[It is assumed in this paper that Indo-Hittite had four laryngeal consonants, namely: (1) a glottal stop of palatal color ('), (2) a glottal stop of velar color (;), (3) a voiceless velar spirant (x), and (4) a voiced velar spirant (γ), and that all of these consonants were lost in Primitive Indo-European. The paper attempts to prove that any one of the first three laryngeals converted an immediately preceding voiceless stop into the corresponding voiceless aspirate in Primitive Indo-European.]

Russian stress alternations are usually considered capricious and unrelated to grammatical meanings, but this paper argues that that is true only on the phonemic level. An analysis of such alternations in terms of underlying morphophonemic entities and ordered rules makes it clear (1) that Russian stress shifts are clearly correlated with the grammatical categories of number and case, and (2) that all stress shifts in the Russian substantive can be described by a single alpha-switching rule with varying environmental conditions. By listing the unmarked singular stem in the lexicon, generating the plural stem therefrom, and then generating the several case forms within each number stem, one obtains a simplification of the stress-shift rules and a generalization of their applicability. It is thus shown that a number of Russian words heretofore considered exceptional can all be covered as members of a single class.

Whether or not he is familiar with the technical terms currently favored, or aware of the actual processes behind these terms, a speaker or student of Spanish, on some undefined level of consciousness, senses (or acts as if he sensed) the existence of such contrastable inflectional models as sent-ir ‘to feel’ : sient-e ‘(he, she, it) feels’ vs. ped-ir ‘to ask’ : pid-e ‘(he, she, it) asks’. The native speaker may even at some time or other have faced the dilemma of choosing, in the stressed syllable of such a verb form, between ie and i, and the foreign student is certain to have come to grips with such practical difficulties and to have been guilty, upon occasion, of gross errors. Preceptive grammarians and practitioners of language teaching, accordingly, have at all times paid attention to the hazards of the choice between the two conjugational categories.

In Language 18.259–70 (1942) we began a discussion of the question whether Hittite of the time when our texts were written distinguished phonemically between syllabic and consonantal u and i. On account of lack of direct evidence concerning these sounds in anteconsonantal and final position we confined our attention to the antevocalic position, and considerations of space compelled us to postpone the presentation of evidence concerning Our present purpose is to discuss the evidence concerning the latter phoneme.

The problem. Sanskrit noun stems ending in u, when subjected to secondary derivation, typically replace u by av, whereas, typically, stems ending in i simply drop the i before a suffix beginning with a vowel or with y (rather than replacing the i by ay or e respectively). I have not found any attempt to explain this disparate treatment, which, to judge from the implication or the express statement of our standard reference works, prevails equally in the Rig-Veda and in all later stages of Sanskrit. To point out, as the grammars do, that in this regard i-stems behave like stems in a, ā, and ī is not to explain the disparity but to heighten it.

[1. MWelsh bel, Welsh rhy-fel ‘war’ are not borrowed from Lat. bellum, but are derived from IE *gwel- ‘prick’. 2. Welsh blew, Bret, bleo ‘hair’ are derived from *mleus, extension of IE *mel- in Grk. μαλλός, etc. 3. Ir. brat ‘mantle’, Welsh brethyn ‘cloth’, etc. are derivatives of IE *bher- in Grk. . 4. Welsh cyw ‘chicken, young of animals’ < *kuw- : Grk. , etc. 5. Welsh etifedd ‘heir’ belongs to tyfu ‘grow’. 6. Welsh llafrog, Bret, lavrek ‘breeches’ are from IE *(s)lb- ‘slack, loose’. 7. Ir. re(i)the ‘ram’ is a derivative of the root of Ir. rethim ‘run’. 8. MIr. sáilim ‘expect’, NIr. saoilim ‘think’ are cognate with ON seilask ‘seek for’, ChSl. sila ‘strength’, etc. 9. Welsh traul ‘wear, expense’ is derived from IE *terā-: *ter- ‘rub‘.]