The book describes three siblings' apportioning of linguistic and cultural space among three languages: Portuguese, Swedish and English. Parallel strategies accounting for monolingual and multilingual language management shape a truly illuminating picture of child linguistic competence. Written by a multilingual parent, educator and linguist, this book is for parents, educators and linguists in our predominantly, increasingly multilingual world.

It is no surprise that a large amount of interesting contemporary work on all aspects of bi-tri-and multilingualism emanates from Spain. A portrait of the young in the new multilingual Spain provides a rich example of this work, covering many aspects, both internal and external, of a multi-faceted phenomenon. Factors taken into account include the context of acquisition linguistic input, the "critical mass" hypothesis, the role of the classroom "personal factors" learners with SLI, learners of different ages, the role of literacy and the nature of bilingual linguistic competence: Grosjean's "the bilingual is not two monolinguals in one person". From the grammatical point of view this last factor finds an almost ideal testing ground in Spain, with the availability of bilinguals speaking closely-related languages (Spanish and Catalan) and non-related languages (Basque and Spanish), a fact reflected in this book. Finally, and above all, this book is a striking example of the way attitudes to bi-and multilingualism have changed.
Professor Clive Perdue, France Universite Paris 8, France

The remarkable fact that some languages appear to be more complex than others has long been a matter of interest to linguists and has repeatedly motivated efforts to define linguistic complexity and to explain how and why complexity develops and why it is sometimes “maintained” (as Dahl puts it) and sometimes not.
In this monograph Dahl presents a theory of linguistic complexity and tries to tackle the mysteries of its growth and occasional longevity.

This monograph is written from a specific perspective on the scientific study of language, a position that holds that linguistic theory must be held accountable to the diversity of the world’s languages. In this view, theoretical hypotheses about the nature of language, whether synchronic or diachronic, must be tested against a wide range of languages and language types. This position entails what Ken Hale has called the “the confirmatory function of linguistic diversity” (Hale 2000: 168).

Andrew Carstairs-McCarthy discusses current issues in morphology within linguistic theory, giving fair coverage to all approaches which have been influential over the last twenty years. He concentrates not only on the generative linguistic mainstream, discussing the lexicalist morphology initiated by Chomsky and the syntactically oriented approaches that have developed in the `80s, but also on approaches that are less fashionable or relatively unknown to English-speaking linguists.