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p. 32, 2nd half. There are more errors in the Lithuanian part—not only typographical errors, for example: Aurelia (= Aurelija) p. 16, line 10, n. 6; busimasis (= būsimasis) p. 25, line 8; lekti (= lėkti) p. 31, line 8; pusti, putė (= pūsti, pūtė), žadžia (= žaidžia) p. 31, line 13; baigiai (= baigei) p. 34, 6th half; the works of Lithuanian accentologists cited in n. 27 on p. 34 are not included in the bibliography; mokė-tė-ės ir mokė-me-ės (p. 35, 2nd and 3rd halves) should be transposed; tečiu (= tečiu) p. 58, 12th half; biški (= biški ‘a little’) p. 92, 3rd half; it is not true that the form šokinti does not exist in Lithuanian (p. 103, n. 64); krenta (= krinta) p. 115, line 15 (the mother-tongue form krenta is not the standard-language form); MFTYTI (= MĖTYTI) p. 117, line 1; {tevelis} (= tėvelis) p. 133, 13th half; tetis (= tetis {tėtis}) p. 134, lines 10 and 13. The errors listed here ‘disappear’ among the many impeccably presented examples and do not leap out at the reader. The Lithuanian summary is less satisfactory—its language, style, and punctuation need considerable editing. It is regrettable that many errors in the Lithuanian text have been carried over from the dissertation. This suggests that the preparation of the monograph was rushed. Perhaps haste also explains the dissertation that slipped into the book’s text in place of monograph, for example, ‘In this dissertation, I shall refer to problems of accentuation’ (p. 34, n. 27).

In concluding this review, I would like to say that despite the shortcomings and errors noted, P. Wójcik’s monograph is a substantial work that has broadened the horizons of Lithuanian studies through its research on child language. The book under review and the articles would not have appeared without the efforts of many people: the audio recordings were made and transcribed by Rūta’s mother, Lithuanianist Aurelija Kaškelevičienė (this work was supported in part by the Austrian Academy of Sciences—a grant secured through Prof. W. U. Dressler; also by the Open Society Fund of Lithuania, which purchased a computer, a tape recorder, and cassettes); the data were coded and analyzed, naturally, by P. Wójcik, advised and supported in every way by the renowned psycholinguist Prof. M. Smoczyńska, on whose initiative research into Lithuanian child language began; the dissertation was supervised and its defense guided by the Balticist Prof. Axel Holvoet. The author himself (p. 7) aptly acknowledges the assistance of these and other people, but the central figure in this new branch of Lithuanian linguistics is the author himself, a professionally trained psycholinguist and Lithuanianist who, I have no doubt, will continue his successful research in Lithuanian studies.

Bonifacas Stundžia Baltistikos ir bendrosios kalbotyros katedra Vilniaus universitetas Universiteto g. 5, 2734 Vilnius, Lietuva [email protected]

Received 2001 08 17

PIETRO U. DINI, Baltic Languages: A Comparative History.

Vilnius: Mokslo ir enciklopedijų leidybos institutas, 2000, 540 p.

Pietro U. Dini’s introduction to Baltic philology, Le lingue baltiche, has already received many positive reviews in the linguistic press. The translations into Lithuanian and Latvian testify not only that it fills a gap in Baltic studies literature, but also to the book’s own merits. The special editor of the book, Bonifacas Stundžia, has made considerable efforts to ensure that the Lithuanian edition retains all these qualities of the original. His meticulous work made it possible to avoid many-

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terminological and factual inaccuracies that could easily have crept in during translation. There seems little need to review the Lithuanian edition separately, since Giedrius Subačius has already reviewed the Italian original in this journal (vol. 39, 1998, 253–257). Nevertheless, the translation’s publication in Lithuania is an important and welcome event, and there are other reasons to mention it: the original will probably remain a bibliographical rarity in Lithuania, whereas the Lithuanian edition will undoubtedly take an honored place alongside the Italian one, especially since it has been revised and substantially expanded (as stated in the preface to the Lithuanian edition).

Among the factors that determine the value of the book under review, particular emphasis should be placed on the fact that the author is equally a linguist and a philologist. In discussing the substance of the debate about de Saussure’s law, he feels just as much at ease as when describing Renaissance authors’ reflections on the Baltic peoples and languages and their origins (“paleocomparativism” in the Baltic area is one of the author’s favorite fields of research). The balance between linguistic and philological perspectives—especially noteworthy in an age of growing specialization—makes Dini’s book a truly exemplary introduction to Baltic studies.

The book discusses Baltic prehistory, the main features of comparative Baltic linguistics, language contact and areal aspects, the development of Lithuanian and Latvian and its historical and cultural context, and describes the sparse data that have survived to the present day about Prussian and other extinct Baltic languages and dialects. At the end, we find sample texts in Baltic languages from various periods, with commentary, as well as an exceptionally detailed bibliography. The material is arranged somewhat unevenly and asymmetrically, but this is dictated by its nature: the development of Lithuanian and Latvian is surveyed from prehistory to the present, so information about these languages is scattered across several chapters; the author successively reveals the distinct historical layers of language structure. Prussian, attested in only a few short texts, could not be described in the same way, and so all the data on this language have been gathered in a single chapter, which also provides a very good overview of the philological issues involved in its reconstruction. This review gives a very incomplete account of the book’s contents; without exaggeration, one can say that there is no area of Baltic studies that the author has not presented to the reader, at least in broad outline. The author’s meticulousness and wide scholarly horizons are evident both from the extensive bibliography and from the contents of the book.

Dini’s book is well written and carefully edited, and even a very exacting reviewer would find little material for a long list of errors. Forms from various languages are generally cited impeccably. The fact that Latvian examples are presented somewhat less well than those from other languages reflects the average standard of publications in Baltic linguistics. Given the large number of diacritics used to write Latvian words, the statistical probability that all, or at least most, Latvian forms in a linguistic publication printed outside Latvia will be correct can be considered zero. It is therefore no surprise to find such inaccuracies as varš instead of varš/varš (p. 119), pērkuns instead of pērkūns (p. 119), māsīnam instead of māsīnam saucamies (p. 137), ķiselis instead of ķiselis (p. 181), nākt priekš instead of nākt priekšā (p. 338). It should be emphasized that there are very few such cases.

The transcription [z’in’a] (instead of [ziņa]), given alongside the Latvian word ziņa (p. 92), is somewhat more surprising. Readers should be told that the phonological systems of Lithuanian and Latvian differ; that Latvian has no assimilatory palatalization before front vowels; and that the consonant denoted by the letter <ņ> is not a palatalized dental-alveolar consonant, but a palatal consonant (i.e., palatal articulation is not secondary but primary). Since there are no hard and soft

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The transcription [ʃ’uːt] of the word šūt (p. 83), which fails to represent the opposition between alveolar consonants, is unmotivated and probably merely reflects the transcription of its Lithuanian counterpart siūti: in languages that lack a palatalization correlation, sibilants are usually alveolar-palatal by default. The Latvian word blāurs is likewise transcribed according to the rules of Lithuanian pronunciation, as [bl’eurs] (p. 80). The author’s principle of giving Lithuanian forms with accent marks but Latvian forms without them seems debatable: the form būt, presented alongside Lithuanian būti, creates the impression that only Lithuanian distinguishes accents. On the other hand, it must be acknowledged that Latvian forms marked for accentuation depart considerably from the familiar appearance of printed words, and this may be disconcerting to readers unaccustomed to scholarly orthography.

The author presents contentious problems in comparative Baltic linguistics concisely but with sufficient detail (given the limitations of space), deftly bringing out the essence of each issue and consistently surveying the conflicting views of researchers with equal objectivity. The most recent literature is taken into account, so readers are undoubtedly provided with an up-to-date overview of Baltic studies. One may always regret that another theory was not surveyed or another researcher’s view was not considered, but deliberately searching for such gaps or shortcomings would be fruitless. We shall mention only a few instances where, in our opinion, the views presented by the author might somewhat mislead the reader.

The phenomena of palatalization are not discussed entirely convincingly in the book (pp. 83–84). By the way, we note the absence from the bibliography of Čekmon’s article ‘O jotacii v praslavjanskom i baltijskix jazykax’, Baltistica 11(1), 1975, 63–76, which clarifies the concepts of palatality and the palatalization correlation. Citing Kurylowicz, the author writes that “different soft-consonant phonemes first developed, and were later neutralized before front vowels; this neutralization led to the disappearance of *j.” In illustrating the manifestations of palatalization, the examples Lithuanian sj > s’ (siūti) and Latvian sj > š (šūt) are presented in parallel. Kurylowicz, however, posited a palatalization correlation before back vowels in Proto-Baltic; it was neutralized before front vowels, where unmarked hard consonants were generalized. This is evidenced by the disappearance of j between a consonant and a front vowel in Proto-Baltic (cf. kėdė: kedžių, verti: verčiu), which indicates the functional merger of C’V and CjV and is the principal argument for the existence of a palatalization correlation in Proto-Baltic. Phonologically, the Lithuanian consonant system remains close to the proto-language system, although hard consonants in the neutralization position (before front vowels) were largely replaced by soft consonants, most likely under Slavic influence. The abundance of consonant changes conditioned by jotation (sj, zj > š, ž, pj bj > p’, b’) in Latvian reflects the loss of the palatalization correlation: secondary palatal articulation replaced the palatalization correlation, bringing about various shifts in place of articulation (e.g., dental-alveolar articulation shifted to palatal, which could in turn shift further; cf. the process k’, g’ > c, dz, probably with some intermediate palatal consonants). The twofold meaning of the term ‘palatalization’ has misled more than one researcher.

