Napoli, Donna Jo

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Swarthmore College Works Linguistics Faculty Works Linguistics 9-1-1989 Review Of "Ins And Outs Of The Predication" By J. Van Der Auwera And L. Goossens Donna Jo Napoli Swarthmore College, dnapoli1@swarthmore.edu This work is brought to you for free and open access by . It has been accepted for inclusion in Linguistics Faculty Works by an authorized administrator of Works. For more information, please contact myworks@swarthmore.edu. Follow this and additional works at: https://works.swarthmore.edu/fac-linguistics  Part of the Linguistics Commons Let us know how access to these works benefits you  Recommended Citation Donna Jo Napoli. (1989). "Review Of "Ins And Outs Of The Predication" By J. Van Der Auwera And L. Goossens". Language. Volume 65, Issue 3. 680-681. DOI: 10.2307/415271 https://works.swarthmore.edu/fac-linguistics/138   Linguistic Society of America is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Language.http://www.jstor.orgLinguistic Society of AmericaReview Author(s): Donna Jo Napoli Review by: Donna Jo Napoli Source:   Language, Vol. 65, No. 3 (Sep., 1989), pp. 680-681Published by:  Linguistic Society of AmericaStable URL:  http://www.jstor.org/stable/415271Accessed: 21-07-2015 13:41 UTCYour 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.jspJSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.This content downloaded from 130.58.65.20 on Tue, 21 Jul 2015 13:41:49 UTCAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and ConditionsLANGUAGE, VOLUME 65, NUMBER 3 (1989) marketing interaction as necessarily being a two-way street. Some of the papers report the results of quan- titative studies; for example, RUSSELL BELK in- vestigates the degree to which various objects are seen as 'self' or 'non-self', and then reports the correlation of certain findings with such things as 'frequency of washing/waxing the car' or 'frequency of showering/bathing'. Others are qualitative in nature, identifying underlying themes or messages, e.g. ELIZABETH IRSCH- MAN'S analysis of the myths underlying seven popular motion pictures. MORRIS HOLBROOK ex- plicitly addresses this difference in methodo- logical perspective. Holbrook contrasts the SEMIOTIC with the SEMIOLOGICAL, the former being an American tradition and the latter a Eu- ropean tradition. Semiotics is more clearly quantitative than semiology, which 'essentially involves interpretation or hermeneutics rather than statistics or experimentation' (102). Hol- brook argues that, insofar as consumer esthetics is concerned, traditional quantitative content- analytical techniques may miss the main point: 'a close reading of the text must replace shallow quantification' (105). JOHN SHERRY presents a similar argument with respect to advertising by illustrating what each approach contributes. Many of the book's most memorable ideas result from this type of 'close reading'. Eliza- beth Hirschman's analysis of motion pictures was mentioned above. ROBERT PASSIKOFF & REBECCA HOLMAN apply a similar approach to television programs portraying the family, pro- viding an archetype for what constitutes a fam- ily and which places in the home are designated for which family members (mother-kitchen, father-den, etc.). Their analysis extends to television commercials, which include the tele- vision viewer either as a type of 'voyeur' or as the family Mother or Child to the commercial's Announcer-Father (387). DEAN MACCANNELL'S argument that 'sex sells by modeling desire' in that 'one does not desire what one already pos- sesses' provides a coherent explanation for the otherwise puzzling appeal of the Jolly Green Giant. MARIAN FLICK discusses the continued exploitation of women in advertising, with par- ticular reference to the Virginia Slims slogan 'you've come a long way, baby'. By contrast, DENNIS ROOK notes that the marketing of bur- glar-alarm systems, as evidenced by the content of the warning stickers placed on peoples' homes ('modern hex signs'), is entirely product- oriented rather than market-oriented. The book also contains papers that explain why jade trad- ers wear dark glasses (Thomas Sebeok), the pragmatics of Japanese-American egotiations (DON MCCREARY), and why fashion models have gotten thinner in the last 20 years (STEPHEN VERBA and CARL CAMDEN). To those interested specifically in advertising, perhaps the strongest demonstration of the pre- dictive power of linguistic analysis comes from PAUL BOUISSAC'S application of DAVID MICK'S analysis of the role of story grammars in ad- vertising. Mick illustrates the ways in which story ads can be developed; he also discusses why story grammars are superior to script ap- proaches. Bouissac uses this analysis to explain how performances (circuses, concerts, theatri- cal events) must be marketed differently than products/objects. In essence, each performance is an additional 'outcome' of the story; the mar- keting strategy consists of 'starting a story and stopping short of its conclusion while convinc- ing a potential audience that they can learn about the next step only by witnessing the per- formance' (397). This also provides the expla- nation for the discussion in PHILIP KOTLER'S opening article of his 'market fulfillment strat- egy', wherein 'stars don't emerge out of no- where ... instead they come "storied"' (7). Kotler's contention is that audiences want to connect with the human qualities behind the person, but Bouissac makes it clear that the marketing focus is really on the 'risks taken rather than the skill' (397); thus a 'storied' per- son whose story suggests that each performance contains the possibility for failure creates a hook for potential audiences to find out how the story comes out. A few negatives should be mentioned. The size of the book and the number of papers in it contribute to some minor editorial