CBA, this is, in the first place, thanks to the contributions by Koptjev-skaja-Tamm and Wälchli, in particular their huge joint article; they really have

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tried to integrate some of the more specific articles into their argumentation.Other authors make references to each other only sporadically, and by far noteverywhere where one could expect internal cross-references they are encoun-tered. In some places the attentive reader becomes aware of inconsistenciesbetween authors tackling with identical or similar questions. More often thannot they disclose that the methodology and the state of knowledge among“competing” authors are not always comparable. Here I will give just twoexamples. First, throughout most of the papers dealing with verbal morphologyand/or case variation the notions of ‘aspect’, ‘aspectuality’, and ‘aktionsart’ aretreated in a loose and rather indiscriminate fashion. A notable exception in thisrespect is Wälchli’s article, in which appropriate distinctions are made unani-mously and consistently. And this would be desirable for comparative workwithin the CBA (let alone in general typology). Second, we have seen thatLaakso and Larsson differ in their assessment of genetic models, at least withrespect to Uralic languages, and this has more or less direct repercussions forthe interpretation of more specific questions relevant for reconstruction andlanguage contacts. We may infer that a confrontation of both contributionswould actually mean the beginning of an important issue, not its closure. Ofcourse, each author is free in deciding on his/her own which methodologicaland theoretical stands s/he takes, and for a collection of papers united underone common heading this will suffice. However, if the ultimate aim is a unifieddescriptive framework allowing for explanations of convergent linguistic change(in a broader typological perspective), we are still at the beginning of thechallenge. The contributors to the CBA-volumes, who practically started atzero, have not only made an enormous step forward in this respect, but theyhave also shown how far we still are from this ultimate aim even in the descrip-tive part.

Furthermore, we should realise that the entire CBA actually has not beenrepresented. The southern part (Polish, Kashubian, Low German) has only beenmentioned here and there, so that the CBA as presented in these volumes doesnot really assume the form of a circle, but, as it were, the shape of a horse-shoewith its closed side directed to the north.

The last remark concerns typographical matters. There are many missingwords and signs (in legends, e.g. on p. 108) as well as misprints, both in quotesand the authors’ texts, and sometimes misleading ones (numbers of examples,figures etc. and references to them in the text). Furthermore, the transliterationof words written in Cyrillic characters is not always consequent (e.g., correcteženedel’nik ‘weekly newspaper’ on p. 84, but incorrect Russkij Jevrej ‘Russian

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Jew’ on p. 84, correct Pšenicnikov on p. 99 in the references, but wrong Pshe-nichnikov on p. 96 in the running text, referring to the same author!) and insome articles Lithuanian words are not always written correctly (e.g., on pp.89f.). This might also apply to the languages which I am not familiar with.Occasionally the order of references is mixed up (e.g., on pp. 135f.), or anauthor referred to in the text is missing in the references. These “technicaldefects” are distributed unevenly among the articles, which indicates thatcorrections were made unequally thoroughly during the editing process. Thesame is true with respect to the proof-reading of the English. In any case, takinginto account the number of more than 700 pages and evaluating the enormouseditorial work, which must have been truly exhausting, the number of thesetechnical defects has remained amazingly low.

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Heine, B. (1997): Possession: Cognitive sources, forces and grammaticalization. Cambridge:

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Verkuyl, H. J. (1993): A theory of aspectuality. Cambridge etc.: Cambridge U.P.

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Reviewer’s address

Björn WiemerUniversität KonstanzFach D179D-78457 Konstanz

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