On extraction and extraposition in German Ed. by Uli Lutz and Jürgen Pafel (review)

Abstract

BOOK NOTICES 407 welcome for scholars outside North America unable to attend academic conferences regularly. Undoubtedly , not all readers will agree with the approaches, analyses, or conclusions found in all of the papers. Such is the nature of a relatively new area of linguistic inquiry in general and in particular with regard to scholarly work on a non-European language. It is hoped that in the future there will be more contributions to such a collection in which the researchers explore the descriptive and explanatory adequacy of a greater variety of analytic perspective and data types. [Virginia LoCastro, International Christian University.] Language ideology and language change in early modern German: A sociolinguistic study of the consonantal system ofNuremberg. By Rosina LippiGreen . (Current issues in linguistic theory , 199.) Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 1994. Pp. xiii, 150. The early modern period of the German language, also known as Early New High German, is an excellent source for historical studies in language change. The period in question, roughly 1400 to 1700, was full of social and technological changes, particularly in Germany with the invention of the printing press and the Reformation. Lippi-Green has produced an excellent pioneering work on language change based on statistical analysis of a corpus of works from five authors writing in Nuremberg generally between 1500 and 1530. It is exactly this sort of data-based abductive investigation that is key to breaking out of traditional paradigms, using insights from current linguistic theory to revitalize our understanding of historical languages. In the first two chapters (1-39) L-G outlines her theoretical approach to language change which she describes as 'empirical, socially-oriented, [and] variationist' . While based on traditional sociolinguistic works such as Uriel Weinreich, William Labov, and Marvin Herzog (1968. Empiricalfoundationsfor a theory of language change. Austin: University of Texas Press), L-G rejects a purely socioeconomic approach, incorporating more recent methodologies which consider other factors such as the ideology of standardization, style, and the role of the individual. She adapts the concept of network analysis to her study, but since it is difficult to quantify network strength in a historical study, this is only partially successful. She then discusses dialect position and social composition of Nuremberg around 1500 and introduces the five authors studied (Willibald Pirckheimer , Albrecht Dürer, Lazarus Spengler, Hans Sachs, and Christoph Scheurl.) The social networks of each author are quantified, and their education level established for later analysis. The bulk of the study (40-105) is an analysis of over 70,000 words from written documents by the above authors. L-G investigates the spellings of certain consonants which display apparently random variation to see if sociological or ideological factors affect their distribution. The entire corpus was entered into a computer for analysis by a sophisticated statistics package. The results are complex. Although no one single explanation for the variations was found, L-G did successfully identify specific factors which demonstrated a significant influence on consonantal spelling; the nature ofthe document (professional , draft) was important as was the commitment (or lack thereof) ofthe author to the developing ideology for standard German. This work is a wonderful example of what can be done to find regularities in apparently random phenomena in older Germanic texts. Its few shortcomings (numerous typos, some unclear tables, repeated text) are easily overlooked in view of the complex data and innovative methodologies treated. Further discussion of methodological problems would have been appreciated. Why exactly were certain consonants not treated? Which specific words produce more variance, and which do not? And because of the small number of authors considered, many of the findings will have to be confirmed by follow-up studies. Nevertheless, this book should lead to similar studies by others and has established a promising methodology for empirical studies of variation in historical linguistics. [Lee Forester, Hope College.] On extraction and extraposition in German . Ed. by Uli Lutz and Jürgen Pafel. (Linguistik Aktuell 11). Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 1996. Pp. xii, 316. This book is largely a result ofthe sixteenth annual meeting of the German Linguistic Society where most of the contributions were presented. It provides a comprehensive overview of recent discussion and research in the field of extraction...