linguistics in east asia and south east asiaby yuen ren chao; richard b. noss; joseph k. yamagiwa;...

Linguistics in East Asia and South East Asia by Yuen Ren Chao; Richard B. Noss; Joseph K.Yamagiwa; John R. Krueger; Current Trends in Linguistics, Volume II by Thomas A. SebeokReview by: Roy Andrew MillerJournal of the American Oriental Society, Vol. 92, No. 1 (Jan. - Mar., 1972), pp. 137-141Published by: American Oriental SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/599675 .

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Reviews of Books Reviews of Books

fragmentary against the background of Prof. Chao's monumental work.

In the section of Phonology Prof. Chao says, "fortu- nately for students of Mandarin its tone sandhi is among the simplest of all the dialects" (see p. 27). It seems to me that we do not need to be concerned with the concept of "tone sandhi" in Mandarin at all; what we really need is a complex description of the tones in Mandarin. It seems to me that all the changes described traditionally as Tone Sandhi in Mandarin (i.e., change of the 3rd Tone into the Y 3rd Tone; change of a 3rd Tone followed by another 3rd Tone into a 2nd Tone; change of a 2nd Tone to the 1st Tone in the middle of three-syllable groups, etc.) may be simply described as special cases of modifications of particular tones in connected speech in general. In the descriptions of the Mandarin tones heretofore little attention has been paid to those tonemic features by which the integration of syllables into larger prosodic units is made possible. These are especially the shapes of the pitch-curves of the four tones (described much more in detail than has been done heretofore). Another such feature is the relative distribution of articulatory energy within the scope of a syllable bearing one or another of the four tones. It must be stated however that Prof. Chao's treatment of Tone Sandhi in Mandarin is cautious enough and does not exclude the possibility of modifying his statements.

The introduction of the concepts of Free and Bound Morphemes in Spoken Chinese by Prof. Yang and Prof. Chao marked decisive progress in the study of Spoken Chinese, although these concepts were to a certain degree controversial from the very beginning (cf. e.g., the statement, that "Free" does not mean "always Free," etc.). In the present book Prof. Chao very unambigu- ously states the point of limited usefulness of the Bloom- fieldian concept in the description of Spoken Chinese (see, e.g., p. 146). The concept Free-Bound is not aban- doned, however, but rather supplemented by other distinctions, e.g. Versatile-Restricted (see p. 155). Procedures for distinguishing different classes of morphemes developed by Prof. C. W. Luh are mentioned as well. (Some of Prof. Chao's criticisms of the ideas of- fered by Prof. Luh do not seem to me to be justified, as, e. g., the flat rejection of the possibility, according to Prof. Luh's criteria, of considering the word "warmly" as a combination of two words: 'warm'-'ly'.)

Any grammarian of Spoken Chinese has serious difficulties in treating the problem of "overlapping classes" (see p. 497: "When a word belongs sometimes to one part of speech and sometimes to another, there is then an overlapping of classes, or, from the point of view of the word in question, it has multiple membership"). This is the traditional problem of "yi tsyr duo ley." It seems to me that much difficulty could be avoided, if, instead of adopting the principle of "yi tsyr duo ley," we should systematically adopt the principle of, so to say, "yi

fragmentary against the background of Prof. Chao's monumental work.

In the section of Phonology Prof. Chao says, "fortu- nately for students of Mandarin its tone sandhi is among the simplest of all the dialects" (see p. 27). It seems to me that we do not need to be concerned with the concept of "tone sandhi" in Mandarin at all; what we really need is a complex description of the tones in Mandarin. It seems to me that all the changes described traditionally as Tone Sandhi in Mandarin (i.e., change of the 3rd Tone into the Y 3rd Tone; change of a 3rd Tone followed by another 3rd Tone into a 2nd Tone; change of a 2nd Tone to the 1st Tone in the middle of three-syllable groups, etc.) may be simply described as special cases of modifications of particular tones in connected speech in general. In the descriptions of the Mandarin tones heretofore little attention has been paid to those tonemic features by which the integration of syllables into larger prosodic units is made possible. These are especially the shapes of the pitch-curves of the four tones (described much more in detail than has been done heretofore). Another such feature is the relative distribution of articulatory energy within the scope of a syllable bearing one or another of the four tones. It must be stated however that Prof. Chao's treatment of Tone Sandhi in Mandarin is cautious enough and does not exclude the possibility of modifying his statements.

