1 This is an…

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This is an uncorrected pre-print of a review to appear in Studies in
Language, accepted June 2008. Not for circulation or citation.

Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald and R. M. W. Dixon (eds.). 2007. Grammars in contact: A
cross-linguistic typology. Oxford: Oxford University Press. [Explorations in Linguistic
Typology 4]. xx+355pp. (ISBN 0-19-920783-6)

Reviewed by N. J. Enfield (Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, Nijmegen)

Grammars in Contact is an outcome of the ninth international workshop hosted by the editors
under the auspices of the Research Centre for Linguistic Typology. An earlier volume by the
same editors--Areal diffusion and genetic inheritance (OUP, 2001)--deals with closely
related issues. This new collection is somewhat more consistent across chapters in its pursuit
of the causes and effects of diffusion on the grammars of languages in contact. An
introductory overview by Aikhenvald is followed by 12 studies of grammatical change
associated with historical-geographical scenarios of language contact. There is a glossary of
terms at the end of the book.

"The aim of this volume", Aikhenvald writes in her introduction (p49), "is to evaluate
diffusion and linguistic convergence from multiple perspectives, and at various levels--in
different language contact situations, by systematically concentrating on diffusion of patterns
and concomitant diffusion of forms so as to understand how languages come to share aspects
of their grammars." The introduction sketches several vectors in a complex possibility space
for the kinds of causes, processes, and effects that contact-related language change can have.
Aikhenvald brings a wide range of findings and generalizations into one place, useful for
those unfamiliar with existing literature in the field. These will not be new to readers already
familiar with a large existing literature (including recent work by Östen Dahl and colleagues,
absent from the reference list: e.g., Dahl 2001, Dahl and Koptjevskaja-Tamm 2001; cf. also
other recent work, published since this volume went into production: Matras et al, 2006,
Matras and Sakel 2007, Muysken 2008).

Each of the 12 descriptive chapters presents an exemplary case study of a language contact
situation and its effects at various levels of grammar: R. M. W. Dixon on free and bound
pronouns in Australian languages; Anne Storch on contact effects in grammars of Western
Nilotic languages; Felix K. Ameka on contact effects in grammars of languages of the Volta
Basin; Gerd Jendraschek on contact effects on Basque from neighbouring Romance
languages; John Hajek on Tetun Dili and the effects of contact with Portuguese as well as
neighbouring languages of Timor; Kate Burridge on contact between Pennsylvania German
and English; Victor A. Friedman on contact in the Balkan sprachbund; Stephen Matthews on
the grammar of Cantonese from an areal perspective; Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald on contact
effects on semantics and pragmatics of grammatical relations in languages of the Vaupés
area; Patience Epps on Hup and the effects of its contact with Tucanoan languages also in the
Vaupés area; Willem F. H. Adelaar on contact effects of Quechua on Amuesha in the
Peruvian Amazon, and Eithne B. Carlin on contact effects of Cariban languages on
Mawayana in Suriname.

What is striking about the chapters is each one's careful attention to the social, historical, and
ethnographic context of language as a key factor in understanding the effects of contact-
induced change. As Thomason and Kaufman argued two decades ago, "it is the
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sociolinguistic history of the speakers, and not the structure of their language, that is the
primary determinant of the linguistic outcome of language contact" (1988:35). The work
presented in the chapters of this book provides abundant support in favour of a primacy
hypothesis for social factors in contact-related change (despite Aikhenvald's caution on this
point; p47). Make no mistake: The hypothesis is in no way incompatible with an utter respect
for the significance of linguistic structure in processes of contact-related change, as
Thomason has long insisted (cf. Thomason 2001). The ideal of careful attention to linguistic
structure alongside an acknowledgement of the primacy of social determinants is forcefully
conveyed in the sensitive, detailed, and well written chapters of this book. Just about every
author expresses the same sentiment: There are no types of contact-induced change that will
necessarily happen, and there are no types of contact-induced change that cannot in
principle happen. As Aikhenvald convincingly argues in her introduction, structural
linguistic principles can tell us what is more or less likely to change, and in what ways. But
the final arbiter of what actually happens in a historical situation of diffusion of linguistic
innovation is the specific socially-grounded history of inter-group contact in that particular
situation.

The contributors' careful attention to social-historical context fits with the book's stated aim
to work "from multiple perspectives". Here, we see linguists deftly navigating a second field
of anthropology, practicing social history and ethnography. The authors do this with
competence and insight, displaying the kind of deep familiarity with situations on the ground
that is crucial to a sound understanding of the dynamics of language contact and its effects.
This deep familiarity was ensured by the editors through their selection of contributors, a sine
qua non being "first-hand experience of intensive, fieldwork-based investigation" (pix).

Because there are limits to even the best linguists' multiple talents, an ideal is to link top
linguistic and social-ethnographic work--such as that found in this volume--together with
the other two fields of anthropology: archaeology and human biology. Interdisciplinary
teamwork is a rapidly emerging and promising trend which stands to bring the relevance of
linguistic findings to wider audiences, and indeed to bring new and different kinds of
evidence to bear on questions of human history and diversity being asked in linguistic
volumes like this one (cf. e.g., Blench and Spriggs 1997, McConvell and Evans 1997, Sagart
and Blench 2005, Pawley et al, 2005, Friedlaender 2007, among others).

