A Transformational Analysis of Modern Colloquial Japanese by John J. Chew,Review by: Roy Andrew MillerJournal of the American Oriental Society, Vol. 99, No. 3 (Jul. - Sep., 1979), pp. 505-506Published by: American Oriental SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/602434 .

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Brief Reviews of Books 505

original Japanese. It should be widely read.

WILLIAM E. NAFF

UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS, AMHERST

A Transformational Analysis of Modern Colloquial Japanese. By JOHN J. CHEW, JR. Pp. 156. Janua linguarum, Studia memoriae Nicolai van Wijk dedicata, Series Practica, 56. The Hague and Paris: MOUTON.

1973. Dutch Guilders 42.--.

Chew's new monograph is important for two reasons. One is because it pushes the assumptions of transformational analysis as far as they will go in dealing with Japanese, and in the process makes it clear that as far as they will go is not far enough to tell us anything new about the language that we did not already know, or anything significant about it that we could not easily find out by other methods.

Second, this monograph is important because it began as a Yale doctoral dissertation directed by Bernard Bloch and hence is probably the last fragment from that period in Bloch's career when he continued his own work in Japanese solely through the direction of dissertations by Yale graduate students. Anything that passed through Bernard Bloch's hands, particularly anything bearing upon Jap- anese, merits more than routine attention.

The observant reader will already have noticed that "Chew's new monograph" is actually not all that new, if only because of the association with Bloch. Essentially it is Chew's 1961 Yale dissertation, finally published with revisions in the spring of 1974 (despite the 1973 imprint); under these circumstances, perhaps the lateness of the present review may more easily be overlooked. There is the possibility of a poignant accident of timing here: Chew's work, so long awaiting publication, may well prove to span the entire range in time from the heyday of the post- Bloomfieldians through the full flowering of the Chomskians and down into the twilight of transformation.

Bloch's influence upon the dissertation that is at the heart of this monograph shows itself in many ways, particularly in the emphasis upon definitions of terms, in the attempt at an orderly presentation, and in the careful attention to such phonological criteria as pitch and juncture. The pity is that his influence did not extend into the business of making up non-existent sentences to explain real ones: but if it had, of course, then there would have been no "transformations." Chew claims (p. 117) that hukuoka-4 ddsu detipoo 'the

telegram which will be sent to Fukuoka'" "is reduced to hukztoka -e -n6 deflpoo 'the telegram to Fukuoka'." But the verb das-u in the proposed paraphrase is quite unidiomatic if not downright ungrammatical: normal native-speaker usage would surely involve instead the verb ut-u 'send (a telegram, cable).' Even less probable is naf= en harraw-t kdl 'how many yen did (you) pay?' (p. 87). What can such totally un-Japanese collocations as dasu denpo and nan'en haratta ka tell us about Japanese syntax? Would it not be much more informative simply to analyze what is in the texts we record, rather than to make up such "originals" (in both senses!)?

A reader unwilling to go through the entire length of this monograph may do well to study note 1 to pp. 147-8 carefully; this long note ( 18 lines of small type) will serve as a representative epitome of the entire work. One need not read further in these pages than this long note to see where the two decades since the publication of Syntactic Structures have got us: the answer is, alas, not very far.

All of which is hardly Chew's fault, and surely not Chomsky's. Like most, perhaps all other great world religions, Chomskyism in its earliest sacred texts and essential teachings neither claimed nor urged nor even suggested anything unreasonable, unsound, or undesirable. Flee the burning house of this body; love your neighbor as yourself; account for the native-speaker's intuitive recogni- tion of different meanings of sometimes superficially identical phrase-structures with reference to transforma- tions from an abstract level of language: all these are perfectly sound propositions, to the calls of which uncounted thousands have responded from Gautama's day down to the publication of Syntactic Structures. The rub comes not in the message, or even in the early texts, but in what happens both to the message and to the early texts when the religions that erect themselves upon these messages and their texts become "established." Soon it becomes difficult if not impossible to understand how images with a thousand arms and a thousand heads relate to fleeing the burning house of the body; buying and selling indulgences seem strange ways in which to love our neighbor as ourself; and to verbalize the elegant abstrac- tions that Chomsky taught as lying somewhere beneath the ambiguities of superficially identical phrase structures is to reduce his lofty insight into linguistic realities to the level of painted plaster saints complete with anatomically unlikely pierced and bleeding hearts. Chomsky revealed "abstract linguistic levels," and suggested that some types of native- speaker reactions to language probably may be explained in terms of the existence of an "abstract level of transforma- tions."2 All well and good: but abstractions are edifying only when they are left in the abstract. The trouble arises when we insist on taking them literally, and the essential

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506 Journal of the American Oriental Society 99.3 (1979)

damage is done when we assume that they even can, much less may, be taken literally. And that is the basic assumption that underlies this monograph.

Roy ANDREW MILLER

UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON

1 Reproducing Chew's transcription in citations, but using a less involved system elsewhere. The gloss 'the telegram which will be sent to Fukuoka' itself raises serious questions: the Japanese original, while unidiomatic, is nevertheless active, not passive, and imperfect, not future, etc. All this matters more than it should, because of the controlling role that translation plays in all such analysis.

2 The discussion of "abstract linguistic levels" in Samuel R. Levin, Linguisitc Structures in Poetry (Janua Lin- guarum, Series Minor 23, Mouton, 1973), p. 13ff., with particular reference to the locus classicus for both term and concept in Syntactic Structures, is extremely informative.

Paysans de la For&t. By J. BOULBET. Pp. 147 + 7 maps + 56 photographs. Publications de l'Ecole fran- 9aise d'Extreme-Orient, vol. cv. Paris: ECOLE FRAN-

F'AISE DUEXTREME-ORIENT. 1975

A form of agriculture that English writers have variously termed "slash and burn," " swidden," or "shifting" cultivation is (or has been) practiced throughout the world. This technique, which involves cutting and burning forest growth to clear plots for planting, is frequently misunder- stood and condemned as a primitive and even barbaric practice leading to deforestration and land degradation. J. Boulbet, who has closely observed what he calls "forest agriculture" during many years of residence in Southeast Asia and travels in other tropical regions, argues otherwise. He emphasizes that this kind of agriculture is characterized by a cyclical system in which a field, after a limited period of cultivation, is left fallow for an extended time to return to natural forest cover before it would be used again; moreover, clearings are carefully selected and circum- scribed to leave vast areas of forest intact. The "paysans de la foret," who traditionally respect and even sanctify their surroundings, thus skillfully maintain a delicate ecological equilibrium that works with the forest rather than against it.

Boulbet recognizes that ideal conditions do not always obtain; there are indeed cases of excessive and thoughtless exploitation. But certain deforested areas commonly blamed on swidden cultivation are actually the result of natural ecological conditions, while others are created when customary procedures are upset by modern social and economic problems.

Using information drawn primarily from Vietnam and Cambodia, with additional examples from other regions such as Indonesia, Boulet discusses various aspects of forest agriculture. Sections on tropical forest ecology (topo- graphy, soils, flora, etc.) are valuable for details of regional variations in forest growth. Methods of cultivation are treated somewhat sketchily in contrast to some anthro- pological studies, but one chapter describes farming techniques, crops and yields, fallowing, etc. Boulbet is also concerned with how people perceive their environment, including religious beliefs and rituals connected with cultivation. The text is supplemented by many excellent photographs.

Boulbet's monograph is not simply factual. It is pervaded by a deep sense of sympathy, admiration, and affection for the forest and its "paysans." There is also a feeling of anguish and outrage at the perturbations created by the inroads of "civilization" whose bulldozers, highways, markets, and warfare have disrupted and sometimes destroyed not only the ecology but the traditional cultures of the "montagnard" forest peoples. These problems are also discussed, along with suggestions for possible means of adapting forest agriculture to exigencies of the modem world while, at the same time, maintaining the integrity of indigenous cultures. One can only hope, along with Boulbet, that such possibilities might be realized.

MAY EBIHARA

LEHMAN COLLEGE, CITY UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK

La syntagme verbal en vietnamien. NGUYEN PHU PHONG

Pp. 140. The Hague and Paris: MOUTON. 1976. Dutch Guilders 20.-/34FF, paperback.

This monograph on the verb phrase in Vietnamese is the dissertation which Nguyen Phu Phong submitted to the University of Paris vii for his doctorat de troisieme cycle in 1973.

The book consists of an introduction, two main parts, a conclusion and a bibliography. In his introduction, Dr. Nguyen Phu Phong reviews earlier grammatical studies, conducted by western and Vietnamese scholars,

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