The introduction of the concepts of Free and Bound Morphemes in Spoken Chinese by Prof. Yang and Prof. Chao marked decisive progress in the study of Spoken Chinese, although these concepts were to a certain degree controversial from the very beginning (cf. e.g., the statement, that "Free" does not mean "always Free," etc.). In the present book Prof. Chao very unambigu- ously states the point of limited usefulness of the Bloom- fieldian concept in the description of Spoken Chinese (see, e.g., p. 146). The concept Free-Bound is not aban- doned, however, but rather supplemented by other distinctions, e.g. Versatile-Restricted (see p. 155). Procedures for distinguishing different classes of morphemes developed by Prof. C. W. Luh are mentioned as well. (Some of Prof. Chao's criticisms of the ideas of- fered by Prof. Luh do not seem to me to be justified, as, e. g., the flat rejection of the possibility, according to Prof. Luh's criteria, of considering the word "warmly" as a combination of two words: 'warm'-'ly'.)

Any grammarian of Spoken Chinese has serious difficulties in treating the problem of "overlapping classes" (see p. 497: "When a word belongs sometimes to one part of speech and sometimes to another, there is then an overlapping of classes, or, from the point of view of the word in question, it has multiple membership"). This is the traditional problem of "yi tsyr duo ley." It seems to me that much difficulty could be avoided, if, instead of adopting the principle of "yi tsyr duo ley," we should systematically adopt the principle of, so to say, "yi

tzyh duo tsyr" ("tzyh" being identified as unclassed morpheme, "tsyr" being identified as classed morpheme, both "tzyh" and "tsyr" interpreted in such a way as to apply eventually to polysyllabic units as well). Prof. Chao discusses the difficulties arising from the phenom- enon of "overlapping classes" in many places in his book, but he seems to stick firmly to the principle of "yi tsyr duo ley."

In conclusion I cannot but express my gratitude to Prof. Chao for giving the students of Spoken Chinese one of the most comprehensive and at the same time most stimulating works about Chinese language. I cannot but heartily support the invitation expressed by Prof. Chao in his Preface: "This is a discussion book.... I only in- vite the reader to consider problems with me as a fellow student of the subject." The task of reading Prof. Chao's book and considering problems with him is really a highly rewarding one.

O. SVARNf ORIENTAL INSTITUTE, PRAGUE

tzyh duo tsyr" ("tzyh" being identified as unclassed morpheme, "tsyr" being identified as classed morpheme, both "tzyh" and "tsyr" interpreted in such a way as to apply eventually to polysyllabic units as well). Prof. Chao discusses the difficulties arising from the phenom- enon of "overlapping classes" in many places in his book, but he seems to stick firmly to the principle of "yi tsyr duo ley."

In conclusion I cannot but express my gratitude to Prof. Chao for giving the students of Spoken Chinese one of the most comprehensive and at the same time most stimulating works about Chinese language. I cannot but heartily support the invitation expressed by Prof. Chao in his Preface: "This is a discussion book.... I only in- vite the reader to consider problems with me as a fellow student of the subject." The task of reading Prof. Chao's book and considering problems with him is really a highly rewarding one.

O. SVARNf ORIENTAL INSTITUTE, PRAGUE

Linguistics in East Asia and South East Asia. Associate Editors, YUEN REN CHAO, RICHARD B. Noss, JOSEPH K. YAMAGIWA. Assistant Editor, JOHN R. KRUEGER. (Current Trends in Linguistics, Volume II, edited by THOMAS A. SEBEOK.) Pp. xix + 979. The Hague and Paris: MOUTON, 1967. Fl. 150, $42.00.

This extremely long, extremely expensive, and extremely heavy (4 lb., 10 oz.) book includes twenty-three articles by as many different hands, dealing with Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Mongolian, and Tibetan, in addition to the languages of several parts of Southeast Asia (Burma, Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Cambodia). Many of the articles are on an extremely high level of scholarship, and almost all of them will surely be of value both to the beginning student and to the more advanced scholar, in particular because of the bibliographical guidance that most of them pro- vide.