Whether the book supplies a "typology", as promised in the sub-title, depends on one's
definition of that term (cf. recent extensive discussion in Volume 11.1 of the journal
Linguistic Typology, 2007). It is possible to extract six distinct lists from Aikhenvald's 60-
odd page introduction, each of which states a range of values on a vector of possibility. These
are as follows. 1. four reasons languages can share structure, 2. two kinds of languages which
can be the outcome of language contact, 3. nine kinds of change which a language's grammar
may undergo, 4. sixteen properties of a form or pattern which makes it more likely to have a
diffusional impact, 5. four sociolinguistic parameters with varying consequences for intensity
and type of contact-induced change, and 6. three types of global result of processes of
language contact.

It is possible that the dizzying nature of this list of lists is a proper reflection of a truly
dizzying possibility space. Or can we discern some structure? Take the list of sixteen
"linguistic factors facilitating diffusion" (pp26-35). As Aikhenvald explains, a form or
pattern in a source language (Ls) is more likely to have a diffusional impact on a target
language (Lt) if it:
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1. is more pragmatically salient
2. is definitive of genres and "ways of saying" which are also borrowed into Lt
3. is word-for-word intertranslatable into Lt
4. is high frequency in Ls
5. has an impact on cultural conventions
6. is associated with cultural practices which are also borrowed into Lt
7. fits into an existing "gap" in Lt
8. is typologically natural
9. is more compact
10. is associated with structurally similar systems in Ls and Lt
11. fits with innovational proclivities of Lt
12. is analogous in structure with forms/patterns in Lt
13. has a lookalike in Lt
14. has distinct morphosyntactic boundaries
15. is prosodically salient, syllabic
16. is unifunctional and semantically transparent

One way to bring order to this list is to link each item to an element of the causal process of
diffusion itself. There are fundamentally three conditions on the success or failure of a
cultural variant (including words and grammatical structures), as laid out by Sapir nearly a
century ago:

       I would suggest, with all due reserve, that rate of culture transmission is due to three
       mutually independent factors or, better, types of factors: the relative ease or readiness
       with which a culture trait is communicated by one tribe to another, the readiness with
       which it is adopted by the borrowing tribe, and the external conditions which favour
       or militate against the adoption of the trait. (Sapir 1949/1916: 414)

In other words, to successfully diffuse, an innovation must cross three hurdles (Enfield
2003:19). First, it must be able to be recognized and apprehended by the borrowing party.
This is a function of social factors bringing the borrowing party into contact with the
innovation, and of structural features of the innovation itself (specifically, its salience, on
various measures). Several items of the above list of 16 can be brought together under this
heading because they are responsible for increasing the potential borrower's possibility of
recognizing and apprehending the variant (e.g., points 1, 4, 14, 15, 16). Second, the
innovation must somehow be able to be incorporated into a relevant cultural (including
linguistic) system which the borrowing party has access to. This is a function of structural
factors of the systemic context into which the innovation must fit. Several more items in the
above list of 16 come under this rubric because they affect the ease of subsequently
incorporating the borrowed variant into systems which the borrower has access to, either
because these systems or sub-systems are already in place (e.g., points 7 and 11), or because
the sub-system into which the variant fits is also being borrowed (e.g., points 2 and 6). Yet
further items belong on the list of 16 because they affect both ease of apprehension and ease
of incorporation of the variant (e.g., points 3, 8, 9, 10, 12, 13).

A third hurdle an innovation has to cross before it succeeds in becoming a convention is that
the borrowing party must be sufficiently motivated to reproduce the innovation. This is
partly a social matter, for which Aikhenvald's list of "sociolinguistic parameters" is directly
relevant (with a debt to Thomason and Kaufman 1988 and Ross 1996). It is also partly related
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to features of the variant, in particular the kinds of advantages it offers to a potential user
(otherwise known as a content bias; cf. Boyd and Richerson 2005, Enfield 2008). In line with
Sapir's third point, once a variant is apprehendable by a potential borrower and incorporable
into a system available to that borrower, this third kind of factor can increase the likelihood
that speakers will actually be motivated to reproduce the variant.

The grouping I have suggested for the list of 16 factors, above, is not merely meant to
organize this list, but to represent some underlying reasons why these 16 items appear on it.
Having three motivating principles allows for the likely possibility that these more narrowly
defined factors number not exactly 16, but perhaps 17, 19, 22, or some other figure. If further
such factors are discovered in subsequent empirical work, as I expect will be, they should still
be captured by the three conditions for successful diffusion; i.e., they should facilitate the
apprehension or incorporation of an innovation, or affect speakers' motivation to adopt it (or
some combination of these).

In sum, this book is an excellent contribution of top quality empirical work to the burgeoning
literature on language contact and its long-term effects on linguistic systems. It offers a rich
set of first-hand studies by experts in their fields, where detailed attention is paid both to
socio-historical dimensions of the problem and to the structural linguistic details.
Individually, the chapters do exactly what one would want them to do: they lay out original
data in detail, and with clarity. The "splitter" style of the introduction's general framing is of
considerable value because it gives readers a maximally informative set of distinctions to
work with. The book deserves special attention from those who want the latest first-rate
empirical news on language contact and its effects, and from those who are looking to
synthesize the growing body of findings in this very complex domain.
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References

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Reviewer's address:

N. J. Enfield
Wundtlaan 1
6525 XD Nijmegen
The Netherlands
Nick.Enfield@mpi.nl