The second edition of Laurie Bauer's Introducing Linguistic Morphology and Ingo Plag's Word-formation in English, both published in 2003, were followed closely by Mark Aronoff and Kirsten Fudeman's What is Morphology? (Reference Aronoff and Fudeman2005), and by the first and second editions of the book under review (Booij Reference Booij2005, 2007). With these titles, four of the major university presses in Britain launched products over the course of four years to meet what seems to be an intense market demand for textbooks on linguistic morphology.
The contents of Booij's book are organized into six parts and twelve chapters, plus supplementary material. Part I is entitled ‘What is linguistic morphology?’, part II is about ‘Word-formation’, part III about ‘Inflection’, part IV about ‘Interfaces’, part V discusses ‘Morphology and mind’, and part VI is the ‘Conclusions’. Each part contains around fifty pages and consists of two chapters each, except part IV, which has three and is slightly longer, and part VI, which has only one chapter and is substantially shorter than the rest. The contents of each chapter are listed on the first page rather than in the general contents list. All the chapters have a summary, a set of ten questions, and a section of glossed references for further reading. Chapter 12, owing to its special nature, does not have a questions section.
Chapters 1 and 2 lay the foundations for a discussion of morphology. Chapter 1 (‘Morphology: basic notions’) defines the field of study as ‘the internal structure of words’ (p. 24) and the object of study as the forms and formation of lexemes (p. 24). It also defines the origins and the various uses of the term ‘morphology’, a range of approaches to linguistic morphology, the importance of morphological rules, their typological value and the links of morphology with grammar and lexis. Chapter 2 (‘Morphological analysis’) explains the internal structure of words and its associated concepts (e.g. inflection, suppletion, prefix), presents morphological operations which can be carried out on words, and gives an outline of language typology and language contrast based on morphological features.
Chapters 3 and 4, and 5 and 6 analyze the formation and forms of lexemes, respectively. Chapters 3 (‘Derivation’) and 4 (‘Compounding’) go deeper into the formation of words, each by different mechanisms. The former is an account of the result of derivational operations, of their limitations, of how derivational productivity can be measured and of the internal arrangement of some lexeme components. The latter discusses the types, the properties, and the identification of compounds, and the relation between compounds and other processes like derivation. Chapter 5 (‘Inflection’) gives clues for the much-discussed issue of the separation between inflection and derivation, describes the attributes and function of inflection, and overviews the major theoretical approaches to the description of inflection. This chapter also presents a number of issues of syntactic importance, like government. Chapter 6 (‘Inflectional systems’) completes the preceding chapter in explaining the details of inflection. It presents an account of nominal and verbal inflection, and the categories which they may assume in several languages according to the gender, number, and case of their nouns, the tense, mood, aspect, number, person, and gender of their verbs (passive is discussed in part in chapter 8), and of the conclusions which can be drawn from the description of those languages based on these inflectional properties.
The following three chapters are about the connection of morphology with phonology (chapter 7, ‘The interface between morphology and phonology’), with syntax (chapter 8, ‘Morphology and syntax: demarcation and interaction’) and with semantics (chapter 9, ‘Morphology and semantics’). The representation of these interfaces contemplates, in the first case, the (a-)symmetry between morphology and these levels, and how morphological form and phonological form are related with each other and their mutual influences (phonology is then considered again in respect of the concept of word in chapter 12). Secondly, it focuses on the boundary between units pertaining to morphological description and units pertaining to syntactic description, and also on the influence of morphology on syntax and the other way round, the effect of morphological processes on the syntax of bases, and on how syntax as well as morphology may realize grammatical and semantic features. Finally, the book discusses the semantic interpretation of morphological structure and its associated concepts. While a reduced version of semantic arguments is used, for example, for the discussion of compounds, it is mainly here that the possible meanings which words may take are linked up with syntactic behaviour and their morphological realization. This chapter on morphology and semantics pays special attention to polysemy, viewed as a relation which shows how forms may take different values as a result of semantic or pragmatic considerations.
