Morphologies of Asia and Africa.

• Author: Rubin, Aaron D.
• Position: Book review

Morphologies of Asia and Africa. 2 vols. Edited by ALAN S. KAYE. Winona Lake, Indiana: EISENBRAUNS, 2007. Pp. xxvi + 1380. $175.

These volumes are the long-awaited follow-up to Alan Kaye's Phonologies of Asia and Africa (Eisenbrauns, 1997). It is unfortunate that Kaye passed away in May 2007, just weeks before they finally appeared, as they represent ten years of his hard work and commitment. Contained in them arc morphological descriptions of forty-six languages, written by forty-three different authors. The languages are just about equally divided between Africa and Asia, though one (Maltese) is technically a European language. Thirty-seven of the forty-six languages fall into the Afroasiatic or Indo-European families: the remaining nine fall into various families of Sub-Saharan Africa, Southeast Asia, and Central Asia. East Asian languages (e.g., Chinese, Korean, Japanese) are excluded altogether. Pointing out this uneven distribution is no criticism; in his introduction (p. xx), Kaye clearly explains his choice of languages, based largely on his own areas of study.

The languages included in these volumes are not identical to those included in the Phonologies volumes. In fact, there are quite a few differences. The topic of Akkadian and Amorite has very smartly been reduced to simply Akkadian, Jewish Palestinian Aramaic has been replaced with Baby-Ionian Jewish Aramaic, and the chapter on Nilo-Saharan languages has become focused on a single language, Kanuri. Many languages from the Phonologies volumes have been excluded: Eblaite, Cypriot Arabic. Modern South Arabian. Egyptian/Coptic. Awngi (Cushitic), Oromo (Cushitic), Hindi-Urdu, Ossetic (Iranian), Pashto (Iranian), Balochi (Iranian), Brahui (Dravidian), Sango (Niger-Congo), Tatar (Turkic), Uyghur (Turkic), Georgian, and Lak (Caucasian). Other languages have been added: Tigrinya, Beja (Cushitic), Bilin (Cushitic), Gawwada (Cushitic), Highland East Cushitic, Bade (Chadic), Glavda (Chadic), Mokilko (Chadic), Omotic, Sanskrit, Tsez (Caucasian), Indonesian, and Ket (unaffiliated). In terms of the overall families, the number of Cushitic and Chadic languages has increased, while the number of Iranian and Turkic languages has decreased. The Dravidian and Egyptian families have disappeared altogether, while the Omotic and Malayo-Polynesian families have been added. Many of these changes are certainly related to just which authors Kaye was able to enlist.

Overall, the essays in these volumes are of a very high quality, though their contents differ considerably in quantity. A few chapters are twelve or fewer pages (Phoenician and Punic, Moroccan Arabic (eight pages), Turkish), while others run fifty or more (Amharic, Sanskrit, Bade, Avestan and Old Persian [eighty-seven pages!], Sumerian). The average chapter length is just under thirty pages. Because of the length of this book, and my own limitations, I will restrict further comments to just a few of the book's forty-six chapters.

Chapter 2, on Ugaritic, was written by Dennis Pardee. It is generally very good, though more information on demonstratives would have been desirable. One general criticism is that the author does not always provide a vocalized form of the consonantal transcription, meaning that grammatical examples are not always clear. For example, in the section on adverbs (2.5), Pardee says that a noun can be used in the accusative case with an adverbial function, and gives, among...