T'ien-fei hsien-sheng lu, Die Aufzeichnungen von der manifestierten Heiligkeit der Himmelsprinzessin: Einleitung, Ubersetzung, Kommentar.

• Author: Ptak, Roderich

One of the di majores in the Chinese pantheon is the Goddess of Seafarers," better known as T'ien-fei, T'ien-hou, or Ma-tsu. Temples dedicated to this deity of Fukien origin can be sighted all along the China coast, in Hong Kong and Macao, on Taiwan, and in various countries around the East and South China Seas. Over the last three decades serious academic work was undertaken on the T'ien-fei cult and some Western scholars also became interested in this subject (for example, R. Rodman's "pleasurable" Introduction to Language (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1988) will not especially cater to their literary, etymological, and diachronic concerns. A better introductory textbook is Robin Burling's Patterns of Language (San Diego: Academic Press, 1992).

Most of these essays were originally presented to the Linguistics and Biblical Hebrew section of the Society of Biblical Literature from 1983 to 1987. The book was in press for several years. Therefore, the articles would have greatly profited from a postscript of 1991 vintage by the authors (and editor), updating positions and/or bibliographies. This strategy would have enhanced the longevity of these contributions.

There are four papers on phonology, two structural and two generative. Monica S. Devens discusses classical, autonomous phonemics, using Israeli Hebrew examples (pp. 7-16). This elementary assessment contrasts with E. J. Revell's technical presentation concerning the development of seghol in an open syllable as a reflex of *a (pp. 17-28). Revell's work is solid, and he is unquestionably one of today's most erudite Hebraists.

Edward L. Greenstein presents generative notions (pp. 29-40), quoting the efforts of the "classical" period: Noam Chomsky's and Morris Halle's The Sound Pattern of English (New York: Harper and Row, 1968), Sanford A. Schane's Generative Phonology (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1973), etc., with textbook examples such as velar softening (electric with an underlying /k/ but electricity with a surface-structure [s], p. 31). Happily, Greenstein refers to many of the publications of this field's leading practitioner, Joseph L. Malone (Tiberian Hebrew Phonology [Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 1993]); but unhappily, the misleading term "Maltese Arabic" is perpetuated (p. 31, fn. 9). Maltese is no more Arabic than Italian is Latin.

Gregory Enos treats many of the same problems as the preceding authors in his discussion of Hebrew phonetics (pp. 41-47)...