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1082

Am erica n Anthropologist [68,

19661

Vol.

15.) London, New York, To ronto : Oxford University Press, 1965. ix, 172 pp.,

index. ~ O S . 11.20.

Reviewed by

F.

K. LEHMAN, niversity

o

Illinois

Tiddim Chin is a Tibeto-Burman language of

a

tribal region of western Burma.

D at a were collected in various par ts of th e No rth ern Chin Hills during six weeks in

1954 by a pa rty comprising Professor

G

H. Luce of R angoon , Professor T. Stern of th e

University

of

Oregon, and the auth or. O ne should compare th is work w ith th e authors

related articles, Colloquial Chin as a Pronominalizing Language S S O A S , XX , p p .

323-327,1957)

and No tes on Teizang,

a

No rthern Chin Dialect S S O A S ,XXV I, pp .

551-558, 1963),

an d also wi th Sterns A Provisional Sketch of Sizeng Siyin) Chin

Asia Major,

n.s ., X ,p t . 2, pp. 222-278,1963).

T he two texts cover only two p rinted pages. Professor Hendersons exploitation of

her informants knowledge of th e str uc tu re of the language has, however, allowed her

sub sta nti ally to exceed the lim itations of

a

fixed corpus.

T he principal style of the texts is formal n arrativ e, bu t a section is added on the col-

loquial sty le with its grea ter profusion of relational particles. T he most compelling pa rt

of th e book is the detaile d phonology, especially th e tre at m en t of the intersection of

lexical tone and prosodic into na tion . The a ut ho r, Professor of Phonetics in the S chool of

Oriental and African -Studies, has m ade im porta nt contributions to this pa rt of the

study of tone languages.

Gramm atical analysis is carried o ut in a relatively unobtrusive version of th e Fir-

thian linguistic tradition. It proceeds from the sentence downward through succes-

sively smaller-sized levels: phrase, figure, word, and affix. This

is

not, however, a

straightforward constituent-structure grammar.

I n th e first place, the distinction between word an d affix is one of lexical category,

no t level. Secondly, figure conflates a n indefinite nu m ber

of

levels of labe led bracke t-

ing between the first co nst itu ent branching of th e sentence an d the terminal categories.

Moreover, the derived con stit uen t stru ctu re, resulting from th e operation of transform -

ations, an d th e underlying phrase stru cture , the con stitue nt structure before transform-

atio ns ap ply , are collapsed into a single hierarchy. T hu s the catego rization of elemen ts

an d relations in th e sentence is confusing, particularly since the residues of embedded

sentences ar e not distinguished from simple sentence constituents.

The material itself is presented so clearly an d thoroug hly, however, th a t these diffi-

culties of F irth ian metho d are easily resolved b y any reader familiar with related

languages.

Pathological and Normal Language. JULIUS LAFFAL. Atherton Press Books in the Be-

havioral Sciences.) New York: Atherton Press, 1965. xxi, 249 pp., appendix, 5

figures, index, references,

22

tables.

8.50.

Reviewed

by

R A YL. BIRDWHISTELL,aJtern Pennsylvania Psychiatric Institute

and th Department o Psych iatry, Temple Univers ity Health Scienccs Center

Julius Laffal,

a

talented and experienced clinical psychologist, states that it is his

purpose in this volume to presen t:

(1)

a general theory of language;

(2)

psychopatho-

logical language; (3) metho dology for the investigation of language. I n a series of seven

chapters, he presents a set of quotations, generalizations, and data in support

of

his

contention that associationist techniques are efficient and reliable instruments for the

examination of language behavior, norm al an d pathological.

This book, the title and Laffals manifest in tent to the contrary, have little to do

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Book

Reviews 1083

with language and speech behavior as they would be understood by the modern

linguistic anthropologist or s tud en t of comm unication behavior. Theoretical bits from

Ogden an d Richards, M orris, de Saussure, Kent-Rosanoff an d descende nt association-

ists), Vygotsky, Cassirer, and Freud lay the groundwork for his preoccupation with

words a s vehicles of meaning. And while his preface shows some acq ua inta nce with th e

linguistic point of view, the remaining

226

pages indicate th at his though t has not be-

come adu lterate d through this acquaintance. H e says, Words, it is worth noting, have

only a dubious value as linguistic forms Greenberg, 1954) as compared, for example,

with phonem es a nd m orphemes, a nd psychologists h ave occasionally [sic] been accused

of linguistic naivetC in trea ting words as if they ha d some inherent pro pe rty as un its of

language Olmstead an d Moore,

1952).

Yet few people would contest the assertion

th a t

meaning

in language is

basically carried by words

p. xii, italics mine). Th is asser-

tion, plus th e assignment of linguistics t o M orris

syntaclics,

satisfies Laffal as his s up -

po rt for his lexicentric emphasis. Anthropologists should not be too ha sty, however, in

criticizing his psychology as uniquely a tom istic and myopic. One need only review t he

recent anthropological literature to see that words, and particularly kinship name

forms, can ta ke on value, th e heuristic na tu re of which is forgotten in t he formalistic

shuffle.

I n su pp ort of his expe rimental techniq ue, Laffal speaks of th e controlled efficacy of

the experimenter-presented stimulus word. He contrasts this with the situation prev-

alent in free speech in terms that will baffle even the most psychologically oriented

sociologist or anthropologist: I n free speech, th e verbal stimuli impinging upon t he

subje ct occur in a relatively haphazard fashion; the inten tion or generating set in th e

situatio n is more likely to be determined by the speaking subject th an b y the speaker or

communicant.

Included within the volume is a series of clinical anecdotes that Laffal analyzes

through his technique. These analyses have th e adv an tag e of being explicit an d should

be of intere st to anthropologists who ar e atte m ptin g to analyze field materia l by logical

an d acontextual techniques. Finally, t he volume does an excellent job of illustrating

modern associationist testing techniques. I cann ot help b u t feel, however, t h a t associa-

tionist psychology is undersold when its practitio ners fail to t ake a dv an tag e of rece nt

developments in comm unication the ory and research. P atte rn association remains un-

tested. It remains to be seen whether it is the m ethod or the selection of the d ata manip-

ulated by the method that has made associationist techniques

so

unproductive as

re-

search instruments.

PHYSICAL ANTHROPOLOGY

Yearbook

o

Physical Alzthropology 1962. JACK KELSO nd GABRIEL . LASKER,ds.

Yearbook Series Volume 10. MBxico,

D F.:

Instituto de Investigaciones His-

ttiricas, Universidad Nacional Aut6noma de MCxico, and Instituto Nacional de

Antropo logk e Histtiria, for The Am erican Association of P hysical Anthropologists,

1964.

x,

373

pp ., figures, references, tables.

4.50

paper).

Yearbook o Physical Anthropology

1963. JACK

KELSO,

d.

Gabriel

W

Lasker

and

Sheilagh

T .

Brooks,

assoc. eds. Yearb ook Series Volume

11.

Mkxico,

D.

F.:

Insti-

tu to de Investigaciones Histbricas, Universidad Nacional Aut6nom a de M exico, and

Instituto Nacional de Antropologla e Historia, for the American Association of

Physical Anthropologists,

1965.

ix

300

pp., figures, cha pte r references, tables. n. p .

Reviewed by

EDWARD HUNT R.

Harvard Ulziversity

In

1945,

the Yearbook of Physical Anthropology began to appear a s an a nnu al publi-

paper).