An Important Event in Linguistics

• Published in: Canadian Slavonic papers Vol. 40; no. 3-4; pp. 433 - 445
• Main Author: Dolinina, Inga B.
• Format: Journal Article Book Review
• Language: English
• Published: Edmonton Routledge 01.09.1998; Canadian Association of Slavists; Taylor & Francis Ltd
• Subjects: Chvany, Catherine V; Discourse Structure; Essays; Functional Sentence Perspective; Generative Grammar; History; History of Linguistics; Linguistics; Literary Criticism; Morphology Syntax Relationship; Nonfiction; Poetics; REVIEW ARTICLE; Slavic languages; Syntax; Theory; Writers
• ISSN: 0008-5006; 2375-2475
• DOI: 10.1080/00085006.1998.11092196

A review of Selected Essays of Catherine V. Chvany (Yokoyama, Olga T., & Klenin, Emily [Eds], Columbus, Ohio: Slavica Publishers, 1996) characterizes this collection of papers written between 1968 & 1995 as significant for linguists of all theoretical orientations & for specialists in psychology, philosophy, literature, semiotics, poetics, & the visual arts. The essays, one of which ("Deconstructing Agents and Subjects") appears in print for the first time, attest a phenomenal theoretical breadth & ability to integrate disparate positions & reflect Chvany's training in generative grammar, Praguian functionalism, & Jakobsonian poetics. It is argued that Chvany often achieves an understanding of issues beyond that of any individual theoretical framework. The collection is organized in four sections corresponding to Chvany's principal directions of research: syntax & morphosyntax, lexical patterning in relation to syntax, principles of grammatical category description, & the application of poetics & discourse theory to various genres of Russian literature. 22 References. J. Hitchcock