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Review: [untitled]Author(s): D. Terence LangendoenReviewed work(s):

A Grammar of Contemporary English by Randolph Quirk ; Sidney Greenbaum ; GeoffreyLeech ; Jan Svartvik

Source: Journal of Linguistics, Vol. 11, No. 2 (Sep., 1975), pp. 277-280Published by: Cambridge University Press

Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4175312Accessed: 12/05/2009 09:17

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REVIEWSseriouslyaffectmy view of it as an excellentintroductorywork, lucid, amusingand informative.In the secondedition Matthews will no doubt remodel the lastchapter and so eliminatemost of the book'sweaknesses. But even in its presentstate it will rescue freshmen linguists who have too often been (in Milton'swords) 'tossed and turmoiledwith their unballastedwits in fathomless and un-quiet deeps of controversy'.

REFERENCESAgard, F. B. & Di Pietro, R. J. (I965). The grammatical structures of English and Italian.Chicago: Chicago University Press.Chomsky, N. (1965). Aspects of the theory of syntax. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.Kiefer, F. (1970). Morphological processes in generative grammar. ALH 20. I5-57.Kiefer, F. (I973). Generative Morphologie des Neufranzisischen. (Romanistische Arbeit-shefte 2) Tiibingen: Niemeyer.Matthews, P. H. (I967). Review of Chomsky, I965. JL 3. 119-I52.Matthews, P. H. (I972). Inflectional morphology. A theoretical study based on aspects ofLatin verb conjugation. (Cambridge Studies in Linguistics: 6) Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press.Wurzel, W. U. (1970). Studien zur deutschen Lautstruktur. (Studia Grammatica 8)Berlin: Akademie Verlag. Reviewed by REBECCAPOSNER,(Received 7 January I975) University of York.

Randolph Quirk, Sidney Greenbaum, GeofErey Leech & Jan Svartvik,Agrammarfcontemporarynglish. ondon:Longman,972. Pp. Xii+ I,I20.The dustjacketproclaims hat 'A grammar f contemporarynglish s the fullestand most comprehensivesynchronic descriptionof English ever written'. If'synchronic's construedso asto rule outJespersen'sModernEnglish rammar nhistorical rinciples,hen one can hardly quarrelwith the superlatives. f the firstchapter, an introductoryessay on 'The English language' is excluded, thegrammar ncludes I3 chaptersand 3 appendices, divided into I,204 sectionscoveringalmostexactly i,ooo pages (discountingthe pagesdevotedto the tableof contents for each chapterand appendix). Ch. 2 presents an outline of thestructureof English sentences in such a way as to motivatethe organizationofthe rest of the book. It is followedby chaptersdealing with the verbphrase (theverb and its auxiliaries),the basic noun phrase, adjectives and adverbs, andprepositionsand prepositionphrases. Ch. 7 provides a detailedexaminationofsimplesentences; this is followed by chapterson adverbialphrases,co-ordinationandapposition,sentenceconnexion,complexsentences,predicate tructures,andcomplexnoun phrases.Ch. I4 is called'Focus, theme, and emphasis', and dealswithvariationsn sentencestructureasthey relateto the presentationof informa-tion. The threeappendicesdealwith wordformation,prosody,andpunctuation.

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JOURNAL OF LINGUISTICSThus, the book has a kind of cyclical organization,with the structure (and,ultimately,function)of sentencesas the recurring heme. It is an excellently aidout book, fine for both browsingand for examiningspecifictopics.The 28-pageindex and the I7 tables of contents make ookingthingsup almostpleasurable.The book espouses no particulartheory, for which the authors providejustificationby remarking, None, however,seems yet adequateto accountforall linguisticphenomena'(vi), and no detaileddiscussionof theoretical ssues isprovided. The authors,however, acknowledgetheir indebtednessboth to thescholarly raditionof grammarwriting,and to the insightsof severalcontempor-ary schools of linguistictheory, notablythose of the transformational-generati-vists. The book is a lot more like a contemporaryinguisticwork than like thecompendiousgrammarsof the past, by virtue of its havingadoptedmanyof thestyles and techniques of current linguistics, such as the use of numberedexamples(almostentirelymadeup rather han cited fromliterature),criticaluseof ungrammatical entences,the pointing out of linguisticgeneralizations,andthe presentationof detailed argumentsin defence of many of their structuralclaims(a typicalexampleoccurs on p. 64, in which the authorsgive a systematicargumentshowing why sentences like He expectednot to see theplay are notcounterexampleso their claim thatwhen a verb is negated,dois introduced).

Moreover, despite the authors'disclaimers,the book is far from devoid oflinguistic theorizing. They speak freely of 'transformational elations'amongsentences,by whichthey appearto have in mind the kind of relations n Harris'theory of transformations.However, in deciding whether sentences are to berelatedtransformationally,hey sometimesapply criteriathat are irrelevanttoHarris'notion. Thus they argue that a sentence like He's eating is not to betransformationallyelatedto any transitivesentence like He's eatingsomething,but rather hatthe formercontainsa verbmorphologicallyderivedfromthe verbof the latter.The reasontheygive is that the process, if transformational,houldapplygenerallyto transitiveverbs, which it does not. However,if this criterionis appliedsystematically, t would also rule out relationssuch as that betweenShe senthim a bookand She senta bookto him, which the authorsdo considertransformational.This, then, is the extent of the theorizingto be found in thisbook: up to the point at which results are obtainedthat confirmthe authors'(apparently) ntuitive feel for the languageand its grammar,and no further.Now, the results of carefultheorizing(that does not have a particularresult inmind in advance)maywell yield the kind of analysis that the authorshappen tobelievein. But it should be madeclearthat a greatdealof the analysispresentedin thisbookhas no solid basisin theory.To illustrate,I selectoneof theiranalysesthatfails to standup underclosetheoretical crutiny(manymorecouldbe given,but their enumerationhere would be impractical).In sections 2.2I-2.23 (53-56), the authorsdiscuss the interactionof negationand question; specificallythey attempt to explain the affinitybetweennegative278

