English Consonant Clusters by Peter SandersonReview by: Vera AdamsonThe Modern Language Review, Vol. 63, No. 3 (Jul., 1968), pp. 667-668Published by: Modern Humanities Research AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3722212 .

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Reviews 667

and points out the dangers that can result from over-simplifying a complex theme. The paper on 'Sprachphilosophische Probleme bei Bacon' is older than the other

pieces in this volume (it was published in I926), and it is also longer, more fundamental, and more of an independent study. In spite of the censure on Bacon's limitations that Professor Funke makes in his closing paragraphs, his study leaves the reader with an enhanced admiration for Bacon's grasp of matters of fundamental importance in linguistics: among other things, he touches on language as a system of signs, phonetics, together with the principle of dependent sound-changes, intonation, the shift from synthesis to analysis in the development of European languages, and the limitations imposed on man by his language ('Credunt enim homines rationem suam verbis imperare; sed fit etiam, ut verba vim suam super intellectum retorqueant et reflectant'). Bacon also challenges several linguistic fashions of his day: he questions the value of etymologizing, comdemns the application of quantitative metre to modern languages because it is against the structure of the languages, and rejects the principle of phonetical spelling with arguments that are still valid against the spelling-reformers of today ('Nam et ipsa pronunciatio quotidie gliscit, nec constans est; et derivationes verborum, praesertim ex linguis extraneis, prorsus obscurantur').

The last four papers in this volume are all concerned in different ways to vindicate the place of semantics in language-studies, and either openly or by implication to criticize the structuralist position. The article 'On Some Synchronic Problems of Semantics' is perhaps the least satisfactory piece, especially in its interpretation of Saussure's distinction between langue and parole (here translated 'language' and 'speech'). Although unexceptionable definitions of langue are quoted, one begins at times to get the impression that Funke's 'language' means not Saussure's langue but simply 'a dictionary'. This appears in phrases like 'isolated words, i.e. words in "language"' (p. 87, also p. I20), and the whole argument seems to rest on the questionable assumption that words can be regarded as having an existence in isolation apart from any system of linguistic usage. The essays entitled 'On the System of Grammar' and 'On What Principles are Word-classes to be Defined ?' are more persuasive: each gives a concise summary of the history of the relevant aspect of linguistics, and discusses recent developments in the light of this history. We are reminded that descriptive linguistics is by no means a new fashion; on the contrary, it was the only kind of language-study that existed until the rise of historical and comparative linguistics in the nineteenth century; semantic considerations have generally figured prominently in language-studies in the past, and the structuralist claim to ignore 'meaning' is in the author's opinion illusory.

Professor Funke clearly takes his place as a successor of the great European lingu- ists from Priscian to Saussure, and especially of grammarians of the English language like Jespersen, Kruisinga, and Poutsma, and he shows that, in spite of the present American initiative in linguistics, this older tradition is still fruitful and of fundamental importance.. . FRANKI

P. J. FRANKIS NEWCASTLE UPON TYNE

English Consonant Clusters. By PETER SANDERSON. Oxford: Pergamon Press. 1966. x + 98 pp. 8s. 6d.

Mr Sanderson, the General Editor of the Pergamon Oxford English Series for Overseas Students, makes no pretensions to scholarship in this little book on English consonants (as indeed the list of fifteen errata in the text bears out). His preface says: 'It is written as among the first of a new trend for simple, practical books for classroom practitioners, not resembling too much a linguistic treatise with

Reviews 667

and points out the dangers that can result from over-simplifying a complex theme. The paper on 'Sprachphilosophische Probleme bei Bacon' is older than the other

pieces in this volume (it was published in I926), and it is also longer, more fundamental, and more of an independent study. In spite of the censure on Bacon's limitations that Professor Funke makes in his closing paragraphs, his study leaves the reader with an enhanced admiration for Bacon's grasp of matters of fundamental importance in linguistics: among other things, he touches on language as a system of signs, phonetics, together with the principle of dependent sound-changes, intonation, the shift from synthesis to analysis in the development of European languages, and the limitations imposed on man by his language ('Credunt enim homines rationem suam verbis imperare; sed fit etiam, ut verba vim suam super intellectum retorqueant et reflectant'). Bacon also challenges several linguistic fashions of his day: he questions the value of etymologizing, comdemns the application of quantitative metre to modern languages because it is against the structure of the languages, and rejects the principle of phonetical spelling with arguments that are still valid against the spelling-reformers of today ('Nam et ipsa pronunciatio quotidie gliscit, nec constans est; et derivationes verborum, praesertim ex linguis extraneis, prorsus obscurantur').

