Íslenskt mál og almenn málfræði - 01.01.1981, Page 172

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Ritdómar
convincing case than has been made to support similar analyses in English and
other languages where they have been proposed.
Furthermore, T does not merely support the analyses he presents, but discusses
and gives reasons for discarding a wide range of the alternatives that have emerged
in generative work since Chomsky’s Aspects. The argumentation is predominantly
convincing, and even the weaker arguments at least present material that is de-
scriptively significant, and appropriate in a detailed presentation of the language.
The coverage is as broad as one could reasonably ask for. One topic that the
reader should want to know more about is the behavior of ‘quasi-auxiliary’ verbs
such as vera að, fara að, geta, þurfa að, etc., which are not treated in any detail.
These verbs display many peculiar syntactic properties, and outnumber the SSR
verbs sýnast, virðast, reynast, etc., which are treated. But the book is so long
already that it would hardly be fair to ask for this material to be included.
My only real complaint about the coverage is that there is nothing like Rosen-
baum’s (1967) systematic lists of the verbs taking various complements types.
Although lists of verbs appear here and there in the text, it is often not clear
whether they have serious pretensions to being exhaustive. It would be especially
desierable to have lists of verbs that might be expected to take rules like Equi or
SOR on semantic grounds, but in fact don’t. Such lists would be essential to serious
investigations of the semantic affiliations of these rules, and to assessing the extent
to which the selection of complement types is arbitrary or predictable.
T intends the book for two sorts of readers: theoretical linguists looking for
phenomena of theoretical interest, and those who are interested in Icelandic, but
are not necessarily conversant with generative grammar.
As will be discussed below, the former sort of reader will find much to think
about. But he will also find that the argumentation is developed in a rather ele-
mentary style, the exposition being encumbered by many detailed explanations of
basic principles of generative syntax.
The elementary material was included for the benefit of the latter sort of reader.
But the book is not organized as an introduction to generative syntax, and wouldn’t
succeed as one. T develops too many alternatives, arguments, and counterargu-
ments for the presentation to be readily followed by someone without substantial
prior knowledge of generative grammar.
Nonethless, much of the data presented and many of the issues considered should
be interesting and make some sense to anybody with an interest in Icelandic syntax,
regardless of the nature of their background.
The sort of reader for whom the form of presentation is best suited is the
intermediate syntax student. Someone who has had a good introduction to gene-
rative grammar, and wants to get a firmer grasp of the methods of argumentation,
will benefit from working through most of the material. T’s extensive discussions
of previous work on constructions similar to those he is treating will also provide
such readers with a very useful directory to generative research in the seventies.
Generative grammarians attempt to formulate principles which will delineate
the class of possible human grammars as narrowly as possible, so as to explain
how children can learn languages on the basis of the limited evidence that is