LANGUAGE, VOLUME 68, NUMBER 2 (1992) LANGUAGE, VOLUME 68, NUMBER 2 (1992) Kluwer, 1991. Pp. xvi, 678. Cloth $129.00 In these days of increasing costs and decreas- ing budgets, publishers seem disinclined to take on the financial risk involved in Festschrifts. As someone who has always enjoyed the rich in- tellectual history found in Festschrifts, I find this disturbing. It's always a pleasure to see a volume of essays that resists this trend, and even more so when the essays are as interesting as the ones in this volume honoring Professor Yuki Kuroda. The volume contains thirty-two papers, some of which were presented at a (surprise) confer- ence in March 1988. The essays treat both de- scriptive and theoretical issues touching on a wide range of languages, with several papers on English, Japanese, and French, and other con- tributions dealing with such languages as Chinese, Hopi, Papago, Palauan, Chamorro, Choctaw, and Nunggubuyu. A number of the papers deal with syntax; many of these adopt some version of Government and Binding. Among the theoretical issues developed i,nclude the status of LF pied-piping (ROBERTA ISHIHARA, SUSUMU KUNO),proper government and clause structure (SANDRA CHUNG), agree- ment (KENNETH HALE, LAVERNE M. JEANNE, & PAULA PRANKA),thematic roles and NP movement (CAROL GEORGOPOULOS), parasitic gaps (MAMORU SAITO), binding (SAMUEL EPSTEIN, HAJIME HOJI, BEATRICE LAMIROY, and LESLIESAXON), and polarity items (NOBUKO HASEGAWA). Other topics include adverb struc- ture (JAMES MCCAWLEY), wanna contraction (GRANT GOODALL), 'verbiness' (JOHN R. Ross), the structure of gerunds and participles (JOSEPH EMONDS), adjective ordering (RICHARD SPROAT & CHILIN SHIH), the syntax of nonconfigura- tional languages (JOHN WHITMAN), and the analysis of interrogatives (JAMES HUANG). Phonological topics are discussed in only three papers: MATTHEW CHEN on English stress, OSAMU FUJIMURA on intonation modulation in Japanese, and ELIZABETH SELKIRK & KOICHI TATEISHI on downstep in Japanese. Semantics is represented by work on the Japanese particles kara and node (SHIGERU MIYAGAWA & MARI NAKAMURA), on the French copula (GILLES FAUCONNIER), on the English past and perfect (JOHNDINSMORE), on the implications of the Japanese word ma for prototype semantics (WILLIAM POSER), and on information structure in cleft sentences (AKIO KAMIO)and in se- Kluwer, 1991. Pp. xvi, 678. Cloth $129.00 In these days of increasing costs and decreas- ing budgets, publishers seem disinclined to take on the financial risk involved in Festschrifts. As someone who has always enjoyed the rich in- tellectual history found in Festschrifts, I find this disturbing. It's always a pleasure to see a volume of essays that resists this trend, and even more so when the essays are as interesting as the ones in this volume honoring Professor Yuki Kuroda. The volume contains thirty-two papers, some of which were presented at a (surprise) confer- ence in March 1988. The essays treat both de- scriptive and theoretical issues touching on a wide range of languages, with several papers on English, Japanese, and French, and other con- tributions dealing with such languages as Chinese, Hopi, Papago, Palauan, Chamorro, Choctaw, and Nunggubuyu. A number of the papers deal with syntax; many of these adopt some version of Government and Binding. Among the theoretical issues developed i,nclude the status of LF pied-piping (ROBERTA ISHIHARA, SUSUMU KUNO),proper government and clause structure (SANDRA CHUNG), agree- ment (KENNETH HALE, LAVERNE M. JEANNE, & PAULA PRANKA),thematic roles and NP movement (CAROL GEORGOPOULOS), parasitic gaps (MAMORU SAITO), binding (SAMUEL EPSTEIN, HAJIME HOJI, BEATRICE LAMIROY, and LESLIESAXON), and polarity items (NOBUKO HASEGAWA). Other topics include adverb struc- ture (JAMES MCCAWLEY), wanna contraction (GRANT GOODALL), 'verbiness' (JOHN R. Ross), the structure of gerunds and participles (JOSEPH EMONDS), adjective ordering (RICHARD SPROAT & CHILIN SHIH), the syntax of nonconfigura- tional languages (JOHN WHITMAN), and the analysis of interrogatives (JAMES HUANG). Phonological topics are discussed in only three papers: MATTHEW CHEN on English stress, OSAMU FUJIMURA on intonation modulation in Japanese, and ELIZABETH SELKIRK & KOICHI TATEISHI on downstep in Japanese. Semantics is represented by work on the Japanese particles kara and node (SHIGERU MIYAGAWA & MARI NAKAMURA), on the French copula (GILLES FAUCONNIER), on the English past and perfect (JOHNDINSMORE), on the