A proposal for modifying the tagmemic model is here illustrated in the description of the Huixtec Tzotzil verb phrase. Pike's notion of slot-class (Longacre's function-set) is retained, but the close correlation of slot and class as properties of a unit of grammar (the tagmeme) is rejected. An attempt is made to partially specify the form of rules in the lexical hierarchy of Tzotzil, here termed the semantic component. Rules for relating its semantic, syntactic, and phonological components are also presented.

Modern surgery has legitimized exploratory operation with the understanding that it should provide such otherwise inaccessible information as may guide medical scientists in embarking on the least hazardous course of the decisive final action. The present paper is likewise exploratory, inasmuch as the study of the Latin suffix -āceu in Romance has for decades been obstructed by a thick and ever-expanding growth of side-issues, through which a preliminary path must now be cleared. Not all of these by-problems will come up here for detailed discussion, still less for solution, but most will be squarely stated and assigned to a specific place in an intricate web of multiple relationships. More important, an attempt will be made to isolate the core of the issue and to provide a tentative new answer to a crucial question of identity where older accounts have turned out to be unsatisfactory. The immediate aim, then, is to create on slippery and overgrown terrain a temporary base for future investigations.

§39. The qualificative or adjectival construction (which includes the possessive) is distinguished primarily by two features: the qualificative concordance and word order. In general, it is the special concordance alone which stamps a word as a qualificative—and most words may be so employed. There are a few elements which may be regarded as specifically adjectival, since they are distinct forms—not mechanically determined—that are employed in the qualificative construction only. Most of these, however, are related to noun or verb forms somewhat as English ‘good’ corresponds to ‘good-ness’ or as the affinity shown in German ‘Ruh-e, ruh-ig, be-ruh-ig-en’. The second feature mentioned apropos of this construction is that the qualifying form always follows the word which is modified.

A grammar of almost any Bantu language will attest a morpheme α in a variety of constructions involving association, usually of a preceding noun with a following noun or pronoun. In many Bantu languages a second morpheme, with the shape ka or something similar, is used in some similar constructions. These morphemes have frequently been labelled ‘possessive’, with reference to one of their more obvious uses, or genitive, with the implication that more than literal possession may be involved; the variety of constructions in which they are found makes the more neutral term ‘associative’ preferable.

[Explanation for anomalies in Einarsson's observation, that a consonant is usually longer as a first than as a second member of a group, is to be sought in the mechanical handling of his data rather than in any linguistic principle.]