This book consists of an introductory section followed by three parts covering three major divisions of linguistics. Part 1, "Sounds" (chapters 1-7) covers phonology; part 2, "Words" (chapters 8-16) deals with morphology; and part 3, "Sentences" (chapters 17-26) is about syntax.

Part 1 is particularly difficult for the typical American reader because most of the English language examples are based on Received Standard pronunciation (or something near enough to RS to be less than illuminating for one brought up to speak a dialect close to Network Standard).

But worse by far than that is the authors' lack of understanding of how the English language works. For example, on page 227 is the following sentence: "Additionally, . . . "I dog Bill" and "Bill dogs me" are interpreted quite differently, and these different interpretations are due to the choice between nominative "I" and accusative "me" and the related choice between "dog" and "dogs." (because I cannot italicize here, I have put quotation marks around words that are italicized in the book.) Once upon a time, several centuries ago, case inflections of pronouns had some grammatical significance in English, but English has since evolved into a positional language. In modern English, direction of action is determined solely by position, and the remaining vestiges of nominative and accusative case inflections have no grammatical significance whatever. The only case inflections that retain any grammatical significance are the possessives, and in some dialects of English even those are disappearing.

The third and final part of the book discusses syntax, and features an altogether ludicrous reclassification of the components of sentences. If the authors were to describe a house like they describe the structure of English, the living room might be viewed as subsidiary in importance to the coat closet, and the kitchen and dining room as minor adjuncts to the pantry. Auxiliary verbs are accorded more importance than content verbs. Here we find no Noun Phrases; they are called Determiner Phrases if they contain no case marker, otherwise Prepositional Phrases.

For an introduction to the fascinating subject of linguistics, as Consumer Reports might put it, there are better choices.

I found this book to be a decent survey of Linguistics. It is written at a higher level, assuming the reader already knows a bit about language, which I appreciated, yet is not so complex you cannot follow it. Obviously a graduate level read. I recommend it for anyone who is brushing up on linguistics and already has a background in it. It is an overview with more depth than typical linguistics books.

This book includes few horror stories, which may interest you. The stories in here are not much of a horror story, but more of a suspense. As the scenes reveal you will be anticipating for the story to go on, but you will find youself saying, "HUH? " -at least that's what i did. sureley this isn't a story written by Stephen King. But for those who are interested in horror itself, try it. Who knows if you will have a different opinion than me.

I am using this book as a reference for a master's project I am working on in education. I have found the book to be very useful and helpful. However, I am deeply disturbed by a glaring error contained in the text. Martin briefly overviews the history of the process approach to science education near the beginning of the book. Since I am including a history in my project, I have paid careful attention to this section. He states, "In October, 1959, the United States felt deeply humiliated by the launching of the Soviet spaceship, Sputnik" (p. 16). This event occurred on October 4, 1957! He goes on to say that the Woods Hole Conference took place one month earlier. In reality, Woods Hole took place in September of 1959, nearly two years later (Bruner, 1960). These mistakes almost discredit the entire book for me. Let's hope that the new 1999 edition corrects these errors.

its a wonderful book for new glass painters, glass painting is really easy for the person who has read this book.

This is one of the Men-at-Arms grabbag volumes. While there are wonderful illustrations and lots of facts crammed in here, one has to wonder just how accurate a book covering warfare in approximately 1/2 of Europe over a 570 year period can be. In the end, use this book as a jumping off point, but not the last word on Eastern Europe.

The Angus McBride illustrations are mostly up to their standards of excellence, although he has left the last painting only partially done for some obscure reason and he DOES like to focus on atypical arms and armour, which can be interesting, but also presents a rather skewwed vision of the armies of the period.

Nicolle tries valiantly with this volume. As I said above, there are a LOT of facts in here. There are two problems that press on the information. 1) Militarily, this is a poorly chronicled era and the sheer number of languages makes the task all the more duanting and 2) the timeframe is just far too broad for any serious considerations. Imagine lumping all of, say, American military developement from 1492 to the present (a similar timeframe) into a volume this size and you will get a notion of the enormity of the task.

The informaion is as good as the team can get it. The illustrations do their best to bring a candle to the minds of Western Europe and America as to what Eastern Europe went through. The writing is solid. In the end, though, the book has severe limitations. Take it with a grain of salt.

If you're taking Global Studies, this book could help, but don't expect anything that'll bring you from an F to an A. There are sections on the history of each area of the world, mostly just to get an understanding of the events. This book would be most helpful when reviewing for the regents, since you get a brief overview of the whole course. In order to improve this book, I think Barrons should include a lot more review questions so the book could be helpful when reviewing for all tests during the year. Then, this book would deserve 4 or 5 stars.

Quite a useful adjunct for Respiratory Science students in Australia. Difficult to obtain!

I am a little bit disapointed by this book. The section "How to paint" is too short and the explanations are not sufficient, especially for beginners : only the very easy techniques are explained (water, salt) with no step by step illustrations. However, the 10 projects are nice and easy enough to make.

On the one hand this book is scholarly and thus a great pleasure to read, with many Greek and Hebrew words without any of these horrible transliterations. On the other hand, Aune uses the ideas of the German deist school, which lead to reject the textual and historical (Church Fathers, etc.) evidence for the date, composition, authorship of New Testament docuemnts such as the book of Revelation. A defense of the Christian views (date, composition, author, etc.) on Revelation, which refutes Aune's old liberal arguments, can be found for example in "An Introduction to the New Testament" by D. A. Carson, Douglas Moo and Leon Morris, which book I recommend.

Liberal scholars will certainly greatly benefit from Aune's volumes on Revelation (I only have volumes 52A and 52B, but I assume the next volumes will be similar). To those looking for a Christian commentary on Revelation, I would rather not recommend Aune's books.

The facts are available for any who want facts. The general impression of the greatness of Egypt has never been spoken against in my lifetime in any scholarly way. The value of speculation presented as fact is no greater in this venue than any other. I prefer to believe civilization in the Americas is older than traditionally portrayed by orthodox views, but making up my own version of history in the Americas and presenting it as fact that has been conspired against (using Spaniards burning our writings as de facto "proof") would be damaging to my own peoples, our place in history and the greatness of our true achievements....it would be disgraceful for me to attempt such a shill in the name of hate.

It is indeed sad that people can be made to hate invisible conspirators and so easily believe that there is a secret plot working against them.

Inventing history that is favorable to oneself is no more valid than inventing history for any other reason.

I am Creek and Crow. My people were wiped out. They were not enslaved or treated poorly, they were massacred, that gives me no right to try to vengefully make up lies about it. What really happened, happened, no more, no less. Individuals are responsible for hate, not conspirators. It is easy to place blame on others as a group because it makes one feel more empowered against bad things that occur without real reason in life (if the terrible things in life have a cause and a source it is better than the maddening truth that everyone, regardless of the tone of their skin, has to deal with the unpredictable hardships of life with no more success than anyone else).

There is no genetic evidence that my people are descended from Africans; whether they were or not they developed their civilization independantly. Are we then "white people"?

Archaic notions of group-hate are bigtime cashcows, even more so than firsthand hate (reactionary hate is much easier to sell). This is another example of just such a ploy. There is much legitimate history to be proud of and to explore, with wonderful new horizons awaiting every shovel; sadly, it is much easier to get a reaction from a reader with hate than beauty.

-true__ibnFrey

Black Athena

There are a lot of hysterical reviews on this forum, by people who clearly have
not read, let alone understood the book, Black Athena.

This book is not about whether the Ancient Egyptians were Black, or whether
Greek civilization as it exists today and became known to the Romans was a
wholesale copy of Egyptian civilization, as it obviously wasn't.

So, what is Black Athena about?

This book carefully sets out Martin Bernal's hypothesis, that ancient history
can be seen as having been molded into specific narratives, depending on
the age when that narrative was created and found it's uses.
He defines three different Models or narratives, namely the Ancient Model,
The Aryan Model, and his own Revised Ancient Model. He includes some
suggested timelines, but basically, the Ancient Model of Greeks like
Herodotus, suggested that in 15th century BC, Egyptians and
Phoenicians had set up colonies in Greece and the Aegean, creating Greek
civilization. The Aryan Model suggests that civilization started with the
indigenous creation of a civilization in Greece, and that there were
Nordic invasions of Indo-European speakers who mixed in with
the non-Indo-European speaking indigenous population
Bernal's Revised Ancient Model places the Egyptian and Phoenician
invasions in the 21st-19th century, pushes back the introduction of the
alphabet to the 17th century (from the 9th century), but maintains
that there were Nordic invasions and that the indigenous population
spoke a related Indo-Hittite language.

All ten chapters in this book are documented to a different period and
the changing perspectives and emphasis that is put on a particular origin
of history or culture (from the Ancient Model In Antiquity (I), through
this model's transmission during the dark ages and the renaissance (II),
The Triumph of Egypt in the 17th and 18th Centuries (III) and
the beginning Hostilities To Egypt In The 18th Century (IV) (long _before_
Champollion's decypherment of Egyptian in the first quarter of the19th century).
These hostilities had no small part of their origins in the existing race based slavery,
colonialism and the challenges from within Europe to the transatlantic slave trade
as a catalist of the need for a defense of the first two institutions.

Chapters V through IX deal with the Romantic Linguistics (V) the discovery of
Sanskrit as a related, Indo-European language and the rise of the Indian-Aryan model.
Hellenomania (VI) deals with the rise of Greece as a fount of European
civilization and ideals, under the German school of von Humboldt and Wolf.
Hellenomania 2 (VII) deals with the takeup of this school of thought in England
and the growing pre-eminence of the Aryan model in the middle of the 19th century.
The Rise And Fall Of The Phoenicians (VIII) deals with the recognitions of
the Phoenicians and the influence of antisemitism, as does chapter (IX).

The book concludes with The Post-War Situation (X) and discussion
of the influences of Gordon and Astour and their reclaming of the legacy
of the Phoenicians.

In the end we have to ask: is it really so difficult to believe that Ancient Egypt
at the height of it's power, it's age of expansion, created small Egyptian colonies
in the Peleponnese and around the Aegean (20th century BC), that these colonies
helped to transfer some of it's culture and civilization, and that the Greeks had myths
that said so? No linguist today disputes the Phoenician origin of the Greek alphabet.
A small step pyramid has been found in Thebes, Greece. Most ancient Greek
philosophers paid homage to Ancient Egypt and studied there, in the 5th century.

A classic book and a must read for anyone interested in the topic, especially
of Aegean relations and the history of history itself.

What is all the controversy around Bernal's work about? It only takes a student of history to learn without a doubt that Egypt was indeed the cradle of modern human civilization. Only look at the historical evidence to confirm this if you have any doubts. Bernal's work was not a mind shocker with his conclusion about the fundamental influence of Egypt as teacher to a student to the Greeks, but I do commend Bernal for introducing the historical evidence to Western readers who do not know about it up till this day.

My only surprise in the whole matter is that this simple idea of Past preceding its Inheritors does not want to be acknowledged by so many people in the "west" today, in the year 2002 AD. This in its self is the biggest testimony to the validity of Bernal's simple thesis.

To those who still doubt, just learn Egyptian history and archaeology; it is written in papyrus, inscribed on stone and closer to you, by the ancient Greek students of Egypt who later became known as the fathers of Greek and, to you, "Western Civilization".