implications of the Japanese word ma for prototype semantics (WILLIAM POSER), and on information structure in cleft sentences (AKIO KAMIO)and in se- quences of text (CARLOTA SMITH). Contribu- tions less easily categorized include papers by ADELE ABRAHAMSON on kinship terms, NORIKO AKATSUKA on 'Dracula' conditionals (If Con- fucius was born in Texas, I'm Dracula), ANN BANFIELD on Marcel Proust's use of the French imperfect tense, WALTER SAVITCH on the finite- ness of language, and AVRUM STROLL on the perception of'Edges, surfaces and boundaries'. The volume is physically well-produced, and the papers are well argued and relevant to cur- rent issues in syntax especially. The length of the contributions ranges from 8 to 32 pages, with most of the papers about 20 pages in length- long enough for substantive treatment of an idea. The book does have one very disappoint- ing feature, however. Unlike many Festschrifts, this one contains no information about the hon- oree or the occasion of the Festschrift. The vol- ume would have been much improved had a bibliography of Professor Kuroda's works and a brief resume of his interests and career been included by the editors. [EDWIN BATTISTELLA, University of Alabama, Birmingham.] Variation and change in French: Es- says presented to Rebecca Posner on the occasion of her sixtieth birth- day. Ed. by JOHN N. GREEN and WENDY AYRES-BENNETT. (Croom Helm Romance Linguistics Series.) London & New York: Routledge, 1990. Pp. xxiii, 225. Cloth $59.95. According to the first editor of this Fest- schrift, 'The purpose of the present volume is to examine how far a variationist approach (sys- tematic but not necessarily Labovian) can be applied both to the description of modern French and to its linguistic evolution' (4). There are 11 contributions, of which 7 deal with syn- chronic variation and 4 with diachronic change. Both topics are undeniably among Rebecca Pos- ner's most prominent scholarly interests. The volume opens with a dedication by WENDY AYRES-BENNETT (vii-xi), a bibliography (1957- 1989) of Posner's writings (xii-xx), and an in- troduction by JOHN N. GREEN (1-9). The latter is a useful overview of recent developments in the field, with the main emphasis placed on work within the variationist paradigm of socio- linguistics launched by William Labov, and of quences of text (CARLOTA SMITH). Contribu- tions less easily categorized include papers by ADELE ABRAHAMSON on kinship terms, NORIKO AKATSUKA on 'Dracula' conditionals (If Con- fucius was born in Texas, I'm Dracula), ANN BANFIELD on Marcel Proust's use of the French imperfect tense, WALTER SAVITCH on the finite- ness of language, and AVRUM STROLL on the perception of'Edges, surfaces and boundaries'. The volume is physically well-produced, and the papers are well argued and relevant to cur- rent issues in syntax especially. The length of the contributions ranges from 8 to 32 pages, with most of the papers about 20 pages in length- long enough for substantive treatment of an idea. The book does have one very disappoint- ing feature, however. Unlike many Festschrifts, this one contains no information about the hon- oree or the occasion of the Festschrift. The vol- ume would have been much improved had a bibliography of Professor Kuroda's works and a brief resume of his interests and career been included by the editors. [EDWIN BATTISTELLA, University of Alabama, Birmingham.] Variation and change in French: Es- says presented to Rebecca Posner on the occasion of her sixtieth birth- day. Ed. by JOHN N. GREEN and WENDY AYRES-BENNETT. (Croom Helm Romance Linguistics Series.) London & New York: Routledge, 1990. Pp. xxiii, 225. Cloth $59.95. According to the first editor of this Fest- schrift, 'The purpose of the present volume is to examine how far a variationist approach (sys- tematic but not necessarily Labovian) can be applied both to the description of modern French and to its linguistic evolution' (4). There are 11 contributions, of which 7 deal with syn- chronic variation and 4 with diachronic change. Both topics are undeniably among Rebecca Pos- ner's most prominent scholarly interests. The volume opens with a dedication by WENDY AYRES-BENNETT (vii-xi), a bibliography (1957- 1989) of Posner's writings (xii-xx), and an in- troduction by JOHN N. GREEN (1-9). The latter is a useful overview of recent developments in the field, with the main emphasis placed on work within the variationist paradigm of socio- linguistics launched by William Labov, and of 428 428