It is true that “the instrumental that does not coincide with the dative (more precisely: with the dative or accusative – A. H.) is attested in Latvian only sporadically” (p. 319), but in the example from the older language cited by the author, Dewe beernes tapt ‘to become children of God’, the case used is certainly not the instrumental (with the ending -is < *-ais) but the accusative. This is shown by the corresponding passages in the translations by Glüx and Elger (teem dewe wiṇtch Waļļas Deewa Behrnus tapt Glüx, Jn 1,12; Bet cek to vȥieme, dewwe tems walliu Dewa bērnus tapt Elger, Evangelijos ir Epistolos 6r25): the entire construction is erroneous, alien to Latvian, and arose through copying the Latin accusativus cum infinitivo (dedit eis

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potestatem filios Dei fieri). The correct Latvian construction posed difficulties for the German authors, so they chose the case according to the German construction Gottes Kinder zu werden. Since the case in such a phrase was difficult to determine because of syncretism among case forms, Latin imposed its grammatical interpretation. The mistaken assumption that the instrumental should be used in this construction stems from mechanically applying the rules of Lithuanian grammar to Latvian. In fact, the Lithuanian instrumental here is an innovation (it seems, more generally, that the use of the predicative instrumental in Lithuanian has expanded considerably in comparison with Proto-Baltic), whereas Latvian preserves the dative, characteristic of Baltic and Slavic languages, to mark the subject (expressed or unexpressed) of an infinitival clause and its nominal predicate (cf. Old Church Slavonic Dastb imъ oblastь čedotь božijemь [dat. pl.!] ‘to be’). In the modern Latvian construction Dieva bērniem ‘to become’, the form bērniem is a genuine dative, not an instrumental coinciding with the dative, since the nominal predicate of an infinitival clause may be expressed not only by the plural dative but also by the singular dative (tapt Dieva bērnam), while the singular instrumental does not coincide with the dative.

Probably through an oversight, the construction exan hellēs ‘in hell’ is given as an example of the old Latvian illative, while tan tresschan Deenan ‘on the third day’ and cenan turret ‘to hold in glory’ are given as examples of the locative (p. 320).

The examples illustrating the influence of foreign languages and of the social and cultural context on the vocabulary of the Baltic languages are very well chosen; the author could be faulted for only a few inaccuracies. For instance, the formation of the Latvian word plātēzeris ‘boaster’ (p. 360) is not clear without mentioning its specific source, the word pletēzeris (plettiser, Plätteisen) ‘iron’, alongside which the mocking form plātēzeris was created through sound association (plātities ‘to boast’); it is hardly possible to speak here of a derivational element -izeris, derived from Middle Low German iser ‘iron’. The emergence of Latvian adjectives such as sniegbalts ‘snow-white’ (p. 370) was, of course, encouraged not by Russian (where this type does not exist at all), but by German (schneeweiß, etc.), and not in the Soviet period but much earlier, in the works of nineteenth-century authors (Endzelīns tried to combat this phenomenon even before the war). Latvian borrowed the Russian word pud twice, in different periods: the Lithuanian pūdas and Estonian puud words, as “parallel loans,” would correspond chronologically to the older Latvian form puōds, not the newer puds (p. 394).

The translator has undoubtedly done a very good job on a difficult task, and critical comments could be made about only a few passages. The use of the term “modality” in sentences such as “this modality [referring to the indirect mood – A. H.] is expressed through the use of active participle forms...” and “the debitive is traditionally considered a modality” (pp. 331–332) is, for example, unsatisfactory. One can speak of moods or of forms with a modal function, but the term “modality” (modality, Modalität, модальность, etc.) covers the entire sphere of modal meanings, and so sounds unusual when used to denote specific forms. The English term evidential is used to describe forms by which a speaker can or must indicate what data or evidence (English evidence) they rely on in saying something (e.g., whether they saw it themselves or heard it, and so on); the translation “evidential mood” (p. 330) seems not entirely appropriate, since such a mood would presumably denote only what is evident (evident). The French phrase tout court means not ‘quite quickly’ (p. 250), but ‘simply, in a word, without qualification’.

One should always be pleased when a scholar, instead of limiting themselves to original research—which may bring greater fame, if not that, then at least greater intellectual satisfaction—devotes time and effort to writing a synthesis of their field, since it can always become the target of cheap criticism. Pietro

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U. Dini has undoubtedly put a great deal of heart into his Baltic languages, thus giving the reader not merely a dry inventory of facts, but a lively and engaging book. Let us thank Pietro U. Dini for an excellent job and editor Bonifaciu Stundžia for his efforts in making it accessible to readers in Lithuania.

Axel Holvoet

Received 2001 08 24

Institute of the Lithuanian Language, Antakalnio St. 6, 2055 Vilnius, Lithuania [email protected]