The third volume of this magisterial series presents entries that span the alphabet from Latin America to Punctuation written by specialists at research institutions worldwide. Where appropriate, the entries contain detailed historical and sociocultural material describing the larger context of the speakers' lives and situations. Entry topics include theoretical terms such as "leveling", but most entries are on topics directly pertinent to Arabic, for example, locatives, Middle Arabic, modal verbs, morphology, negation, and passive syntax. Other entry topics are those for countries and dialects--Mali, Najdi Arabic, and Northwest Semitic languages among them. Two entries discuss lexicography, one is on bilingual dictionaries. Lists of bibliography divided into primary and secondary sources conclude each entry. As it is an encyclopedia, it is not further indexed. Versteegh is at the U. of Nijmegen in the Netherlands. Annotation ©2008 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)