Lexical Reconstruction: The Case of the Proto-Athapaskan Kinship System. Zsidore Dyen and David F. Aberle. New York & London: Cambridge University Press, 1974. xx + 498 pp., glossary, tables, rosters of kinship terms, works cited, indexes. $27.50 (cloth).

Lyle Campbell State University of New York, Albany

This book achieves its purpose, which is “to propose a method for the reconstruction of the kinship system of proto-languages and to exemplify the method by applying it to the Athapaskan languages” (p. 1) . Thus methodology is the central focus of the book.

Dyen and Aberle’s method of lexical reconstruction is concerned with which of a proto-language’s reconstructible morpheme sequences most probably had a particular meaning, given that the proto-language had that particular meaning (p. 7). Kinship terminology reconstructed by their method is a product of two bodies of data, their subgrouping of the languages involved and the table of cognates drawn from those languages (p. 10) . The subgrouping is achieved by comparative lexicostatistics. Probable proto-meanings are determined from inferences based o n innovations and retentions in the cognate sets (pp. 15-22). Two working assumptions in this connection are that the kinship cognates and lexi- costatistical calculations provided by Harry Hoijer are both correct (p. 2). (Hoijer’s contribution also includes a foreword, some new kinship cognates, and an evaluation of Aberle’s additions t o the Athapaskan data.)

With this method Dyen and Aberle recon- struct Proto-Athapaskan (PA) kinship as a type of classificatory system, a bifurcate- collateral or derivative bifurcate-merging system, and as an Iroquois system (Ch. 3). Aberle also presents techniques for pre- diccing other features of culture from kin- ship terminology based o n inferences from statistics and from experience and intuition. He examines associations of cousin and first ascending generation terms with rules of descent, residence, and marriage, finding that Omaha cousin terms predict only patri- lineality, Hawaiian bilaterality, and Iroquois unilineality or double unilineality (Ch. 4). This method suggests that PA probably had

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unilineal or double unilineal descent, non- neolocal and probably unilocal residence, cross-cousin marriage, (sororal) polygyny, levirate, sororate, and de fac to sister ex- change (Ch. 5).

Chapter 6, o n differentiation, presents two methods for reconstructing the terminology of the subgroups, one based upon the distribution of innovations and retentions, the other upon cluster analysis. In Chapters 7, 8, and 9 the Pacific, Apachean, and Canadian groups of Athapaskan are considered, and the recon- structions compared with available eth- nographic material. Chapter 10 surveys and evaluates previous reconstructions of PA and its branches wherein the major issue has been whether PA had Hawaiian or Iroquois cousin terms, and underlying that, whether bilateral o r unilineal descent. Chapter 11 , o n ethnological implications, explores among other things possible explanations of PA matrilineality, arguing that conditions in the PA homeland may in fact not have dis- couraged matrilineality as some have sup- posed.

As the contents indicate, the book is exciting in its exploitation of linguistics for these ethnographic interests. Its strong points are its explicit statement of methods, honest reporting of conflicts, e.g., differ- ences suggested by cluster analysis as op- posed to their method of subgrouping (p. 21 1 , etc.); different inferences suggested by the reconstructions as opposed to the eth- nographic record ; etc. Nevertheless, the con- troversial nature of some of their methods leaves the book open to criticism.

A potentially serious problem involves subgrouping. As they repeatedly emphasize, the reliability of the reconstruction is critically dependent upon the accuracy of the subgrouping; but their subgrouping is based o n lexicostatistical procedures which are highly controversial. This is puzzling, since Dyen (in Language, 1953) himself reintroduced to modern linguistics the method of subgrouping based o n shared innovations, the only accurate method. (And one should mention Hoijer’s 1956 critique of lexicostatistics.) Certainly the fact that Dyen and Aberle’s lexicostatistic subgroup- ing is significantly different from Hoijer’s (in Lingua, 1962) , based on the comparative method, and from their own based on cluster analysis, raises some questions. That

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their groupings seem to reflect geographical propinquity raises the question whether the percentage of shared lexical items may not reflect diffusion as well as genetic affinity. Much recent work in Athapaskan makes the prospects quite bright for an accurate sub- grouping based on shared innovations, if the several revisions in PA phonology (Krauss, International Journal of American Linguis- tics, 1964) and the new subgroupings, based in fact on shared innovations (Howren, Athapaskan Conference, 1970), are taken into account. Only when the difference between subgroupings based on lexico- statistics and on shared innovations are explained, will it be possible to place much faith in Dyen and Aberle’s lexical recon- structions.

In brief, this is an impressive and stimulating book; it will surely be con- troversial, and it will perhaps raise more questions than it answers, but then the questions are well worth raising.

The History and Development of Tag- memics. Viola G. Waterhouse. Janua Linguarum, Series Critica, 16. The Hague: Mouton, 1974. x + 150 pp., bibliography, index. Dfl24 (paper).

Paul R. Turner University of Arizona

The author is well qualified to write about tagmemics, since she wrote the first full scale grammar using this approach. The model was originated by Kenneth L. Pike for the study of verbal and nonverbal behavior. The basic unit of grammatical analysis is the tagmeme, which Waterhouse describes as the correlation of a specific grammatical func- tion with the class of items which performs that function.

The book contains an extensive bibliog- raphy of articles and monographs written by fieldworkers of the Summer Institute of Linguistics who have used this approach in doing research in over 500 of the world’s languages. Most of the descriptions that have been published, though, deal with the verbal (linguistic) behavior of people who speak “exotic” languages. Less than a dozen bibliographic entries deal with nonverbal behavior. And, working against the popular- ity of this model with nonmembers of the Summer Institute of Linguistics is the com- plete absence of any entry that represents a lengthy attempt to apply this approach to the English language.

The title of the book is descriptive of its contents but the book is short on history (16 pages) and long on development (80 pages). The chapter relating tagmemics to other models-transformational, stratifica- tion, and case grammar is exasperatingly brief (3 pages) and free of controversy.

This book should be of interest to anyone who studies linguistic behavior, since the model it describes has stood the test of time (20 years) and is the most widely used approach among field workers today. The book should also be of interest to those who study nonlinguistic behavior for its yet-to- be-fulfilled goal of uniting verbal and non- verbal behavior in a unified theory.

Studies in the History of Linguistics: Traditions and Paradigms. Dell Hymes, ed. Indiana University Studies in the History and Theory of Linguistics. Bloomington & London: Indiana University Press, 1974. viii + 519 pp., chapter notes, chapter references. $17.50 (cloth).

Susan U. Philips University of Arizona

When Thomas Kuhn’s The Structure o f Scientific Revolutions was published in 1962, his ideas about how scientific dis- ciplines change or progress were taken up with enthusiasm by many linguists. Some of them believed that Chomsky’s Syntactic Structures had, in Kuhn’s terms, initiated a bonafide “scientific revolution” with a full- blown “paradigm” that attracted young linguists in a manner destined to eclipse competing approaches. With the passage of time this view has been altered, so that few would question the ties that transforma- tional generative linguistics has to its past, and many are engaged in challenging each new version of the generative paradigm itself.

Meanwhile the interest in interpreting the past of linguistics in ways that shed light on its present condition continues. Possibly the youthfulness of linguistics as an autonomous discipline encourages the delineation of a structured past. I don’t know. At any rate, Kuhn’s model continues to be used in this endeavor. And it is used well in this new book edited by Dell Hymes.

Hymes’ skills as an editor should by now be well known to anthropologists. He has elevated our standards for editing through his effective organization and synthesis of collections of papers. And he does not let us down in his treatment of this new collection.