Linguistic Society of America

Bibliographie linguistique des années 1939-1947; Bibliographie linguistique de l'année 1948 etcomplément des années 1939-1947Review by: Robert A. Hall, Jr.Language, Vol. 27, No. 4 (Oct. - Dec., 1951), pp. 610-611Published by: Linguistic Society of AmericaStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/410055 .

Accessed: 09/12/2014 23:10

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

.

Linguistic Society of America is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Language.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 128.235.251.160 on Tue, 9 Dec 2014 23:10:25 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

610 REVIEWS

inspectional studies of likenesses in vocabulary or impressionistic studies of structural similarities.

The Penutian hypothesis is typical of the tendency to build more and more ambitious classifications upon a flimsy base. Ever since the publication of the vocabulary surveys of R. B. Dixon and A. L. Kroeber over thirty years ago," the existence of a California Penutian family has been largely taken for granted, perhaps more by ethnologists than by linguists. At about the same time Leo J. Frachtenberg published a brief vocabulary comparison of three Oregon lan- guages,3 and a few years later Edward Sapir suggested a relationship, because of similarities in stem structure, between these languages of Oregon and the California Penutian group.4 Later still, a super-stock was proposed, termed 'Macro-Penutian' by Benjamin Whorf and simply 'Penutian' by Sapir,l to include the California and Oregon groups, several other languages of Oregon and Washington, Tsimshian (spoken on the Pacific Coast mainland across from

Queen Charlotte Island), and the Mixe-Zoque-Huave group of Mexico. As attractive and as stirring as this hypothesis may be, it is merely a hierarchy of hunches. Though some of the hunches may eventually turn out to have been good ones, they still remain unsupported by sound comparative evidence.

Miss Freeland's monograph, with its abundant data and its detailed morpho- logical description, provides the concrete material for reexamining the California Penutian base of the wider Penutian hypothesis. By subjecting Miwok and Yokuts to the more rigorous comparative methods which field linguists have been

increasingly utilizing during the past decade, it will be possible to determine whether or not systematic phonetic correspondences can be set up and the

morphemic forms of a parent language reconstructed, and, if that can be accom-

plished, to fit the structural similarities and divergences into an inferred histori- cal scheme.

STANLEY NEWMAN, University of New Mexico

2New linguistic families in California, American Anthropologist 15.647-55 (1913); Linguistic families of California, University of California Publications in American Ar-

chaeology and Ethnology 16.47-118 (1919). 3 Comparative studies in Takelman, Kalapuyan, and Chinookan lexicography, IJAL

1.175-82 (1918). 4 A characteristic Penutian form of stem, IJAL 2.58-67 (1921). 6 Central and North American languages, Encyclopaedia Britannica'4 5.138-41 (1929).

Bibliographie linguistique des ann6es 1939-1947, Vol. 2. Publi6e par le Comit6 International Permanent de Linguistes avec une subvention de l'Organisa- tion des Nations Unies pour l'Education, la Science et la Culture. Pp. xxi, [351]. Utrecht and Bruxelles: Spectrum, 1950.

Bibliographie linguistique de l'ann6e 1948 et compl6ment des ann6es 1939- 1947. Publi6e par le Comit6 International Permanent de Linguistes avec une subvention de l'Organisation des Nations Unies pour l'Education, la Science et la Culture. Pp. xxiv, 261. Utrecht and Bruxelles: Spectrum, 1951.

The two volumes under review are, respectively, the second part of the CIPL bibliography for the war years and immediately afterwards,' and its con-

1 The first volume (published in 1949) was reviewed by the writer in Lg. 26.185-6 (1950).

This content downloaded from 128.235.251.160 on Tue, 9 Dec 2014 23:10:25 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

REVIEWS 611

tinuation for the year 1948. The organization of each volume, by general cate- gories and individual language families and languages, follows closely that of the first part of the bibliography for 1939-47; each is concluded by a very welcome author index, which in the bibliography for 1939-47 covers both parts. The volumes are neatly printed; considering the great variety of languages involved, misprints are relatively rare and unimportant. The prefatory matter is in both French and English, and the explanatory remarks accompanying the listing of titles are now in the one language and now in the other; the compilers' use of French seems somewhat freer and more idiomatic than their use of English.2

The observations made in Lg. 26.185-6 concerning the characteristics of the first volume hold true for the books now under review as well. It is most helpful to have these repertories, with their immense number of titles and references, which it would otherwise be necessary to gather by long, extensive, and often costly research of one's own. These bibliographies are apparently to become a regular feature, appearing annually henceforth; and it is very desirable that they should do so. The CIPL bibliographers might perhaps, however, consider certain improvements in method which would make these volumes more serviceable. It is not as necessary as one might infer from the prefatory remarks to the 1948 volume that these annual bibliographies appear as soon as possible after the year whose work they list; too early publication results in incomplete coverage of the field, especially with regard to out-of-the-way publications and belated re- views. More careful allocation of items to the various sections is desirable, es- pecially in divisions like 'general linguistics' and 'dialectology', which at present include a number of titles that belong elsewhere; as it is, the user of these vol- umes is confronted with an incipient bibliographical mare magnum, which he must work through in order to gain a complete conspectus of publications in his field. A great deal of space could be saved and cross reference made much easier by numbering each item; this is practicable for serial bibliographies as well as for those appearing only once, as evidenced by the quarterly one of the Revista de filologia espafiola, or the annual one of the Zeitschrift ffir romanische Philo- logie. Such a procedure would be especially useful in listing addenda or reviews of items in previous yearly bibliographies.

We are already greatly indebted to the CIPL and UNESCO for providing us with these aids to our scholarly work; these suggestions for improvement are offered in the hope that the annual bibliographies may be made even more efficient and useful.

ROBERT A. HALL JR., Cornell University 2 One minor cavil concerning the listing of authors' names: the compilers consistently

misplace the Jr. which many persons in the English-speaking world (including your re- viewer) regard as an essential part of their names. The syntactic formula for the use of this element is: full name (i.e. given name[s] or initial[s] + surname, whether in this order or inverted) + Jr. If the surname only is listed, Jr. is not included. Thus J(osephus) Nettle- pink Jr. or Nettlepink, J(osephus), Jr., but simply Nettlepink-not Nettlepink Jr., as found passim in the CIPL bibliographies. Use of this last construction produces, at least in some readers, the same kind of irritation that comes from being addressed as iMr. Prof. Dr. Nettlepink.

This content downloaded from 128.235.251.160 on Tue, 9 Dec 2014 23:10:25 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions