Review

Reviewed Work(s): A Theory of Word Order with Special Reference to Spanish by Heles
Contreras
Review by: Milton M. Azevedo
Source: Hispania, Vol. 60, No. 4 (Dec., 1977), pp. 1037-1038
Published by: American Association of Teachers of Spanish and Portuguese
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/340714
Accessed: 22-07-2022 04:52 UTC

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 REVIEws 1037

cluded are most

Southwest has long been subject to in
interference
need. from A
few other recent volumes,
English. Without pretending thatthis boo
a specific pat-
another positive step
tern has in
been achieved, Jerrythat dire
Craddock's lexical
title implies, this is
analysis a collection
of Mexicanisms of s
and Anglicisms, cate-
ies of various aspects of Southwest
gorized in groups according to semantic displace-
though there are mentseparate writers,
and morphological deviation, presents nu- t
continuity would have
merous contributions been
for the next editionsdesir
of the
reader is led to expect
well-known this from
dialect dictionaries.
contents.
In his study of the segmental phonology of
The book is divided into two parts, the first
Los Angeles, Robert Phillips offers a refreshing
perspective
giving accounts of the phonology, grammar and and treatment of the widespread
lexicon of Southwest Spanish in general, and of [v] in free variation with [-bI.
realization
the second part looking at more specific problems
J. Donald Bowen is successful in "legitimiz-
and dialect areas. This organization feels forced
ing" the Spanish of New Mexico in his study
and is sometimes misleading, since threeon of
thethe
verb system, in which he takes a new
first four chapters, despite the implication of
tack, showing the dependency of morphological
their titles that they are studies of Southwest
patterns on phonetic and lexical patterns. An-
Spanish in general, are in fact studies drew
of a very
Cohen, Bernardo Vallejo and Rogelio
specific nature, namely the phonology, grammar
Reyes author the last studies, all of which deal
and lexicon respectively of some thirty with
students
various pedagogical aspects of bilingual
from the University of Texas at El Paso whodue to socio-economic and culture-
problems
responded to the Sociolinguistic Background
related phenomena.
Questionnaire, also from UTEP. This problem,
The continuation of this collection of excel-
however, should not distract from the articles
lent articles in periodical form would be a nat-
themselves, which were well written and
ural docu-
next step. Perhaps with such a vehicle,
mented.
there would not be "such a paucity of local lin-
guistic
In the excellent introduction by Garland research . . . [in] the state that houses
Bills
and Jacob Ornstein, we are brought up to date
almost half of the speakers of Southwest Span-
with work done in the dialect area of Southwest
Spanish and with what problems still exist. ish" (p. 10). RONALDR. YouNG
Ulti- State Univ.
San Diego
mately, they propose a standardized dialect sur-
vey and questionnaire which might be used in
properly identifying each subdialect,CONTRERAS,
cald and HELES. A Theory of Word Order
argot of Southwest Spanish. As they state,With ". Special
.. Reference to Spanish. Amster-
dam, New York, Oxford: North Holland Pub-
an indispensable understanding of the Southwest
lishing
Spanish linguistic situation, has not [yet] been Company, 1976. Paper. xii + 152 pp.
captured" (p. 8). What we have seen so This
far has
book analyzes Spanish declarative sen-
merely been a study of idiolects. What they
tences within a framework based on Prague
have proposed to do in this book, then, schoolistheories
to of word order, theme and rheme.
show how these idiolectal patterns areItgrouped
aims at establishing an explicit system of rules
into dialects. Of special note is their insistence
to account for word order and sentential stress
that ". .. every effort should be made placement,
to orient seen as devices for indicating, in the
the questionnaire toward gathering ordinary surface structure, which elements are thematic
speech of general currency, not the quaint and which
and are rhematic. Those rules would
rustic forms so often emphasized in dialect geogra-
operate by assigning the feature [+ rheme] to
phy work" (p. 11). However, it is also oneinter-
or another element in the semantic struc-
esting to note that items 13 and 14 of their
ture, according to a rheme selection hierarchy.
sample questionnaire would lead us to believe
Once the elements in a semantic structure have
that some of these archaic forms (vide, been vido,
labelled as rhematic (or, by exclusion, as
trujo) must inevitably appear in the responses.
[- rheme] or thematic), the relative ordei of
The following three studies demonstrate elements
thatis determined by a system of "linear
the UTEP questionnaire is already a workable order rules" (Ch. 8).
tool. David Foster's treatment of the El Paso In normal, unmarked order, rhemes are
corpus deals mainly with the more salient pho-placed on the right of themes; if more than one
nological features. Of special interest are hiselement
ob- is rhematic, ordering follows the prin-
servations on the suprasegmental phenomena of of rheme selection hierarchy, so that higher
ciple
stress change and syllabification. Fritz Henseyranking elements are placed to the right of
analyzes the same corpus following a set of four
lower ranking ones; consequently, "the highest
morpho-syntactic variables which he has con- ranking rheme occurs in final position" (p. 90).