The last four papers in this volume are all concerned in different ways to vindicate the place of semantics in language-studies, and either openly or by implication to criticize the structuralist position. The article 'On Some Synchronic Problems of Semantics' is perhaps the least satisfactory piece, especially in its interpretation of Saussure's distinction between langue and parole (here translated 'language' and 'speech'). Although unexceptionable definitions of langue are quoted, one begins at times to get the impression that Funke's 'language' means not Saussure's langue but simply 'a dictionary'. This appears in phrases like 'isolated words, i.e. words in "language"' (p. 87, also p. I20), and the whole argument seems to rest on the questionable assumption that words can be regarded as having an existence in isolation apart from any system of linguistic usage. The essays entitled 'On the System of Grammar' and 'On What Principles are Word-classes to be Defined ?' are more persuasive: each gives a concise summary of the history of the relevant aspect of linguistics, and discusses recent developments in the light of this history. We are reminded that descriptive linguistics is by no means a new fashion; on the contrary, it was the only kind of language-study that existed until the rise of historical and comparative linguistics in the nineteenth century; semantic considerations have generally figured prominently in language-studies in the past, and the structuralist claim to ignore 'meaning' is in the author's opinion illusory.

Professor Funke clearly takes his place as a successor of the great European lingu- ists from Priscian to Saussure, and especially of grammarians of the English language like Jespersen, Kruisinga, and Poutsma, and he shows that, in spite of the present American initiative in linguistics, this older tradition is still fruitful and of fundamental importance.. . FRANKI

P. J. FRANKIS NEWCASTLE UPON TYNE

English Consonant Clusters. By PETER SANDERSON. Oxford: Pergamon Press. 1966. x + 98 pp. 8s. 6d.

Mr Sanderson, the General Editor of the Pergamon Oxford English Series for Overseas Students, makes no pretensions to scholarship in this little book on English consonants (as indeed the list of fifteen errata in the text bears out). His preface says: 'It is written as among the first of a new trend for simple, practical books for classroom practitioners, not resembling too much a linguistic treatise with

This content downloaded from 46.243.173.98 on Sat, 28 Jun 2014 16:02:19 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

668 Reviews

a large number of technical terms.' By 'practitioner' he means both teacher and taught; by 'teacher', one who may know a very little of phonetics or linguistics, and by 'taught', either the second or third language learner, the very young or the speech handicapped native English speaker. His treatment, therefore, though based on the authority of the English and American sages, Firth, Daniel Jones, Bloomfield, and Fries, is free from any pedantry: 'Let us not worry too much about the phoneme as a unit of meaning. The whole utterance in context is the meaningful effect.' The teacher's target should be 'international intelligibility with one of the central speech fashions in mind. Regional accents, e.g. American, Indian, Australian are acceptable, cleansed of all sub-provincial or parochial items.'

This is more of a manual than a textbook, and the technical information it contains is presented in simple lists and tables, e.g. a useful contrastive table of British and American phonetic alphabets; three chapters listing, severally, internal consonant clusters, e.g. / r, tS. t / in 'lunched', weak consonants / rj, r, w, j, h / as elements in clusters, and clusters across word juncture / r t I g r / in 'munched greedily'. It is really a source book for the teacher or 'a sort of dictionary directly usable in class', but it is, intentionally, not exhaustive: from the hundreds of possible English consonant clusters, Mr Sanderson has selected only those which will cause difficulty to the speaker, native or foreign. Vowels he does not discuss, as consonants are 'more important for clarity, comprehension and recollection'.

As a simplified and sensible application of phonetic information in a language learning context this little book is to be welcomed. It is a symptom of the new linguistic look which is being given to English Language studies at home by the pressure of English Language studies overseas, as English reinforces its status as the world's major language of communication.

VERA ADAMSON BIRMINGHAM

A Short History of Literary English. By W. F. BOLTON. London: Arnold. I967. x + 86 pp. 15s. (paperbound 7s. 6d.)