In any compilation of this ambitious size and scale, it is only natural that not all the contributions should turn out to be of the same high level. Nicholas Cleave- land Bodman's 'Historical Linguistics' in the China section must be singled out for particular notice for its excellence; how fortunate the new student in this field now is, who will have the enormous help provided for him by this careful and painstakingly documented survey of the entire field of Chinese historical linguistic study. In general, all the articles on Chinese in this volume are of exceptional interest and value, and are not only to the credit of their authors (in addition to Bodman, they are by Kun Chang, S0ren Egerod, John DeFrancis, Fang- kuei Li, and William S-Y. Wang), but also to the credit

Linguistics in East Asia and South East Asia. Associate Editors, YUEN REN CHAO, RICHARD B. Noss, JOSEPH K. YAMAGIWA. Assistant Editor, JOHN R. KRUEGER. (Current Trends in Linguistics, Volume II, edited by THOMAS A. SEBEOK.) Pp. xix + 979. The Hague and Paris: MOUTON, 1967. Fl. 150, $42.00.

This extremely long, extremely expensive, and extremely heavy (4 lb., 10 oz.) book includes twenty-three articles by as many different hands, dealing with Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Mongolian, and Tibetan, in addition to the languages of several parts of Southeast Asia (Burma, Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Cambodia). Many of the articles are on an extremely high level of scholarship, and almost all of them will surely be of value both to the beginning student and to the more advanced scholar, in particular because of the bibliographical guidance that most of them pro- vide.

In any compilation of this ambitious size and scale, it is only natural that not all the contributions should turn out to be of the same high level. Nicholas Cleave- land Bodman's 'Historical Linguistics' in the China section must be singled out for particular notice for its excellence; how fortunate the new student in this field now is, who will have the enormous help provided for him by this careful and painstakingly documented survey of the entire field of Chinese historical linguistic study. In general, all the articles on Chinese in this volume are of exceptional interest and value, and are not only to the credit of their authors (in addition to Bodman, they are by Kun Chang, S0ren Egerod, John DeFrancis, Fang- kuei Li, and William S-Y. Wang), but also to the credit

137 137



Journal of the American Oriental Society, 92.1 (1972)

of the editors for having selected this excellent team of scholars. The unfortunate decision to reproduce Wang's 'Bibliography of Chinese Linguistics' directly from a computer print-out has resulted in a long section (pp. 188-499) that would have been easier to read, and pos- sibly might also have taken up less space, had it been set up in type along with the rest of the book-but doing that would surely only have added to the price of the volume, and the mind boggles at the idea that it might have been priced any higher than it is now.

The Mouton company has taken the opportunity presented by this volume to show off its new fonts of Chinese character and Japanese kana types. Both have been handled very well in setting up the book, and are of a size that is both easy to read and at the same time blends in harmoniously with the English fonts used. Undoubtedly the rather free use that is made of these new fonts throughout many of the articles helps account for the astronomical cost of the volume; and it is not always easy to understand why Chinese characters have been used in some instances but not in others. John DeFrancis's 'Language and script reform' (pp. 130-150) makes no use of the new types at all, though it has several passages where they could have been used to good ad- vantage (as for example to illustrate the contrasting morphemes cited in ?3, p. 145); other articles (notably those of Tsukishima and Yamada, of which more below) use them in a fashion that can only be called lavish. It really is hardly necessary to include the Chinese characters for words like Heian, Kamakura, Muromachi (p. 504), Zen, and Showa (p. 506), and even less necessary to print the Chinese characters for words like kana over and over again (thus, within only a few pages, once each on p. 504 and p. 506, twice on p. 507, etc., etc.). This pointless indulgence in the luxury of exotic type faces interferes with the reading and understanding of the English text, tells the reader nothing he did not know already, and results (as here) in a book so expensive that no student (and very few teachers) could ever hope to own a personal copy.

Unfortunately, the articles on Japan are by no means up to the high level of most of the other articles in this volume; in fact, two of the articles on Japan fall so far below acceptable scholarly standards that their failings must regretfully be noted here in some detail.

But before entering upon that subject, one further difficulty with the entire section on Japan must be pointed out: although the articles include data on the study of Japanese in Japan by Japanese, and on the study of English and Chinese and Ainu in Japan by Japanese, and even on the study of the languages of Southeast Asia in Japan by Japanese, they do not include one single word about the study of Japanese outside of

Japan by anyone who is not Japanese (the only exception being Willem A. Grootaers's 'Dialectology', pp. 585- 607). For all the other articles, it is as if the West had

never happened; they have simply never heard of us. Where, in all these pages, are Sir George Sansom, Karl Florenz, and Otto Karow? Where are Ye. M. Kolpakii, Charles Haguenauer, Bruno Lewin, Giinther Wenck,1 Frits Vos, and Samuel E. Martin? And where, oh where, is Bernard Bloch2? This total omission of all scholarly work by non-Japanese is a most serious failing in all the sections of this volume dealing with the Japanese language; but it would probably be a mistake to leap to the conclusion that it has been motivated by considera- tions of chauvinism or nationalism. Probably nothing that fundamental or thorough-going has been at work here; the more likely explanation is sheer ignorance, on the part of the authors of these articles, that any such work even exists. When Tamura writes that 'the linguistic study of the Ainu language was started by Kifidaichi Kyosuke (born 1882) in 1906' (p. 608) he is probably not actually trying to conceal that in matter of fact the study of the Ainu language was begun by the Anglican missionary and bishop John Batchelor (1854- 1944); he is more probably simply ignorant about this fact, just as he is ignorant enough of things Western to think that 'O.B.E.' stands for the initials of Batchelor's middle names (see p. 627, where 'John O. B. E. Batchelor' is listed as the author of An Ainu-English-Japanese dictionary, fourth edition.. .1938 [sic]'). Whether the Japanese know it or not-and whether they like it or not-there have been, and continue to be important contributions made to Japanese language studies by persons who are not Japanese either in race, nationality, or native language. We know what they write; and if they persist in their ignorance of what we write, they harm

1 The answer is, Wenck and his Japanische Phonetik

(4 vols., Wiesbaden, 1954-59) are noted four different times in the course of the volume under review-but all four of these notices appear under 'China' (pp. 16, 55, 288, and 341), while there is not a hint in any of the articles on 'Japan' that this extremely important contribution to the scholarship of the Japanese language even exists. (Willem A. Grootaers's notice, on p. 597, of an account by Wenck of the activities of the Kokuritsu kokugo kenkyiujo, is a classical example of the 'exception that proves the rule'; and the index reference to p. 59 s.v. Wenck, p. 975, is a typographical error.) A word must be added in passing about 'Index of languages' (pp. 939- 950) and 'Index of Names' (pp. 951-979), which, in as far as I have been able to verify them vis-A-vis the contents of the volume, appear to be excellently and carefully done; they greatly enhance the reference value of the book.

2 1 recently was able to take the opportunity afforded by my 'Introduction' to Bernard Bloch on Japanese (New Haven, 1970) to explore in somewhat greater depth the ramifications of this particular lapsus; cf. ibid., pp. xxxiv-xli.

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Reviews of Books

nothing but their own scholarship, and no one but themselves. One is used to encountering this characteristic short-sightedness in Japanese work published in Japan, but it is surprising, and discouraging, to say the least, to find this clear evidence of it in what is, after all, supposed to be a work of international scholarly cooperation.

Or, one might somewhat more charitably reflect that, after all, the series in which this volume appears is entitled 'Current Trends in Linguistics'; and it would indeed be difficult to identify anything more 'current' or more a 'trend' in Japanese linguistics than this per- sistence in total ignorance of any and all work done on Japanese outside of Japan. In such severely literal terms, the authors of these articles might very well be held to have done elegant justice to the series title-though not, one suspects, in a way the editors originally had in mind.

Nor are the foreigners the only ones to be left out in the cold. There is a good deal of unpleasant evidence in these pages for the rather strict application of those sect, clique, and party lines that so very much distinguish modern Japanese academic life (the term is gakubatsu), with the result that a number of extremely important Japanese scholars here also find themselves relegated to the outer darkness, along with the foreigners; like us, they too become non-persons in these pages. And in this case (unlike the case with the non-Japanese), one must regretfully conclude that more than simple ignorance of the literature is operating. Where, for example, in these pages is there any mention of the pioneering work on the Altaic relationships of Japanese by Murayama Shichiro, a well-known scholar who has published widely on these problems not only in Japanese in Japan but also in Ger- man in a number of international periodicals? For the authors of these pages, he has never existed. The editors of this volume, and of the series in which it appears, should have considered it their duty to oversee the contents of their contributors' articles and to prevent this kind of calculated neglect of the important work of more than one leading Japanese scholar. One suspects that they were simply out of their depth and beyond their experience in dealing with the convoluted labyrinths of Japanese academia.

In particular, two of the articles in this volume under 'Japan' are so very inferior that they must be noted here in some detail. Tsukishima Hiroshi, 'Historical linguistics, including affiliations with other languages' (pp. 503-529) is by far the worst. To begin with its title-I have gone through the entire article carefully several times, and I cannot locate anything in its entire length that even mentions possible 'affiliations with other languages'. Nor does the article really deal with 'historical linguistics' either-what it does mainly deal with is rather the availability and study of earlier written records-and that (although this will be news to Pro- fessor Tsukishima) is something rather different from 'historical linguistics'.