Chapters 10 and 11 project the study of morphology in two directions: the mental representation of morphology and language change, respectively. The psycholinguistic approach of chapter 10 (‘Morphology and psycholinguistics’) reviews the acquisition of morphology, the application and interpretation of morphological rules, and the mental representation of morphological structures as well as the models which can be used to explain it. Chapter 11 (‘Morphology and language change’) describes language change in general, morphological change in particular, and how they are expressed in present-day language.
Finally, chapter 12 (‘The word as a linguistic unit’) addresses again the title of the book, and reviews the notion of word developed in the book, with a focus on related concepts and distinctions, on the identification of words (again with emphasis on compounds), and on the principle of Lexical Integrity. This chapter, new to the second edition, adds over ten bibliographical references to those contained in the first edition.
The supplementary material of the book comprises an outline of the contents, a chart of typographic conventions, a list of abbreviations and symbols, a list of figures, a list of tables, two prefaces, a section of answers to the questions included at the end of each chapter, a glossary of terms, a list of references, a language index, and an index of terms. The glossary of terms is new in this edition, and comprises 400+ entries of concepts of general linguistics and/or morphology: forms, processes, theories, principles, uses, rules, properties, categories, and relationships, to mention some. The index of terms does not include authors’ names and, unlike the language index, cites only one page per entry and has a limited number of subentries. It does not use cross-references or explanatory glosses for easier reference. It aims at specific morphological terms and avoids others which are relevant in morphological description but are broader in scope, like the word classes.
The bibliographical references include an up-to-date diversity of titles. Most of them are papers on specific aspects of morphological description or on the description of specific languages, but there are also overviews of theoretical models in morphology and classic titles as well. While some general or introductory works are cited too (e.g. Cruse Reference Cruse2000; Katamba Reference Katamba2003; Plag Reference Plag2003), these are perhaps the type of reference least represented in the bibliography. Some titles of this type, which could be of use as textbooks for potential readers and which are not included in the references, could also include Adams (Reference Adams1973, Reference Adams2001), Matthews (Reference Matthews1991), Bubeník (Reference Bubeník1999), and Bauer (Reference Bauer2003). Similarly, the discussion of some specific issues could have incorporated references which have become milestones, such as Giegerich (Reference Giegerich1999) on morphology interfaces, Bauer (Reference Bauer1998) and Giegerich (Reference Giegerich2004) on compounds, or Lipka (Reference Lipka, Brekle and Kastovsky1977), Bauer (Reference Bauer1983) and Hohenhaus (Reference Hohenhaus, Pavol and Lieber2005) on lexicalization, to cite just a few of the topics. This is probably one of the major difficulties in writing textbooks, to decide how deep the discussion should be allowed to go. In this respect, there can be as many opinions on the degree of detail and on the relevant references which should be cited as there are readers.
The design of the contents list and index forces the reader to browse through the chapters of the book to find subsections. The index of terms does not help locate issues, because it lists only one page per entry. Of course, the book is not written to be read in parts or subsections, but it may take some time for readers who may want to go through a specific part of the book to find it. Probably for the same reason, the book is cross-referenced throughout for sections, but often also for parts and chapters. Many of these features can also be found in some titles of the Oxford Textbooks in Linguistics series, for example in Cruse (Reference Cruse2000), but not in others (Catford Reference Catford1988; Goddard Reference Goddard1998).
The book is carefully edited, and the second edition also corrects typos and minor inaccuracies such as small errors in the numbering of examples. It also makes use of all the typesetting resources which are available today and which help focus the attention on specific ideas. Use of these resources sometimes leads to a disputable selection of terms highlighted for their importance (e.g. purists, p. 257). Tree diagrams, tables, and charts, which are used sparingly, are easy to read. All of this is in line with the didactic aims of the author and reminiscent of Bauer (1988). Partly this is because of the common words of the subtitle, but largely also because of the educational style in which the contents are presented, the scope of the book and the distribution of its contents and its chapters, and because of the general approach to the presentation of morphology. Indeed, the division of the book into the parts described above reflects a similar view of morphology which is comprehensive not only regarding the discussion of essential concepts, specific techniques, derivation, and inflection, but also the boundaries of morphology with other levels of description. Less significantly, there are parallels with projections onto other fields in directions which can also be found in Bauer (Reference Bauer2003), only in the reverse order. Specifically, the considerable weight granted to the boundaries discussed in the book is illustrative of how morphology is generally understood today, namely as an area where the discussion of borders is as relevant as the discussion of the innermost issues. It is illustrative of where a large part of the research interest in morphology lies too. This view, which may seem commonplace today, was innovative twenty years ago (cf. Bauer 1988), when the interest in boundaries was not widespread, and the major focus in morphology was on inflection and derivation. Otherwise, the presentation of contents is student-oriented, free from clusters of bibliographical references proper to research publications, and it generally explains morphological concepts by analysing examples of specific languages. The chapters include a short abstract at the end and all the examples in languages other than English are glossed and translated. Also, the book contains more examples than the numbering might suggest, because many are integrated in the text and are therefore not set off and counted.
The argumentation presents alternative views of issues when several theoretical standpoints are possible (e.g. pp. 90–2 in respect of compounds, pp. 115–19 in respect of inflection, or pp. 119–22 in respect of the connection between inflection and derivation). This enables readers to take a stance. When alternative approaches are possible, the book presents the author's stance too, as in the description of productivity (pp. 67–71), where focus is on Baayen's models. The book starts from a structural background and includes a number of theoretical perspectives: Generative Morphology, Distributed Morphology, the Item-and-Arrangement model, the Word-and-Paradigm model, Templatic Morphology, Optimality Theory, Lexical Phonology, and Prosodic Morphology, as well as theoretical models of morphological knowledge which are less well known outside psycholinguistic theory, like the dual system theory and the single system theory and its variants. The approach is synchronic, although chapter 11 links up the rest of the book with language change and historical research in morphology, and includes discussions of ancient languages like Biblical Hebrew, Classical Greek, Latin and Sanskrit. In general, the discussion is based on evidence from sixty-four languages, with a focus on Indo-European ones, especially Dutch, English, French, German, Italian, and Latin.
The exercises are a crucial aspect of the book. They are presented clearly and are varied in their degree of difficulty, but are not explicitly marked as such. They cover a large number of skills, e.g. the proper understanding of theoretical concepts, the skill to formulate rules based on data, finding data to support hypotheses, and the ability to do linguistic reasoning and to understand the theoretical implications of linguistic facts and interpretations.
The exercises also provide substantial practice in linguistic techniques, from constituency analysis to data examination, as well as a more limited use of notational and representational methods. This aspect of the book effectively brings into play the readers’ passive knowledge of languages (via the exercises on English, on other widespread languages or on their own first language), and also analytical skills for the inference of rules in less well-known languages, as in Zellig S. Harris’ classic use of foreign languages for didactic purposes in morphology. Throughout the book, the exercises concern purely formal concepts, as well as the linguistic levels in the description of morphology (phonological, syntactic, semantic, discoursal, and stratal). The answers are short and contain either argumentation and explanations or mere data, according to each question type. The book is successful in achieving the purpose of providing reinforcement, practice, and training in linguistic description, and developing autonomous thinking. For the latter, the book also provides prompts for the use of materials in chapters 1 and 10: the former cites and glosses some ‘Resources for morphology’ available online and in print, while the latter includes a section on ‘Sources of evidence’.
Overall, Booij's book joins the growing collection of handbooks like the ones cited in the opening lines of this review, glossaries (e.g. Bauer Reference Bauer2004) and other materials on morphology, or with a substantial content of morphology. Although The Grammar of Words is presented as an introductory textbook to morphology, it is likely to be cited regularly in research publications. This book thus offers a well-balanced overview of the major issues in morphology while serving at the same time both a pedagogical and a descriptive purpose in a field in which textbooks have for a long time been rare.
