The volume contains a broad range of carefully described cross-linguistic data which pertain to the ‘core’ theoretical problems of linguistics, and I strongly believe that it must and will play a major role in any further discussions of these problems.
- Elena Maslova, Stanford University in Linguist List Vol-12-2658. Wed Oct 24 2001,
There is something for everyone in this volume. Differential case marking, split intransitivity, degrees of transitivity, control, impersonal constructions, dative subjects, and psychological verbs are just some of the many topics addressed. This book is another fine contribution to the study of language typology from John Benjamins and it is also another example of exciting collaborative work spear-headed by the Research Centre for Linguistic Typology, La Trobe University.
- Donna B. Gerdts, Simon Fraser University in Journal of Linguistics 40 (2004),
Each article of the volume is valuable for its presentation of new data from individual languages as well as for its contribution to the study of subject and object properties from a cross-linguistic perspective. The clear presentation helps a lot in understanding the most complicated syntactic problems. This book is highly recommended for general linguists and typologists.
- Leonid Kulikov, University of Nijmegen, in Canadian Journal of Linguistics 49:1, 2004,
The value in this collection is two-fold. Individually, the articles provide lucid insights into a host of thorny case-marking problems that at best have received a less than adequate functional description in the past. Collectively, they point the way toward true insight into the cognitive underpinnings behind recurring patterns of exceptions to general morpho-syntactic regularities.
- Edward J. Vajda, Western Washington University, in Language 79(2), 2003,
I consider the book interesting reading matter for all typologists who are interested in the cross-linguistic study of actancy phenomena. I am convinced that this collections of articles marks the starting point for similarly-minded studies of the relation of canonical and non-canonical marking of syntactic relations.
- Thomas Stolz, University of Bremen, in STUF 58(4), 2005,