Apart from the fact, then, that his article really never gets around to discussing either of the two things that his title promises, the chief problem with Tsukishima's contribution to this volume is the English in which it is written. Time after time, one is forced, in reading it, to attempt a reconstruction of the original Japanese underlying one unnatural English expression after another, simply in order to come close to understanding what the original probably meant. And when fragments of the Japanese original are given (as for example in book titles, here first romanized, then given in characters, then translated), one has occasion to see time and time again how badly Tsukishima has been served by the language in which he was forced to write. (I take the somewhat obscure two closing lines on p. 518 to mean that Tsukishima wrote his original in English, and that this was then revised by a native English speaker; but how ever it was done, it didn't work.)

A few specific examples, involving technical terms of Japanese linguistics (and where we can be sure what the meaning is supposed to be, because the Japanese original is also given), will demonstrate how serious the situation is. On p. 510, and again, on p. 521, jodai waon is said to mean 'the ancient Japanese language'. But waon is a specific technical term referring to a particular historical layer of Chinese loan morphs in Japanese, cf. Todo Akiyasu, Kanbun gaisetsu (4th ed., Tokyo, 1962), p. 270 ff; Miller, The Japanese language (Chicago, 1967), p. 104.3 On p. 509, and again on p. 519, onsetsu ketsugo is said to mean 'combination of phonemes'. On p. 519, kirishitan gengogaku is translated 'Christian linguistics' (!). On p. 510, and again on p. 521, nissho (i.e. Chinese ju-sheng) is said to mean 'implosive [t]'. Most bewilder- ing of all are the vicissitudes suffered in translation by the extremely common technical term of Japanese linguistics tokushu kanazukai, the rather cumbersome circumlocution which Japanese scholars still employ to refer to the 8-vowel system of Old Japanese. On p. 509 we find it rendered 'special usage of kana'; on p. 513, it becomes 'particular kana spellings', and this last is evidently a 'favorite rendering', since it appears again

8 As a matter of sorry fact, the student of Japanese language and Japanese linguistics who begins to wonder what waon really does mean is in for a hard time; it happens that the very article (Kamei Takashi, Kokugo to kokubungaku, April, 1943, pp. 25-43) to which Tsukishima has reference on p. 521, is also reprinted as 'Selection No. 6' in Joseph K. Yamagiwa and Hiroshi Tsukishima, eds., Readings in Japanese language and linguistics, Part I (Ann Arbor, 1965), pp. 93-112; but when he turns to the 'Annotations' for this article in ibid., Part II (Ann Arbor, 1965), pp. 158-195, he will find jodai waon rendered twice on p. 158, but differently each time, once as 'ancient Japanese', once as 'ancient Japanese pronunciation'.

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Journal of the American Oriental Society, 92.1 (1972)

on p. 520 and still again on p. 521. (Later, on p. 727, Yamada will come back to 'special kana usage'.) I submit that in rendering a technical term like tokushu kanazukai, one is left with only two choices-either translate literally (and correctly) the elements that make up the term, or else tell the reader what it really means- and I also submit that such equivalents as 'special usage of kana' and 'particular kana spellings' do neither of these two. The specialist, who will already have had considerable experience in figuring out this kind of thing, will here be able to figure this kind of thing out; but what about the poor student? Certainly he deserves either accurate word-for-word translations, or real explanations of what such terms mean (or both, ideally); but the haphazard way this problem has been approached in Tsukishima's article will only add to his problems.

Quite over and beyond these problems in rendering technical terms, almost every sentence of Tsukishima's article is in need of some grammatical or stylistic attention, one way or another. Time after time we come up against a sentence that at first glance appears grammatical, only to realize a moment later that it is all wrong. 'After the war, many concordances were published...' (p. 516)-no, he really means, 'since the war, many concordances have been published...'-and so it goes. Every reader will no doubt locate his own favorite non-sentence from among the rich materials provided by Tsukishima's article (and for $42, he should be entitled, as they say in New York); but my own personal favorite will probably always remain the following: 'Etymology is closely related to loanwords and the phonetic and

grammatical principles of the Japanese language' (p. 514). Well, you can't deny it, can you?

