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Transcript of Tiddim Chin
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1082
Am erica n Anthropologist [68,
19661
Vol.
15.) London, New York, To ronto : Oxford University Press, 1965. ix, 172 pp.,
index. ~ O S . 11.20.
Reviewed by
F.
K. LEHMAN, niversity
o
Illinois
Tiddim Chin is a Tibeto-Burman language of
a
tribal region of western Burma.
D at a were collected in various par ts of th e No rth ern Chin Hills during six weeks in
1954 by a pa rty comprising Professor
G
H. Luce of R angoon , Professor T. Stern of th e
University
of
Oregon, and the auth or. O ne should compare th is work w ith th e authors
related articles, Colloquial Chin as a Pronominalizing Language S S O A S , XX , p p .
323-327,1957)
and No tes on Teizang,
a
No rthern Chin Dialect S S O A S ,XXV I, pp .
551-558, 1963),
an d also wi th Sterns A Provisional Sketch of Sizeng Siyin) Chin
Asia Major,
n.s ., X ,p t . 2, pp. 222-278,1963).
T he two texts cover only two p rinted pages. Professor Hendersons exploitation of
her informants knowledge of th e str uc tu re of the language has, however, allowed her
sub sta nti ally to exceed the lim itations of
a
fixed corpus.
T he principal style of the texts is formal n arrativ e, bu t a section is added on the col-
loquial sty le with its grea ter profusion of relational particles. T he most compelling pa rt
of th e book is the detaile d phonology, especially th e tre at m en t of the intersection of
lexical tone and prosodic into na tion . The a ut ho r, Professor of Phonetics in the S chool of
Oriental and African -Studies, has m ade im porta nt contributions to this pa rt of the
study of tone languages.
Gramm atical analysis is carried o ut in a relatively unobtrusive version of th e Fir-
thian linguistic tradition. It proceeds from the sentence downward through succes-
sively smaller-sized levels: phrase, figure, word, and affix. This
is
not, however, a
straightforward constituent-structure grammar.
I n th e first place, the distinction between word an d affix is one of lexical category,
no t level. Secondly, figure conflates a n indefinite nu m ber
of
levels of labe led bracke t-
ing between the first co nst itu ent branching of th e sentence an d the terminal categories.
Moreover, the derived con stit uen t stru ctu re, resulting from th e operation of transform -
ations, an d th e underlying phrase stru cture , the con stitue nt structure before transform-
atio ns ap ply , are collapsed into a single hierarchy. T hu s the catego rization of elemen ts
an d relations in th e sentence is confusing, particularly since the residues of embedded
sentences ar e not distinguished from simple sentence constituents.
The material itself is presented so clearly an d thoroug hly, however, th a t these diffi-
culties of F irth ian metho d are easily resolved b y any reader familiar with related
languages.
Pathological and Normal Language. JULIUS LAFFAL. Atherton Press Books in the Be-
havioral Sciences.) New York: Atherton Press, 1965. xxi, 249 pp., appendix, 5
figures, index, references,
22
tables.
8.50.
Reviewed
by
R A YL. BIRDWHISTELL,aJtern Pennsylvania Psychiatric Institute
and th Department o Psych iatry, Temple Univers ity Health Scienccs Center
Julius Laffal,
a
talented and experienced clinical psychologist, states that it is his
purpose in this volume to presen t:
(1)
a general theory of language;
(2)
psychopatho-
logical language; (3) metho dology for the investigation of language. I n a series of seven
chapters, he presents a set of quotations, generalizations, and data in support
of
his
contention that associationist techniques are efficient and reliable instruments for the
examination of language behavior, norm al an d pathological.
This book, the title and Laffals manifest in tent to the contrary, have little to do
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Reviews 1083
with language and speech behavior as they would be understood by the modern
linguistic anthropologist or s tud en t of comm unication behavior. Theoretical bits from
Ogden an d Richards, M orris, de Saussure, Kent-Rosanoff an d descende nt association-
ists), Vygotsky, Cassirer, and Freud lay the groundwork for his preoccupation with
words a s vehicles of meaning. And while his preface shows some acq ua inta nce with th e
linguistic point of view, the remaining
226
pages indicate th at his though t has not be-
come adu lterate d through this acquaintance. H e says, Words, it is worth noting, have
only a dubious value as linguistic forms Greenberg, 1954) as compared, for example,
with phonem es a nd m orphemes, a nd psychologists h ave occasionally [sic] been accused
of linguistic naivetC in trea ting words as if they ha d some inherent pro pe rty as un its of
language Olmstead an d Moore,
1952).
Yet few people would contest the assertion
th a t
meaning
in language is
basically carried by words
p. xii, italics mine). Th is asser-
tion, plus th e assignment of linguistics t o M orris
syntaclics,
satisfies Laffal as his s up -
po rt for his lexicentric emphasis. Anthropologists should not be too ha sty, however, in
criticizing his psychology as uniquely a tom istic and myopic. One need only review t he
recent anthropological literature to see that words, and particularly kinship name
forms, can ta ke on value, th e heuristic na tu re of which is forgotten in t he formalistic
shuffle.
I n su pp ort of his expe rimental techniq ue, Laffal speaks of th e controlled efficacy of
the experimenter-presented stimulus word. He contrasts this with the situation prev-
alent in free speech in terms that will baffle even the most psychologically oriented
sociologist or anthropologist: I n free speech, th e verbal stimuli impinging upon t he
subje ct occur in a relatively haphazard fashion; the inten tion or generating set in th e
situatio n is more likely to be determined by the speaking subject th an b y the speaker or
communicant.
Included within the volume is a series of clinical anecdotes that Laffal analyzes
through his technique. These analyses have th e adv an tag e of being explicit an d should
be of intere st to anthropologists who ar e atte m ptin g to analyze field materia l by logical
an d acontextual techniques. Finally, t he volume does an excellent job of illustrating
modern associationist testing techniques. I cann ot help b u t feel, however, t h a t associa-
tionist psychology is undersold when its practitio ners fail to t ake a dv an tag e of rece nt
developments in comm unication the ory and research. P atte rn association remains un-
tested. It remains to be seen whether it is the m ethod or the selection of the d ata manip-
ulated by the method that has made associationist techniques
so
unproductive as
re-
search instruments.
PHYSICAL ANTHROPOLOGY
Yearbook
o
Physical Alzthropology 1962. JACK KELSO nd GABRIEL . LASKER,ds.
Yearbook Series Volume 10. MBxico,
D F.:
Instituto de Investigaciones His-
ttiricas, Universidad Nacional Aut6noma de MCxico, and Instituto Nacional de
Antropo logk e Histtiria, for The Am erican Association of P hysical Anthropologists,
1964.
x,
373
pp ., figures, references, tables.
4.50
paper).
Yearbook o Physical Anthropology
1963. JACK
KELSO,
d.
Gabriel
W
Lasker
and
Sheilagh
T .
Brooks,
assoc. eds. Yearb ook Series Volume
11.
Mkxico,
D.
F.:
Insti-
tu to de Investigaciones Histbricas, Universidad Nacional Aut6nom a de M exico, and
Instituto Nacional de Antropologla e Historia, for the American Association of
Physical Anthropologists,
1965.
ix
300
pp., figures, cha pte r references, tables. n. p .
Reviewed by
EDWARD HUNT R.
Harvard Ulziversity
In
1945,
the Yearbook of Physical Anthropology began to appear a s an a nnu al publi-
paper).