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REVIEWSstatementsand questionsand the specialcharacterof negative questions. Theseare difficultproblemsthat have puzzledlinguistsfor a long time andit is to theauthors'credit that they tackle them so directly.Whatthey say is that a positivedeclarativesentence is an assertion,and that negativesentences and questionsarenon-assertions.From thistheyconcludethatnegativesentencesandquestionsshould behave alike, and that negative questions should have a special status(the authors go on to claim in section 7.65 (397), that negative wh-questions,except forwhy-questions,areunacceptable).But this explanation annotpossiblybe correct,since of coursetherearemanyothersentencetypes besidesquestionsand negative sentences that are non-assertions,for example imperatives;yetthere is no specialaffinitybetween questionsand negativesentences on the onehandandimperativeson the other.Moreover,considerconditionalclauses.They,too, are non-assertive,and they do show the same affinity o negativesentencesas do questions.But negationin conditional clauses is interpretedexactlyas indeclarativesentences.In addition, the claimthat negativewh-questions(otherthan why-questions)are unacceptable is preposterous. I cannot imagine anyone rejecting Whatdoesn'the eat? or Wherehaven'twe beenbefore?Such questions are perfectlynormal English sentences, and moreover are semanticallydistinct from theirpositive counterparts.For the interpretationof negationin questionsin generala reasonableexplanation follows from the semantic analysis given by Katz &Postal (I964), in which it is observedthat a questionis interpretedas a requestforwhich of two propositions s true: the declarative ounterparto the questionorthe negationof thatcounterpart.Fromthis it followsthatpositiveandnegativequestionsaresynonymous. The special conditions on the use of negativeques-tions are ust that; use conditionsthat do not bear on the meaningproperof thosequestions. Wh-questions,on the otherhand, are not interpretedas disjunctionsof the same sort, and hence negative wh-questionsare related to positive wh-questionssemantically ust as negativestatementsare related to positive state-ments.

The authors'work, in my judgment, is also flawedby their failure to distin-guish clearlybetweenacceptabilityandgrammaticality.The terms'unacceptable'and 'ungrammatical'are used interchangeablythroughout, and there is onepassagethat clearly reflects their belief that there is no distinction.It concernsthe effect of self-embeddingin reducingcomprehensibility,and they write:It is importantto note, therefore, that the factors we have been considering[self-embeddingvs. right-branching]do not just concerngood and bad style,but also the morebasic questionof what is a possibleEnglishsentence(794).

But as has been repeatedlyarguedand demonstrated, elf-embeddingper sehasno bearingwhateveron the questionof what is a possibleEnglishsentence.Theclaimsthat it has representsa fundamentalconfusionaboutthe respectiverolesG 279

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JOURNAL OF LINGUISTICSof grammarand the systems of languageuse in determiningwhat is likelyto beacceptedby native speakersunder the various conditions in which languageisused.

It should, however, be remarkedthat errors at the level of observationaladequacy,aside fromthe misclassification f certainsentencesas grammatical rungrammatical,arevery rare.(One that I picked up is the classificationof sen-tences like It seemedhat theboywaslateas cleft-sentences(68).)Finally, the matter of coveragemust be considered. Despite its length, Agrammarof contemporary nglish s not reallycomprehensive.The list of topicsthat are not discussed,or that are inadequatelydiscussed,is much too lengthyforpresentationhere(forexample,there is no systematicdiscussion of reciprocalpronouns). It would, however,be ungracious o dwell on this point. The authorshave constructeda truly compendious grammarof English that will foreverbeuseful and stimulatingto students and teachersof English and linguistics alike.They are to be warmly congratulated or theirachievement.

REFERENCEKatz, J. J. & Postal, P. M. (I964). An integrated theory of linguistic descriptions.Cambridge,Mass.: The M.I.T. Press.

Reviewed by D. TERENCELANGENDOEN,Department of English,Brooklyn College!Program in Linguistics,Graduate Center of the City University(Received 3 December I974) of New York.

Robert A. Hall, jr., Externalhistory of the Romance anguages.New York:AmericanElsevier, I974. Pp. xiii+ 344.The presentvolume is the first of a set of six, intendedto provide'a systematicdescriptionof the developmentof the Romance anguages mediaevaland mod-ern) out of their common ancestorProto-Romanceand, farther back in time,out of the commonancestorof Proto-Romanceand ClassicalLatin' (xi). How-ever, inasmuchas the other fivevolumespromisedus areto dealwiththe internalhistory of the Romance anguages, he firstvolume canlegitimatelybe evaluatedin its own right. The work containsan introduction,summarizingbrieflytheauthor'sviews on language n generaland on thetheoreticalapproachappropriateto historical and, of course,in particularo Romance linguistics.Then, afteran extremely detailed analysis of the present-day position of the Romancelanguages including not only the dialects, but also pidgins and creoles- themain body of the work is devotedto a chronological urvey of the development

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