Tsukishima deals not at all with the genetic affiliations of Japanese, despite the promise of his title; at best, he deals only tangentially with the history of the language, as that term is now commonly understood among lin-

guists; and most tragically, what he does have to say on

any and all subjects has been so mangled in the course of

being put into English, either by the author himself or

by his 'revisor', as to render the results worse than

useless-worse, because they can only prove to be dan-

gerously misleading to the inexperienced student. In contrast with Tsukishima's contribution, Yamada

Toshio, 'The writing system: historical research and modern development' (pp. 693-731) is both interesting and important; it deals with its subject, concerning which the author is obviously well informed; and all this only makes one regret even more its frequent lapses from normal English, and its too literal reproduction of the grammar and syntax of the original Japanese text

underlying the version printed here. Its opening sentence is a good, i.e. bad, example: 'Although it is not possible to assert positively that historical research on the

Japanese characters and the Japanese system of writing has progressed markedly in the last twenty years as

compared with study in the previous period, it is nevertheless a fact that such research is entering a new phase' (p. 693). One wonders if the relationship between normal Japanese and the language of the kundoku of a classical Chinese text was not originally much the same as the relation obtaining between this kind of language and normal English. Again, not much attention has been paid to rendering technical linguistic terms, with results that can only infuriate the specialist and mislead the student. Thus, p. 720 has henjih6 rendered as 'choice of characters', but p. 721 has the same term, this time rendered as 'choice of character forms' (it means 'variation [as in 'elegant variation'] in character orthography'; for Old Japanese examples, cf. Ono Toru, Man'yogana no kenkya (Tokyo, 1962), pp. 201 ff.); yoon does not mean 'contracted sounds' (p. 723), it means syllables with medial -i-; and granted that ateji is rather a complicated thing to explain, to call it 'phonetic equivalents' (p. 724) can only mislead. Most surprising (and probably also most misleading) of all is the translation of toyo kanji as 'list of kanji for daily use' (pp. 713-4); t6oy in the phrase toyo kanji means '. . . to be used for the time being'; cf. Miller, The Japanese language, p. 135, and/or any Japanese dictionary. The Chinese dictionary title Shio-w6n chieh-tzii is written three times as Shu6 wen chiai tza (p. 708; pp. 708-709; p. 709); what style of Chinese romanization is this supposed to be? The data

presented in Yamada's article on the origins of the hiragana are complicated, once again, by unsatisfactory English ('The scribbling in the pagoda of the Daigoji

.' [p. 7071: what scribbling in the pagoda, one can

only ask, in despair), and in addition are not completely up to date; one misses a mention of the 905 document

reported in the Tokyo Mainichi shinbun on October 31, 1959 (cf. Miller, The Japanese language, p. 125, p. 367). There are several allusions in Yamada's article (and also in Tsukishima's, especially his pp. 507-508) to Hashi- moto Shinkichi's theory 'that the origin of the katakana 'wa' was pictorial . . . ' (p. 706). Yamada even goes to

the trouble of printing a picture of a ring (p. 507), but no one points out to the reader anywhere in either article

that the theory hinges on the fact that the Japanese word for a 'ring' or 'circle' is wa; in other words, Hashi- moto was suggesting that the katakana symbol for wa was in origin a rebus-writing based on Old Japanese Fa

'ring, circle'. The reader of Tsukishima's p. 508 will also have to know that it is the symbol for anusvara in the

variety of Indic script known to Buddhists in China and

Japan as siddhdrn that is being discussed there. Hattori

Shiro, in his contribution on 'Descriptive linguistics in

Japan' (pp. 530-584) mentions 'Siddham' several times on p. 538 ('On the other hand, Siddham had already been

introduced to Japan in the same Nara period . . . The lines and columns of "the fifty syllabary sounds" were

arranged in accordance with that [reference?] of the Siddham .... Parallel to study of Siddham, research

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Reviews of Books Reviews of Books

in Chinese phonology . . . has been conducted con-

tinuously throughout each period up to the Meiji era . . . ', etc.), without ever tipping off the reader as to what this 'Siddham' may be. What is the reader to make of all this? He will not even be able to find it in a Japanese dictionary, since nowhere is he told that the Japanese equivalent is shittan.

