Slovene: A Comprehensive Grammar by Peter s> Herrity (review)

Abstract

722 SEER, 79, 4, 200I TEI standards for this type of work a question already implied by the enormous and ever-growingextension file that it requires. Particularlyinterestingto readerswith a backgroundin the humanities are the articleswhich approach the subjectfrom the other side, from the point of view of the computer scientist. Dobreva is right to stress the necessity of adheringto establishedproceduresinproductdevelopment;sheandM.Jordanova also drawattentionto a numberof practicalissues,notablytheproblems caused by entering data in transcription. They could be more forceful in drawing the necessary conclusion that data should be entered in the originalcyrillicand converted automaticallyto SGML entities, which are the only standardfor text encoding and interchange.This can be done easilywith the existing technology. The various transcriptionselaborated by R. Lazov then become redundant or, if required for any purpose, can be generated from the SGML. The editing of such a disparatevolume must have been a taxing exercise, and though there are some lapses there arereferenceson pp. 97 and I 76 to a non-existent Appendix i, and a number of proper names appearin unusual forms it has been accomplished remarkablywell by a team only one of whom has Englishas his native language. The book is a usefuladdition to the small but growing literatureon the subject.It is particularlyto be hoped that it will come to the attention of those engaged in computer applicationsin the humanitiesoutsidethe field of medieval Slavonic manuscripts. University ofPortsmouth R. M. CLEMINSON Herrity, Peter. Slovene. A Comprehensive Grammar. Routledge, London and New York,2000. xii + 372 pp. Bibliography.Index. / 25.00 (paperback). HALF a century has elapsed since R. G. A. de Bray's Guideto theSlavonic Languages (London, I95I) gave us the firstEnglishdescriptionof the rudiments of Slovene grammar.It was the only thing of itskind, untilJ. Toporisic'sZakaj nepo slovensko. Slovene byDirectMethod(Ljubljana, 1970) eventually made it really possible for English-speaking students to learn the language. Since Slovenia became an independent state in I99I severalmore useful textbooks in English have been published, most notably W. W. Derbyshire's A Basic Slovene Reference Grammar (Columbus, OH, I993), but the appearancenow of a new grammar by ProfessorPeter Herrity is an event of exceptional importance . It describes itself as 'the firstcomprehensive grammar of the language to be published in English', a reasonable claim in view of its 372 pages, compared to Derbyshire's 154. The structureof Herrity'swork is traditional and straightforward.It consists of thirteen chapters: i. phonology; 2. nouns; 3. adjectives;4. pronouns; 5. numerals;6. verbs; 7. adverbs;8. prepositions; 9. conjunctions; io. particles; ii. interjections; 12. word order; I3. word formation. Each chapter is divided and subdivided into individual features and rules,which are cogently expounded and amplyillustratedby well-chosen examples. Apart from the chapter on word order, syntax is not presented separatelybut dealt with throughout as and when necessary. The chapter on word formation is brief, this too having already appeared to a large extent in REVIEWS 723 the previous chapters.The tried and tested method of interweavinginflexion, derivation, and syntax, especially in chapters two to seven, works well. In chapter two, for example, noun declensions are followed by explanations of the use of the cases. This system works well in chapter six too, where conjugationsprecede explanationsof verbalsyntax.It may be as a resultof an oversightthat on pp. I78-79 the formation of the 1-participlecomes afterthe rulesfor its agreement. The explanation of the modal verbs (a difficultarea)is particularlyoriginal(pp. I99-202), but glossingthe modal adverblahko; as 'to be able, can', as if it were a verb (and it certainly appears in translationsof English 'can'),is going too far.I was surprisednot to findEnglish'must'in the gloss for modrati (it does occur in the examples) or 'must not' in the gloss and examples of nesmeti.A specific warning should have been given about the pitfallsattendingthe negation of 'must'and 'can'. Not surprisingly in a text of such length and density, there are a few infelicitousturnsof phrasehere and there.In a discussionof nouns of common gender, the words 'the gender of the person referredto is determined by the context' (p. 29) presumably do not mean what they say, whilst the heading 'The pronunciation of vowels in the spoken language' (p. I 2) may make...