Aspekte der Sprachbeschreibung: Akten des 29 linguistischen Kolloquiums, Aarhus 1994 Ed. by Per Bærentzen (review)

Abstract

BOOK NOTICES 413 cult to understand some of A's characterizations of creóle language features. For example, if Caribbean English lacks a feature displayed by standard varieties ofEnglish, e.g. word-final consonant clusters or subject-verb inversion for question formation, then A often suggests this absence is a function of some vague process called 'Creole economy' (see xlvii, xlix). Many languages identified as noncreoles display individual features, both phonological and syntactic , similar to those exhibited by Creoles. Spanish, for example, displays no word-final consonant clusters and often no subject-verb inversion for questions , and yet Spanish would never be considered more 'economical' than any other language. It is still too often the case that creóles are viewed only in terms oftheir lexifier languages and thus often appear as lacking or 'reduced' in terms of features. DCE is laudably dedicated to all Caribbeans (xxxviii). However, A's map of Caribbean English speakers is largely determined by whether or not a nation has status as an ex-British colony (the inclusion of the US Virgin Islands is the only anomaly). Consequently, millions of Caribbeans who speak their English varieties in locations with a colonial history different from the former British West Indies have been excluded from representation in DCE, without any comment. For example, the English-derived creóles spoken as first languages by hundreds of thousands of Central Americans and the range of English varieties used by millions of Puerto Ricans both go unmentioned. Significant English language usage has been documented in Central America for centuries and in Puerto Rico since the invasion by the United States in 1898. There are approximately one hundred thousand English-derived creóle speakers in Panama alone. The exclusion of Puerto Rico is even more striking, especially since the US Virgin Islands is included and both currently share a similar political status. A estimates the entire population of Caribbean English speakers as approximately six million spread across seventeen territories and/or nations (xviii). Yet the population of Puerto Rico by itself is nearly four million. English is one of two official languages of the island (Spanish, the other), and it is taught as a second language at all levels of the educational system—often without great success, a common result paralleled in the Anglophone Caribbean when standard varieties of English are taught to native creóle speakers. [Michael Aceto, University of Puerto Rico.] pers, each roughly four pages long (except for one that is seven pages). Most of the papers (44) are in German, 1 8 papers are in English, and 3 in French. The authors appear in alphabetical order so that the grouping is not thematic. In addition, there is no introduction indicating what was meant by 'Aspects of language description'. We can, however, conclude from the title that the thematic orientation of the colloquium was mainly nonformal linguistics. Accordingly, a great number of papers deal with textgrammatical or pragmatic aspects, ranging from a pragmatic theory ofdefiniteness to the investigation of the use of 'we' and 'they' in Polish and Russian cabaret texts of the eighties or a paper on Polish TV talk shows. But there are also a number of papers dealing with syntactic problems, be it either the syntax of the question phrase in Spanish, a typology of German adverbials, or ergativity and possession in West Greenlandic. Historical topics can be found, like the language of the medieval German mystic or the use of modal verbs in the German of 1400, as well as a number of papers on computer related aspects such as computer simulation of spelling (incompetence . There are papers on advertising in Slovakia, the language of women in politics, about the development of sociolinguistics in the divided Germany, and even one about the Linguisten-Handbuch , a handbook which provides biographical and bibliographical information about German-speaking linguists. This collection is like a warehouse catalogue—full of ideas which offer something for everybody. It is fun to browse through since most of the authors cope very well with the space limitations. Nevertheless, in four pages one can only provide an elongated abstract of the original paper and, therefore, the reader may want to order one piece...