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 1038 HISPANIA 60 (Dec. 1977)

Emphatic word generally

order relegatedis explained
to a few pages or as an ap- b
rules which postpose thematic
pendage to a sociological elem
research tool, have
topicalization (i.e.,
suffered the
at the handsselection of
of compilers either unaware
as topic of a predication) is accoun
of the creative side of Chicanismo or suspicious
rules which either shift
of studies the
not obviously "topicaliz
politcial or sociological.
to the initial position" (p. redresses
In the present book, Tatum 81), thisas
im- in
bierno, to
balance?qud
que es
pretende?
and suggests symmetry in the writings or a
tion of "topicalizing
generated by the expressions
Chicano movement. su
cuanto a, hablando de,
His classified etc."
bibliography (p.
is one of 81).
the first
stress is explained
devotedasalmostthe
entirely result
to the humanities. of
His a
assigns the feature [+ a--stress]
efforts indicate to
response to the creativeness of rh
ments followed either by
the movement and its thematic
manifestations in litera- o
sentence boundary.
ture and other There
humanities. Meant to is a stud
serve teach-
rhematic factorsersaffecting linear
who wish to incorporate Chicano materialsord
and an application into the of
secondary the theory
or college curriculum, his to
with the indeterminate se (Ch. 14). The ex- compilation has 307 descriptively annotated
amples are either author-originated or taken fromitems on art, audio visual material, the Chicana,
contemporary literary works. folklore, periodicals, language instruction and
Since an exhaustive analysis is not feasible linguistics, literature and music.
here, I shall mention only a few of the main The longest and most valuable section within
characteristics of this book. Firstly, it is a con-the humanities is literature subdivided into an-
sistent linguistic analysis, anchored in a view ofthologies, bibliographies, drama, novel, poetry,
semantics (based mainly on the work of Fill-short story and criticism. Here are almost 100
more, Chafe, and Halliday) which has been entries of paragraph length with a thematic de-
winning acceptance in recent years. It success- scription of the title's contents. The teacher will
fully combines this framework with some of thebe especially grateful for Tatum's evaluation of
most fruitful notions of Praguean linguistics onthe numerous anthologies of Chicano literature
word order. The result is a convincing argument that have proliferated in the seventies. In spite
for the relevance of semantic information in ex-
of the preponderance of the humanities, the bib-
plaining the speaker's choice of word order ar- liography is interdisciplinary, for history and
rangements in terms of his assumptions of what social sciences are similarly but more briefly
the adressee does and does not know. Secondly, treated under other headings.
the notion of a rheme assignment hierarchy ap- Tatum's work in still another sense shows
pears to be a promising one, as it works very well evolvement over his predecessors. In general he
for explaining both cases of unmarked word order establishes guidelines-availability and useful-
and marked cases (emphasis, contrast, and topi- ness. Though the latter criterion is judgmental,
calization). One wishes more than two pages had it is at least an effort to be selective. It is here,
been devoted to sentential stress placement and however, that Tatum is arbitrary, for books from
its interplay with word order, but enough is said Mexico are capriciously included. Although Oc-
to provide the reader with elements for testing tavio's Paz' Labyrinth of Solitude has a chapter
the hypothesis on samples of speech provided by on Pachucos, it is difficult to find similar justi-
native speakers. Actually, one of the merits of fication for entries on Rosario Castellanos, Sam-
the book is that it provides ample material for uel Ramos and Lesley Byrd Simpson. The an-
further thought and experimentation which may swer to this problem would be twofold: the list-
lead to new discoveries about the role of word
ing of a general Mexican bibliography and the
inclusion only of titles on Mexico specifically
order in communication. MILTONM. AZEVEDO
related to Chicanismo.
Univ. of California, Berkeley
In the total selection, one wonders about omis-
sions. For example, two indispensable sources on
TATUM, CHARLES M. A Selected and Anno- minority groups are absent-government docu-
tated Bibliography of Chicano Studies. Man-ments and ERIC (Education Resource Informa-
hattan, Kansas: Society of Spanish and tion Center). The former provide a current and
American Studies, 1976. 107 pages. inexpensive source of statistical, biographical and
other resource materials with standard call num-
Since the 1970's many Chicano bibliographies
have appeared. Reflecting either the bias of bers,
the while ERIC abstracts educational research
compiler or the orientation of current studies,
reports. Likewise, he notes Anglo writings but
these bibliographies tend to emphasize socialexcludes John Steinbeck's Tortilla Flat, Willa
Cather's Death Comes for the Archbishop and
sciences and history to the detriment of the hu-
manities. Consequently, literature and the arts,
Irving Shulman's The Square Trap.

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