The editors of this volume are certainly to be con-

gratulated on having arranged for specific treatment of the various aspects and problems of script in Japan. Surely there is no other linguistic area in the entire world where the inter-relationships between script and

language are so complex and at the same time so critical. But the abilities of the authors to express themselves in

English have been severely taxed-right down to the

breaking point-by the very complexity of these problems, so that one wonders if anyone not already well

acquainted with the nature of the Japanese system of

writing will even be able to comprehend much of Yamada's article. Thanks to his indiscriminate use of the English word 'characters' throughout his essay, it is

hardly ever clear whether he is referring to kanji, or to

kana, or to both-and sometimes it is clear that rather than either of these alternatives, it is 'script' that is meant! And so an already difficult subject becomes even more difficult. Tsukishima's remarks about script are almost all obscure in the extreme; what, for example, would anyone who did not know the answer already make of the following definition of man'yogana: 'Chinese characters used phonetically on the basis of the Chinese

pronunciation of the character or the sound of the Japanese word which corresponded in meaning to the character' (p. 507)? Given the resources of the new Mouton Chinese and Japanese fonts, it would have been possible to present succinct, unambiguous statements showing precisely how the Japanese script has worked at various historical periods, and how it works today; but unfortunately none of the authors in this volume chose to capitalize on that opportunity.

Mineya Toru, 'Languages of South East Asia' (pp. 683-692) is something of a cut above most of the other articles appearing in this volume under 'Japan', though this is not to say that his manuscript too would not have benefited greatly from a thorough-going and com- petent editing. One is sure, for example, that he does not really mean to say that 'Izui . . . refuted the theory of Professor I. Dyen' (p. 684)-Izui simply published an article questioning Dyen's methodology. And for 'Asso- ciate Professor of Kyoto University', (p. 686), read of course 'Assistant Professor in Kyoto University'; Japanese universities have no rank of Associate Pro- fessor.

It is an ironic and almost tragic fate for that one country in Asia that has seen the greatest development of modern linguistics-Japan-to have come off this badly in an otherwise impressive and useful volume.

ROY ANDREW MILLER UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON

in Chinese phonology . . . has been conducted con-

tinuously throughout each period up to the Meiji era . . . ', etc.), without ever tipping off the reader as to what this 'Siddham' may be. What is the reader to make of all this? He will not even be able to find it in a Japanese dictionary, since nowhere is he told that the Japanese equivalent is shittan.

The editors of this volume are certainly to be con-

gratulated on having arranged for specific treatment of the various aspects and problems of script in Japan. Surely there is no other linguistic area in the entire world where the inter-relationships between script and

language are so complex and at the same time so critical. But the abilities of the authors to express themselves in

English have been severely taxed-right down to the

breaking point-by the very complexity of these problems, so that one wonders if anyone not already well

acquainted with the nature of the Japanese system of

writing will even be able to comprehend much of Yamada's article. Thanks to his indiscriminate use of the English word 'characters' throughout his essay, it is

hardly ever clear whether he is referring to kanji, or to

kana, or to both-and sometimes it is clear that rather than either of these alternatives, it is 'script' that is meant! And so an already difficult subject becomes even more difficult. Tsukishima's remarks about script are almost all obscure in the extreme; what, for example, would anyone who did not know the answer already make of the following definition of man'yogana: 'Chinese characters used phonetically on the basis of the Chinese

pronunciation of the character or the sound of the Japanese word which corresponded in meaning to the character' (p. 507)? Given the resources of the new Mouton Chinese and Japanese fonts, it would have been possible to present succinct, unambiguous statements showing precisely how the Japanese script has worked at various historical periods, and how it works today; but unfortunately none of the authors in this volume chose to capitalize on that opportunity.

Mineya Toru, 'Languages of South East Asia' (pp. 683-692) is something of a cut above most of the other articles appearing in this volume under 'Japan', though this is not to say that his manuscript too would not have benefited greatly from a thorough-going and com- petent editing. One is sure, for example, that he does not really mean to say that 'Izui . . . refuted the theory of Professor I. Dyen' (p. 684)-Izui simply published an article questioning Dyen's methodology. And for 'Asso- ciate Professor of Kyoto University', (p. 686), read of course 'Assistant Professor in Kyoto University'; Japanese universities have no rank of Associate Pro- fessor.

It is an ironic and almost tragic fate for that one country in Asia that has seen the greatest development of modern linguistics-Japan-to have come off this badly in an otherwise impressive and useful volume.

ROY ANDREW MILLER UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON

An Introduction to Classical Chinese. By RAYMOND DAWSON. Pp. vii + 127. Oxford: CLARENDON PRESS, 1968. $7.00, 50s.

This introductory textbook presents the essential

points of the grammar of the language of Chinese texts

composed in the second and third centuries B.C. The author assumes that his reader has had no previous experience with Chinese of any period and includes in his introductory material brief descriptions of Standard Mandarin pronunciation and of orthography along with a general outline of the similarities and differences in the grammars of Classical Chinese and English.

