The Tai Dialect of Lungming: Glossary, Texts, and Translations.

• Author: Adams, Karen L.

The collection of Judith Jacob's previously published articles is impressive for the scope and depth of knowledge it represents. As the title implies, the volume is organized into three sections: linguistics, the longest with twelve articles; then literature; and finally history, the shortest with two articles. Within each section, papers are presented in chronological order and, over all, span a thirty-two-year period from 1960 to 1992. The topics covered show Jacob's wide mastery of the Cambodian language and its literature. Within the linguistics section, synchronic and diachronic issues in phonology, morphophonemics, morphology, syntax, lexicography and orthography are discussed. Over half of the articles compare successive stages of Khmer while others focus on data from a particular period of Khmer. Some also compare Khmer to Mon and others deal with borrowing from other languages.

No particular theoretical approach is claimed in any of the discussions; what Jacob undertakes is a careful structural description of the Khmer language. One consistent theme throughout the linguistics section is Jacob's urging not to prejudge the structure of Cambodian grammar by relying on word categories appropriate for European languages. For example, she is one of a small group of linguists working on Asian languages who discusses phonaesthetic issues in detail. In the process of establishing her grammatical descriptions, Jacob gives numerous examples and always notes exceptions. The presentation of material is hence dense, requiring careful reading, but is written in a straightforward fashion.

The structures under discussion are always considered in the light of textual issues, a remarkable fact given that decontextualized analysis has often been common in linguistics. The effect of text types on the data, e.g., spoken versus written texts, and the location of the data in the text, e.g., as the second part of an adjacency pair in a conversation, are all noted for their consequences on the structure and meaning of a form.

In three of the four papers in the second section Jacob discusses linguistic devices found in verse and prose; the fourth paper is concerned with the thematic material of short stories. In the final section, Jacob makes use of ancient Khmer inscriptions in order to characterize the people and environment of the time.

Two others have made contributions to this volume. Franklin Huffman has written a seven-page introduction touching...