[Collection and classification of the doublets used by Rabelais. Discussion of doublet as a technical term in linguistics.]

Two classes of intensional transitive verbs affect the interpretation of an indefinite object in the same way that stage- and individual-level predicates affect an indefinite subject. The contrast for objects is instantiated inside the scope of intensionality, that is, VP-internally. I claim that the differentiation of subject positions said to underlie the interpretational contrast for subjects recurs in the VP for objects, inside the domain of intensionality. The internal domain of a transitive verb is therefore somewhat syntactically articulated, containing at least two positions for indefinite objects. Quantified objects, however, are VP-external.

Jellinek has presented lists of the Gothic consonant-clusters (excluding accidental clusters resulting from compounding, such as tg), with notations of which clusters are found in only one word, but with no other remarks on frequency of occurrence. Dewey has gone a step further with English consonant-clusters: from his tables we learn how many times each cluster was found in his 100,000 words of sample texts. A different kind of frequency is reported in the Twaddell study of one- and two-syllable German words: having analysed the uncompounded words in a lexicon, he reports the number of different forms in which each cluster was found. The Jellinek report gives us no statistical picture in the sense intended here; the Dewey count gives us a statistical picture of TEXT frequencies; the Twaddell count, of LIST frequencies.

History repeats itself, with variations. Two decades ago American structuralists were trying, with indifferent success, to apply to morphology the same analytical techniques that had proved successful in the analysis of sound. For a number of reasons—including the lack of a suitable theory of meaning—the attempt made no headway at a time when phonology was still scoring advances with help from both acoustics and information theory. Morphemics still remains, in current texts on linguistics, a kind of relic of the 1940's. Now we witness a revived attempt from a different direction, but with essentially the same desire: to try out in a new field the techniques that have been developed in an older one. The new field is meaning, the old one is syntax, and the techniques are those of generative grammar. For the moment, morphemics is only slightly involved, but the signs are clear.

This is an attempt to suggest briefly a systematic approach to a number of desiderative or future formations in various IE languages. Taking laryngeals into consideration, I hope to show their possible inclusion under a single formula. No exhaustive study of all variants or subtypes is intended, and no attempt is made to trace the working of analogy which was certainly involved in formations of this kind. The main object is, however, to disqualify some of the more awkward appeals to analogy which have seemed necessary so far.