BREV TIL: Stephen Anderson FRA: Eli Fischer-Jørgensen (1985-11-23)

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Dear ^teve,

■‘•hank you very much for sending: ine I am sorry

your book on Phon logy in •*- did not react to your rhe reason was that first I was terribly busy and

the Twentieth century, manuscript, somewhat overworked because I had promised much t^o much after I retired, thinking that would get plenty of time, I worked about 6o hours a week, which was perhaps not very wise. Ahen I got ill, and since t en I have had to restrict my working hours very much, and moreover I thought I had to give preference to mak ng order in my papers and books, and curves etc. In case I should get an infarct, £E did not like to leave anything in a mess. --And I

Now everything is in order except my correspondence, am feeling OK when do not do too much, - This time I have t±ied to react quickly, I also received a copy from ypur publisher , whé asked whether 1 could make a state ment for their advertisement. This copy i have given to Rischel who is writi g a book about linguistics in the twentieth centu- ry and who was very eager to read your book, - I thought the best thing X could do was tovwrite a review ( probably for Phonetica), and send a copy to your publish rs, who could the extract a couple of sentences for th< ir use* ^ut before sending the review I would like to 3how you a first draft. I may have misunderstood yo on some points, and would be glad to have your reactions, - As you can see frot the enclosed draft I think your b<£Ok is well-writte , competent and interés ting, but of course have a few objections, and that is why I would like to hear your reaction, -- ^o what writeabout the definiti n of languages, X should 3 ike to add, that I find of the differences between -European structuralism and Amer can linguistics ^ particularly transformational grammar) is that for European structuralism tlang&n^isi&oa system -frelatino and the aim is to describe tbfo system - which of cours can only be done on the basis of an analysis of texts, ‘‘or transfer matlonalists the syste . ( called by the; the grammar) is a means to specify an infin te set of well-formed sentences ( which \t ey ca 1 th language) -- ^or both the system Is essentia , but the prospective is slightly different. ( see ,e.g, my "Trends 9.3) —

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I did not look for misprin s, but X found, of course, a few. ( hy b^ok was proof read by three per ons, an> there is quite a num er of misprints left) .- I found,h<wever, only two disturbing cases : p,44,19 I think "unpredictable " should be "predictable", and on p, lo6, 3 fro© below some words seoem to be missing"If the opposition betwwen / the members of / a particular pair i$ missing" Ahe otherss are trivial, but X Just give t e references p. 8,28, 9,27 , 26,lo,aøø,6 59,14, 75,14 f. 19o,8, 258,26, ,og9|f|30K 29^, 12wo*k

for the use of a second edition : $9,6 from belov , 3o,1 49,21, 52,15 , 84,23, 113,21, 124,2o, 164,9 , 164,10

beiow, 224,6 fr.belc

on a new book. I wrote quite a lot before 1 got ill, ^ince then ^ have not fi nis' ed anythin* , but I hope to finish a paper on th< stød (from a phone io point of view ) dur ng the spring, and I havepromisec a review of Zwirner’s Grundfragen der Phonometrie ( 2nd ed tio «

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Phonometrie, second edition, long' ago, and now it must be within a fortnight. Apart from this 1 do some painting, cultivate my garden, see my family and make translations ans summaries for the movement "No to ^uclear Weapons#n«* We in Europe a very wopried about the Star Wars progaime, whicl will only lead to an increased arms race. ^ou must try to find a president of a somewhat higher intellectual level next timej

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Please give my kind regards to Vicky, Best regards

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