Professor Bolton's survey is precisely what its title implies - a compact account concerned with the high-road of development that leads to our modern literary language. This development is traced with due regard to political and cultural conditions. The story is not cluttered up with exceptions or a plethora of exhibits, but illustrated by a few apt examples treated in detail. The author has a flair for striking quotations such as Ben Jonson's remark about the ambitious who will not 'perceive the traine, till in the ingine, they are caught and slaine'. What could more startlingly exemplify the traps older usage can lay for the unwary, and the necessity of knowing the date of what we discuss ? It is surprising to find train and engine together in a phrase that would make sense now as well as then; it is also noteworthy that people who now pronounce it 'ingine' would be unlikely to say perceive here or anywhere else.

The book is divided into two parts: one presents the internal history of the language through quotations from Beowulf or AElfric, the Gawain-poet or Chaucer; the second deals with external history- the comments of critics and grammarians that display changing attitudes to our structures and lexis. Professor Bolton gives a selected general reading list, and suggestions for further study after each chapter. He adds a useful glossary of the technical terms a student will meet in more advanced linguistic writings (though not in this book). For examples to make these terms clear, a better specimen of an 'infix' than thepro of reproduce ought to be found, for surely this compound is produce prefixed by re-, not reduce divided by pro.

668 Reviews

a large number of technical terms.' By 'practitioner' he means both teacher and taught; by 'teacher', one who may know a very little of phonetics or linguistics, and by 'taught', either the second or third language learner, the very young or the speech handicapped native English speaker. His treatment, therefore, though based on the authority of the English and American sages, Firth, Daniel Jones, Bloomfield, and Fries, is free from any pedantry: 'Let us not worry too much about the phoneme as a unit of meaning. The whole utterance in context is the meaningful effect.' The teacher's target should be 'international intelligibility with one of the central speech fashions in mind. Regional accents, e.g. American, Indian, Australian are acceptable, cleansed of all sub-provincial or parochial items.'

This is more of a manual than a textbook, and the technical information it contains is presented in simple lists and tables, e.g. a useful contrastive table of British and American phonetic alphabets; three chapters listing, severally, internal consonant clusters, e.g. / r, tS. t / in 'lunched', weak consonants / rj, r, w, j, h / as elements in clusters, and clusters across word juncture / r t I g r / in 'munched greedily'. It is really a source book for the teacher or 'a sort of dictionary directly usable in class', but it is, intentionally, not exhaustive: from the hundreds of possible English consonant clusters, Mr Sanderson has selected only those which will cause difficulty to the speaker, native or foreign. Vowels he does not discuss, as consonants are 'more important for clarity, comprehension and recollection'.

As a simplified and sensible application of phonetic information in a language learning context this little book is to be welcomed. It is a symptom of the new linguistic look which is being given to English Language studies at home by the pressure of English Language studies overseas, as English reinforces its status as the world's major language of communication.

VERA ADAMSON BIRMINGHAM

A Short History of Literary English. By W. F. BOLTON. London: Arnold. I967. x + 86 pp. 15s. (paperbound 7s. 6d.)

Professor Bolton's survey is precisely what its title implies - a compact account concerned with the high-road of development that leads to our modern literary language. This development is traced with due regard to political and cultural conditions. The story is not cluttered up with exceptions or a plethora of exhibits, but illustrated by a few apt examples treated in detail. The author has a flair for striking quotations such as Ben Jonson's remark about the ambitious who will not 'perceive the traine, till in the ingine, they are caught and slaine'. What could more startlingly exemplify the traps older usage can lay for the unwary, and the necessity of knowing the date of what we discuss ? It is surprising to find train and engine together in a phrase that would make sense now as well as then; it is also noteworthy that people who now pronounce it 'ingine' would be unlikely to say perceive here or anywhere else.

The book is divided into two parts: one presents the internal history of the language through quotations from Beowulf or AElfric, the Gawain-poet or Chaucer; the second deals with external history- the comments of critics and grammarians that display changing attitudes to our structures and lexis. Professor Bolton gives a selected general reading list, and suggestions for further study after each chapter. He adds a useful glossary of the technical terms a student will meet in more advanced linguistic writings (though not in this book). For examples to make these terms clear, a better specimen of an 'infix' than thepro of reproduce ought to be found, for surely this compound is produce prefixed by re-, not reduce divided by pro.

This content downloaded from 46.243.173.98 on Sat, 28 Jun 2014 16:02:19 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions