‘The Modern Greek Language: A Descriptive Analysis of Standard Modern Greek Review Author[s|: John B. Rexine The Modern Language Journal, Vol. 72, No. 1. (Spring, 1988), pp. 97-98. Stable URL hp: flinks,jstor-org/siisici=0026-7902%28198821%2972% 3A 1%3C97%3ATMGLAD&3 0.CO%SB2L The Modern Language Journal is currently published by National Federation of Modern Language Teachers Associations. ‘Your use of the ISTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR’s Terms and Conditions of Use, available at hhup:/www stor orglabout/terms.html. ISTOR’s Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at hupulwww.jstor-org/journals/nfiita hum. Each copy of any part of @ JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the sereen or printed page of such transmission. STOR is an independent not-for-profit organization dedicated to creating and preserving a digital archive of scholarly journals. For more information regarding JSTOR, please contact support @ jstor.org. hupulwww jstor.org/ Mon Ape 10 05:45:16 2006Reviews: MLJ, 72 (Spring 1988) ‘man speakers, Teachers can pick and choose from a variety of materials that are generally. well thought out and attractively presented, the lack of color notwithstanding. ‘The one primary weakness in Deutsch gestern und heute is the tape material, which is frankly quite dull. The material itself is not the prob: lem, but rather the presentation, The voices sound uninspired and lifeless. Without further information to reinforce this impression, a number of voices sound very familiar to me, being those appearing most often in American: made German-language material, including a voice or two present on other EMC tapes. ‘There is nothing inherently wrong with this practice, except that clarity of pronunciation is no substitute for sincerity of enthusiasm, An experienced teacher could read the passages and grammatical exercises aloud with the same skill. A greater variety of professional stage and studio voices, such as those often employed by Inter Nationes in their cassette material, would be thus of considerable long-term benefit to the second language learner. ‘The authors of Deutsch gestern und heute have taken a number of risks by integrating gram- mar with reading. If they are to be faulted, it is in not erring more on the side of contextuali- zation and communication and less on the side of morphology. Even as itis there are no sum- mary exercises or activities anywhere in the material, which means that itis difficult to tell which the authors consider more important, teaching students to read interesting stories and articles or teaching them to transform sentences and fill in blanks. Deutsch gestern und heute fills a void in many secondary-level German programs, namely, ‘where to go after the second year, It balances the expansion of reading and situational tasks ‘with a thorough grammar review, while at the same time providing a flexibility that allows teachers to be creative, The topics are interest- ing, the explanations are clear, and the overall format is acceptable. Most teachers of third- and fourth-year German at the secondary level, and even university-level teachers in perhaps the second year of instruction, will find this a welcome addition to their teaching materials, CHARLES J. JAMES University of Wisconsin 7 MACKRIDGE, PETER, The Modern Gredk Lon- guage: A Descriptive Analysis of Stondard Modern Greek. New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1985, Pp. xxiii, 387. $45.00, cloth Modern Greek is a language in transition, and a number of attempts have been made to de seribe it as it currently i, Peter Mackridge’s book was actually published at the same time as Olga Eleftheriades's Modem Grek: A Contn- porary Grammar (reviewed in MLJ 71:2 [1987] 224-25), The later claims to be a geammar, ‘while the former shies away from the term, ‘while at the same time acknowledging that thete isa great deal of grammar in it systemati- cally arranged for easy use. Mackridge's book “js an attempt to present a fairly comprehen- sive account of the structure and usage of Standard Modern Greck (SMG), which is de fined as the language ordinarily spoken and written atthe present day by moderately edu- cated people in the large urban centres of Greece. Today, despite the view frequently ex- pressed by Greeks that the Modern Greek lan ffuage is ina state of chaos, there is neverthe- less a broad consensus about che general pri ciples (and about most ofthe details) ofthe lan- ssuage’ (p. vi) Mackridge, who is University Lecturer in Modern Greek and Fellow of St. Cross College, Oxford, has based his book on his own personal experiences and observations in learning how to understand and use the language of Athens since 1965 and on a great deal of spoken and ‘written material that he has collected since 1974 (the date of the collapse of the military junta in Greece and effectively of kathardousa a8 an official language). Consciously avoiding the ‘emphasis sometimes placed on language taken fom literary sources, Mackridge has drawn his material from magazines and newspapers and recordings both of radio and television broad casts and of live conversations of people who are speaking naturally, with no intention of impressing others with their use of Greek ‘Though Athenians have been given the greatest attention (4/9 ofthe country’s population lives land works in the metropolitan Athens area), other areas are taken into account. Greeks with ‘ secondary education are the principal group studied, though their use of language has been98 ‘compared with others—but they are the prin cipal users of Standard Modern Greek. Mack ridge does not want to use the word grammar: “This book is not intended in any way to be a grammar” (p. vii) but traditionalists would cer- tainly describe it as a “descriptive grammar,” even though admittedly he has “no intention in this book of making any contributions to the study either of linguistic theory or of linguistic universals" (p. vii). Still, he acknowledges the assistance of the work of modern linguists and believes that “the present book should perhaps bbe seen as a parallel study to the work of the transformationalists, examining the language in a way which differs from theirs without attempting to vie with it” (p. vii) ‘The Modern Greek Language will be of interest to anyone teaching or studying modern Greek Although it acknowledges the monotonic sys tem, and unlike Eleftheriades's, it uses the traditional accents and orthography through- out. The book is replete with fascinating speci- mens of the spoken demotic language that marvellously illustrate the sounds and orthog- raphy of modern Greek; gender, case, number, and person; voice, aspect, tense; noun mor- phology; verb morphology; the noun phrase, prepositions, and pronouns; the clause: word order, coordination, negation, subordinating conjunctions introducing indicative clauses; ‘mood: subjunctive clauses; vocabulary; and style and idiom. There is a laconic introduc- tion to the history and development of the Greek language, two appendices (one with tables on inflection; the other an essay on the ‘monotonic system), a respectable bibliography, aan index of Greek words, and a general index ‘Throughout, Mackridge illustrates gener ously, vividly, and repeatedly the flexibility, the clarity, and the organizational genius of the vibrant modern Greek language, which cer tainly continues as a very lively medium of communication for some twelve to thirteen zillion Greek speakers. The Moder Greek Lan- ‘guage makes for absolutely fascinating reading for those closely familiar with contemporary Greek and its development and who are inti- mately involved with the learning and teaching of modern Greek. JOHN E. REXINE Colgate University Reviews: MLJ, 72 (Spring 1988) KARUMANCHIRI POLESINI, LUISA & JANA. VIZMULLER-2OCCO. Lius delle proposision’ in italiano: sseroazioni ed esrcizi per cor intermedi ‘Toronto: Univ. of Toronto Press, 1984. Pp. x, 108, Paper. Although many texts provide their own supple- mentary exercises on specific points, others, published separately, complement a wide range of texts. The authors of Liuso delle preporizion’ in italiana intend their book to be used in this manner, to fill a gap in the teaching of Italian prepositions. Starting with alist of prepositions, they follow with four sections that include ex: planations and exercises on the use of preposi tions, Tavolerassuntve and an Indice anaitica. An answer key and an instructor manual are also available, In preparing the book, the authors kept in mind not only students who are learning Italian asa second language but also those who know an Italian dialect. The authors suggest that the book be used over the span of two years, and they also point out that as far as they know it is the only one of its kind, The authors are right. The book is quite likely the only one in existence in its exclusive emphasis on Italian prepositions for Anglo- phones learning Italian. Perhaps the very limited value and contribution this book brings to the teaching of Italian explains this unique- ness, Indeed a book—even a thin one—dedi cated only to teaching prepositions seems superfluous. If the prepositions are indeed ‘worthy of a book, then verbs must certainly be accorded the same privilege. And what about other grammatical points? Are we going to ask our students to buy five or six supplementary Students learn prepositions not so much from doing an infinite number of exercises but rather in context, at the same time as they learn the different verbs, other grammatical points, and vocabulary, In general, most intermediate Italian books available teach prepositions ade- quately. However, even if some do not, this book would probably not make a very good supplement because the authors seem unaware ‘of how intermediate texts usually distribute their material. In the first seven pages, for ex-