In 1910, Matteo Giulio Bàrtoli published an article, Alle Fonti del Neolatino; and in 1925, two books: a joint publication with Giulio Bertoni, Breviario di Neolinguistica, and an independent book, Introduzione alla Neolinguistica (Princìpi—Scopi—Metodi). In these three works he formulated certain theories concerning linguistic change, deriving largely from the study of linguistic geography, and on the basis of these theories, combined with the philosophy of Benedetto Croce, he developed an approach to linguistics which he and Bertoni termed Neolinguistica or ‘Neo-Linguistics’. The work of the neolinguisti or ‘Neo-Linguists’ (as they styled themselves in opposition to the Neo-Grammarians) has remained generally unknown in this country until recently, when several articles have appeared, arguing the superiority of the ‘neo-linguistic’ method over other approaches. Since these articles give only a partial and not wholly accurate picture of Bàrtoli's theories and their value, and since Bàrtoli's books are in general not easily accessible to American linguists, an attempt at presentation, critical discussion, and evaluation of his ‘Neo-Linguistics’ is in order. We shall make such an attempt in this article, primarily on the basis of the Introduzione alla Neolinguistica. The basic questions we shall try to answer are : (1) What does Bàrtoli have to say to us? (2) What is it worth from the point of view of general linguistic method? (3) What is it worth to us, here and now?

[Old Spanish vellido, bellido and Old Galician-Portuguese velido ‘beautiful’ are retraced to Lat. mellītus ‘sweet like honey, beloved, darling’, with possible interference of bellus. Spanish and Portuguese melindre, Minhoto melingre ‘fritters made of honey’, later ‘daintiness, prudery’, are connected with mellīgō, -inis ‘honeysubstance’, used by Pliny. Two recorded Latin formations are thus added to the Romance lexicon.]

[The basic meaning of the simple present tense is the constitution of things, logical, physical, psychological, essential, etc.; of the present progressive, mere occurrence. The distinction between them is not a time-distinction.]

The Muskogean family of languages has two main divisions, the Western and the Eastern. Among extant languages, the Western division is represented only by Choctaw-Chickasaw; the extant languages of the Eastern division may be further divided into three subgroups: (1) Alabama-Koasati, (2) Hitchiti-Mikasuki, and (3) Creek-Seminole. The material on which the present paper is based is taken from my field notes on Choctaw, Koasati, Hitchiti, and Creek (Muskogee). These four languages may be considered representative of the family as a whole, since both divisions and all the subgroups are represented among them.

The fact that most writing is the graphic representation of vocal-auditory processes tends to obscure the fact that writing can exist as a series of morphemes at its own level, independent of or interacting with the more fundamental (or at least more primitive) vocal-auditory morphemes. Recognition of visual morphemes is also hampered by the controversy, not yet subsided, over the primacy of the spoken versus the written; the victory of those who sensibly insist upon language as fundamentally a vocal-auditory process has been so hard won that any concession to writing savors of retreat. Yet, so long as a point-to-point correspondence is maintained, it is theoretically possible to transform any series of morphemes from any sensory field into any other sensory field, and keep them comprehensible; the only condition is that contact with the nervous system be maintained at some point. More than theoretically: it is actually done for the congenitally deaf-and-dumb reader of Braille, who ‘reads’ and ‘comprehends’ with his finger-tips. Just as here is a system of tactile morphemes existing with no connexion (other than historical) with the vocal-auditory field, so there is nothing unscientific in the assumption that a similarly independent visual series may be found.