Napoli, Donna Jo

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Swarthmore College Works Linguistics Faculty Works Linguistics 9-1-1990 Review Of "I Composti Nominali Latini" By R. Oniga 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. (1990). "Review Of "I Composti Nominali Latini" By R. Oniga". Language. Volume 66, Issue 3. 648-648. DOI: 10.2307/414659 https://works.swarthmore.edu/fac-linguistics/137   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. 66, No. 3 (Sep., 1990), p. 648Published by:  Linguistic Society of AmericaStable URL:  http://www.jstor.org/stable/414659Accessed: 21-07-2015 13:48 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 13:48:55 UTCAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and ConditionsLANGUAGE, VOLUME 66, NUMBER 3 (1990) features, and that lexical parallels among dif- ferent dialects would therefore be less suitable for determining prehistoric dialectal interrela- tions. N closes by emphasizing the need for a comprehensive survey of all Germanic lan- guages that takes into account all correspon- dences. The Germanic languages may easily be read by scholars with limited knowledge of Germanic philology. It provides a solid introduction to the debate generated by attempts at classification. In addition, it contains an extensive bibliog- raphy of related works, and pays considerable attention to necessary background information. However, N does not give English translations for the Danish or German legends of some maps and quotations. [COLETTE VAN KERCKVOORDE, Simon's Rock of Bard College.] I composti nominali latini. By RENATO ONIGA. Bologna: Patron Editore, 1988. Pp. 355. L 35.000. Oniga writes in Italian with untranslated quo- tations in Latin, French, and English and the occasional unglossed example in Ancient Greek or Sanskrit. Despite that, this book will prob- ably be relatively accessible to all scholars of Latin and to any linguist with a reading knowl- edge of a Romance language. The theoretical points made are straightforward and the rule schemas, charts, and appendices speak for themselves. One of 0's major points is that compounding follows morphological rules that are as regular as familiar phonological rules, though less pro- ductive (many well-formed compounds [in terms of adhering to the rules of compound for- mation] are simply not attested). In fact, 0 uses this study to affirm the theory of generative mor- phology. He discusses the issues involved in distinguishing between compounds that were formed at some ancestral stage of Latin and compounds that follow productive rules of Latin itself, giving on pp. 73-74 a discussion of a rule that was probably archaic by the time of Livio. He sets aside compounds involving Greek bor- rowings, although he notes that they tend to follow the Latin system. He points out examples of compounds made of two juxtaposed words (whether written as a single word or not) where the ordinary compound readjustment rules fail to apply. And he points out that, if we allow only sequential application of rules, the deri- vation of some compounds will require an in- termediate stage that is unattested (peragrare and ager are attested, but *perager and *agrare are not; p. 108). Still, once these issues are set aside, the regularity in compound formation is clear. The data base is a thousand nominal com- pounds attested in the literature from Livio An- dronico to Virgil. O arranges these data into appendices which form almost half the entire text. As a resource, then, this book is rich. One appendix lists the compounds alphabetically by first element, indicating where they are attested in the literature. The next lists the compounds by order of frequency of occurrence. Another lists second elements of compounds by fre- quency of occurrence, and the next one lists each author with the compounds used by that author and a frequency count. There are several other appendices that will be useful to both lit- erary critics and linguists. In the text 0 argues for distinctions among rules of compound formation, derivation, in- flection, and readjustment. He argues that deri- vational rules can feed compound rules, and then more derivational rules can apply before we go on to rules of inflection, and, finally, to rules of readjustment (147). The circle-back (or cyclic) part of his model is similar to the levels common to lexical morphology and phonology, although he does not consider the question of whether certain derivational rules are on one level and others on another. His readjustment rules are discussed in Ch. 4, and there are appendices that list all examples to which each readjustment rule has applied. He discusses the fact that vowel epenthesis and vowel change converge in such a way that -i- looks like the connecting vowel for many com- pounds (75). He argues that the possible com- binations of the three categories of N[oun], A[djective], and V[erb] reflect the syntactic order of words in sentences. Thus no com- pounds are found in which V is the first element and N or A is the second, because Classical Latin sentence structure favored V-final or- dering (160-64). The V + N compounds of Romance, then, e.g. Italian lavapiatti 'dishwasher', are an innovation that came about as word order changed. [DONNA JO NAPOLI, Swarthmore College.] 648 This content downloaded from 130.58.65.20 on Tue, 21 Jul 2015 13:48:55 UTCAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Review Of  I Composti Nominali Latini  By R. Oniga

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Review Of I Composti Nominali Latini By R. Oniga

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