The approach is inductive. First five brief texts from the Mencius are introduced and provided with extensive

grammatical explanation. Then comes a "Grammatical

Survey" that reviews the points that have appeared in the texts so far, but which is organized around function word usage: "The Key Function Words," "Negatives," "Final Particles," "Interrogatives," "Auxiliary Verbs," and "Miscellaneous"-demonstratives, personal pro- nouns, and prepositions and postpositions. Finally, the remaining texts are presented and annotated: two pas- ages from the Mo-tzu, one from the Chuang-tzu, one from the Kuo-yii, and two from the Tso-chuan. There is an

appendix listing "Grammatical Usages Which Do Not Occur in the Text-Passages," and another appendix consisting of translations of the passages from Mencius. The book ends with a vocabulary arranged according to the radical-remainder system, giving Wade-Giles tran-

scriptions with tones, indication of the parts of speech based on those of the English glosses, and extensive reference to the notes where the words are discussed in the main part of the book. There is a list of the 214 radicals and a "List of Characters Having Obscure Radicals."

The texts introduced total about 3600 characters with a vocabulary of about 700. There is thus considerable repetition of vocabulary as well as of grammatical pat- terns and usages. The theoretical framework for the grammatical explanation is basically an English-Chinese transfer grammar, with some adjustment. For example, to account for such balky Chinese entities as shang4 'top' the author resorts to the non-English category "postposition," presumably because it would confuse the English-speaking student to have his notion of "noun" expanded to include these Chinese words and because obviously the term "preposition" is quite in- appropriate to the facts of Chinese syntax. One might question the advisability of leaving the student with the impression that Classical Chinese is a changed form of English; nevertheless one is also forced to admit that up to now there has emerged no generally accepted grammatical analysis of Classical Chinese on its own terms.

A particularly strong point for which we must be grateful is the author's clear distinction among those single-syllable words that "stand for" two-syllable

An Introduction to Classical Chinese. By RAYMOND DAWSON. Pp. vii + 127. Oxford: CLARENDON PRESS, 1968. $7.00, 50s.

This introductory textbook presents the essential

points of the grammar of the language of Chinese texts

composed in the second and third centuries B.C. The author assumes that his reader has had no previous experience with Chinese of any period and includes in his introductory material brief descriptions of Standard Mandarin pronunciation and of orthography along with a general outline of the similarities and differences in the grammars of Classical Chinese and English.

The approach is inductive. First five brief texts from the Mencius are introduced and provided with extensive

grammatical explanation. Then comes a "Grammatical

Survey" that reviews the points that have appeared in the texts so far, but which is organized around function word usage: "The Key Function Words," "Negatives," "Final Particles," "Interrogatives," "Auxiliary Verbs," and "Miscellaneous"-demonstratives, personal pro- nouns, and prepositions and postpositions. Finally, the remaining texts are presented and annotated: two pas- ages from the Mo-tzu, one from the Chuang-tzu, one from the Kuo-yii, and two from the Tso-chuan. There is an

appendix listing "Grammatical Usages Which Do Not Occur in the Text-Passages," and another appendix consisting of translations of the passages from Mencius. The book ends with a vocabulary arranged according to the radical-remainder system, giving Wade-Giles tran-

scriptions with tones, indication of the parts of speech based on those of the English glosses, and extensive reference to the notes where the words are discussed in the main part of the book. There is a list of the 214 radicals and a "List of Characters Having Obscure Radicals."

The texts introduced total about 3600 characters with a vocabulary of about 700. There is thus considerable repetition of vocabulary as well as of grammatical pat- terns and usages. The theoretical framework for the grammatical explanation is basically an English-Chinese transfer grammar, with some adjustment. For example, to account for such balky Chinese entities as shang4 'top' the author resorts to the non-English category "postposition," presumably because it would confuse the English-speaking student to have his notion of "noun" expanded to include these Chinese words and because obviously the term "preposition" is quite in- appropriate to the facts of Chinese syntax. One might question the advisability of leaving the student with the impression that Classical Chinese is a changed form of English; nevertheless one is also forced to admit that up to now there has emerged no generally accepted grammatical analysis of Classical Chinese on its own terms.

A particularly strong point for which we must be grateful is the author's clear distinction among those single-syllable words that "stand for" two-syllable

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linguistics in east asia and south east asiaby yuen ren chao; richard b. noss; joseph k. yamagiwa;...

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