problems with several charts and inconsistency in format from paper to paper (for example, some papers have abstracts and others do not). Not all at- tempts to apply linguistic theory or terminology are successful, necessary, or even accurate. The absence of a contribution (other than the short preface) from the editor and conference or- ganizer Jean Umiker-Sebeok also constitutes a serious omission. The price is prohibitive. Nonetheless, many treasures wait to be discov- ered in this diverse and often entertaining book. [RONNIE B. WILBUR, Purdue University.] Ins and outs of the predication. Ed. by JOHAN VAN DER AUWERA and LOUIS 680 This content downloaded from 130.58.65.20 on Tue, 21 Jul 2015 13:41:49 UTCAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and ConditionsBOOK NOTICES GOOSSENS. Dordrecht: Foris, 1987. Pp. xiv, 218. $25.90. This volume is a selection of thirteen papers from the Second International Conference of Functional Grammar that was held at the Uni- versity of Antwerp in 1986; true to the title of the conference, the papers use the model of Functional Grammar (FG), founded by Simon Dik. The contributors are SIMON DIK, LOUIS GOOSSENS, MIKE HANAY, KEES HENGEVELD, PETER KAHREL, DUBRAVKO UCANDA, J. LACH- LAN MACKENZIE, JAN NUYTS, RODIE RISSE- LADA, WILLY VANDEWEGHE, LSELINE VESTER, Co VET, and HANS WEIGAND. While the articles here are true to the title of the conference, they are less true to the title of the volume. In a very broad sense any article on FG can be seen as a study of predication, since the constitution of predications, as the ed- itors say, can be viewed as the central concern of FG. However, for the reader who is primarily interested in predicates as property-assigning functions, this volume may be a surprise. The issues handled here vary widely and include the nature of classifiers and the set/mass distinction with respect to nominal predicates in particular; the range of nominalization possibilities across a corpus of thirty languages; the complex voice system of Ancient Greek (including active, passive, and mediopassive); the nature of tran- sitivity and how it relates to reflexive and pseudoreflexive constructions in Serbo-Croa- tian; a complex-predicate analysis of the Dutch possessive dative constructions (which can in- volve two adjacent NPs within the VP); a his- tory of grammaticalization processes in causative and perception verb complements in French (where a rich set of complement types is examined); a comparison of the predication qualities of restrictive (R) and nonrestrictive (NR) relative clauses; a look at indicative versus subjunctive mood and a tie-in to the R/NR dis- tinction in relative clauses in Latin (where par- allels to many modern Romance languages could easily be drawn); the scope of negation; distinctions in modalities and how the syntax of Spanish makes these distinctions; and the pre- sentation of Koto, a formal language intended as a knowledge representation base. The reader need not be sympathetic toward, or even familiar with, FG in order to benefit from reading this volume. First of all, the editors have performed the difficult and useful task of writing a preface that outlines all of the articles contained in the volume, noting points of con- vergence of issues and giving brief conclusions. Thus any reader, whether versed in FG or not, can at least scan this preface. Furthermore, despite the formal differences, many of the issues raised here are right smack in the mainstream of current linguistic inquiry in other theoretical models. For example, the concept of 'affectedness' has been invoked in much recent work in other theoretical models in the analysis of several constructions-in- cluding the double-object construction of En- glish and passive, among others-and it is an important focus in Vandeweghe's article on the Dutch possessive dative construction. The reader will also find discussions of argument- reducing processes, argument-augmenting pro- cesses (via syntactic partnerships between Vs and objects or adverbial complements), and other types of complex-predicate formation pro- cesses. [DONNA JO NAPOLI, Swarthmore Col- lege.] Preference laws for syllable structure and the explanation of sound change. By THEO VENNEMANN. Berlin & New York: Mouton de Gruyter, 1988. Pp. viii, 95. $7.15. This book is the text of a lecture presented by Vennemann at the University of California, Berkeley, in April of 1985; it summarizes many of V's ideas about the properties of syllable structure that determine whether a particular phonological pattern is diachronically preferred or not. Preference laws are intended to be gra- dations of phonological naturalness (and thus distinct from some interpretations of the marked/unmarked dichotomy, in V's view). Their role is to explain syllable structure and syllable-structure change by 'elucidation' rather than 'prediction' (67). As for the explanation of the preferences themselves, V believes them to be reducible to the biology of phonetic produc- tion and perception, though he does not attempt to give such a reduction. Practically speaking, the preference laws are determined in conjunction with two maxims- a Diachronic Maxim, according to which lin- guistic changes operate first on less preferred structures, and a Synchronic Maxim that states that languages will usually not contain less pre- ferred structures unless they also have those 'that are more preferred in terms of the relevant preference law' (3). 681 This content downloaded from 130.58.65.20 on Tue, 21 Jul 2015 13:41:49 UTCAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Review Of  Ins And Outs Of The Predication  By J. Van Der Auwera And L. Goossens

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Review Of Ins And Outs Of The Predication By J. Van Der Auwera And L. Goossens

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