Linguistics and philosophy. Essays in honor of Rulon S. Wells

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Adam Makkai and Alan K. Melby, Linguistics and Philosophy. Essu~s in Honor of Rulon S. Wells (Amsterdam Studies in the Theory and History of Linguistic Science, Series IV: Current Issues in Linguistic Theory, Vol. 42) Amsterdam/ Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 1985. xii +472 pp. Dfl. 160.00]$ 71.00. Reviewed by L. Zgusta, Dept. of Linguistics, University of Illinois. Urbana, IL 61801. USA. This is a Festschrift

for Rulon Wells who enjoys a reputation of having, in his in his teaching, a benevolently critical attitude toward all linguistic schools of thought, so that his disciples arc able to perceive both the strengths and the weaknesses of any body of doctrine. This highly laudable attitude is reflected in this Fcstschrift, which succeeds in containing both authors that have been critical of transformational grammar (Raimo Anttila. Robert A. Hall. C.F. Hackett, Adam Makkai). and some outstanding members of the TG school of thought as well (James D. McCawley, John R. Ross). Since there are essays by high-caliber representatives of other schools as well (e.g., Isidorc Dyen, Zellig Harris, Henry Hoenigswald. David G. Lockwood, Andre Martinet, Sebastian Shaumyan), the volume’s catholicity is a very broad one. the more so that several essays deliberately stress such a comparative approach. E.g.. David Lockwood, ‘Phonological “neutralization” in classical and stratificational theories’ (pp. 999124); William J. Sullivan, ‘Rulon Wells as a paleo-synthesizer of European and American syntax’ (pp. 2055222). The dispersion of topics is also a broad one, with syntax. philosophy of language, typology. and derivation strongly present. There are also some specimens of extraordinary topics; among them are of particular interest Fred J. Damerau. ‘Imperfect models and their uses’ (pp. 55576): Concrete results of the use of Markov chains and other models in the computer analysis of natural language: and A. Makkai, ‘Where do exclamations writing

and

particularly

Reviews

271

come from?’ (pp. 445472): various sources of exclamations, with a particularly hilarious travesty of an early form of transformational grammar. In these days, many people are not particularly strong in or keen on foreign languages; no wonder, then, that the computer that set the text did not like German inflections either (ein Form, die Verhtiiltniss, p. 410), and was shaky in Graeco-English spellings (heteroclysis, p. 393 and passim; peripathetic p. 467 and elsewhere), and had other vagaries. No real difficulty was created, however.

Lia Formigari, Language and Experience in 17th-Century British Philosophy (Amsterdam Studies in the Theory and History of Linguistic Science, Series III: Studies in the History of the Language Sciences, Vol. 48.) Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 1988. viii+ 178 pp. Dfl. SO.OO/%36.00. Reviewed by L. Zgusta, Dept. of Linguistics, University of Illinois, Urbana, IL 61801, USA. This is the (enlarged) English version of the Italian original dating from 1970. Even with the rapid progress of linguistic historiography that we have witnessed in recent years, the English version is a useful, interesting book. There are three main chapters. The first, ‘Language and the languages’, (pp. 15-50). describes what one could call the emancipation from the narrow interpretation of the tale about the confusion of languages at Babylon. This is connected with the problem of truth in language, of the unity of understanding in spite of different languages, etc. The second chapter, ‘The reconstruction of linguistic unity’ (pp. 51-90) describes mainly the attempts to construct, or at least notionally to adumbrate, ‘philosophical grammar’ or ‘universal grammar’ as the unitary system of human cognition underlying the single languages. The third chapter, Semiotics and the theory of knowledge’, (pp. 91-132), discusses mainly the huge changes brought by the philosophies of Hobbes and Locke, but also by those of some much less known contemporaries (Burthogge et al.). The book is particularly good in the analytic descriptions of the single scholars’ opinions. The attempts to establish the filiation of those opinions are usually detailed, only sometimes would one wish more to be said (e.g., p. 83, on the relation of Comenius’ panglottia to the British universal language projects). Let us now mention a few interesting topics. Pp. 6 ff., Epicurus’ understanding of the (origin of) language as both natura and conventione. and the later forms of this doctrine. According to F. Bacon, philosophical grammar should restore the analogy between words and things (p. 13); his critique of language (idola fori) could and did develop in two different directions, typified by Webster and Ward (p. 23). Already in 1674, P. Besnier held comparison of languages to be the chief means of ascertaining the unity of languages (p. 35). Because of the vulgar origin of language (i.e., the single