The recently discovered manuscript page of the Codex Argenteus, containing Mark 16.12–18, is here published in facsimile and transcription. The text is examined for the new linguistic data contained in it, and a detailed discussion is offered for the most notable, if not the only, new lexical item: farwa- ‘shape, appearance’.

This article is an attempt to apply distinctive feature theory to the study of diphthongization. It shows that several types of phonological change—some of them traditionally called diphthongization, others not—involve identical processes of change, and differ only in terms of the distinctive features involved. It identifies the single principle of intra-segmental variation which underlies all such changes, and thus defines the place of diphthongization in a general typology of phonological change.

Lakoff 1970 offers seven sets of data which he believes furnish support for revising current models of syntactic description in such a way as to allow global rules, i.e. rules that make reference to more than a single point in a derivation. A close examination of these data reveals that only two sets cannot be given an adequate treatment within the framework sketched in Chomsky 1965; and even these two sets do not warrant the wide-ranging extension of current syntactic theory which L proposes. Furthermore, L's seven arguments, even if they were accepted, would furnish no support for his assertions concerning the nature of semantic representation.*

Baker & Brame, in this issue of Language, correctly observe that, in three of the cases cited in my paper on global rules (Lakoff 1970), the effect of global rules can be obtained by the use of ad hoc coding mechanisms using arbitrary grammatical elements, in one case an infinite number of such elements. This raises the question of whether the elements used in grammatical descriptions should be arbitrary or whether they should have a natural basis. In addition, Baker & Brame incorrectly claim in three other cases to be able to handle global phenomena within the Aspects theory. In each case they use apparatus that goes beyond that theory. Moreover, they claim that a theory of global grammar is necessarily ‘more powerful’ than the Aspects theory and their proposed extensions. This is shown to be false.*

The question considered here is the correctness of the assumption that transformational rules are extrinsically ordered. One type of argument that has frequently been given in support of this assumption is shown to be invalid: it shows that if the rules in question are to be extrinsically ordered, they must be ordered in some particular way, but it fails to show that the facts cannot be accounted for without imposing extrinsic order on these rules. Thus the assumption that rules are not extrinsically ordered is found to be viable.1

We want to show that echo-words in French, i.e. words such as bibine or chouchou (see appendices), constitute an open word-class, and that their phonological description gives some insight into the productive phonological rules of French. These rules are strikingly different from the rules usually postulated for French, e.g. by Schane 1968.*

Tense and aspect markers in Japanese relative clauses contrast with each other in unique ways not observed in matrix sentences. Different kinds of semantic contrasts appear under particular conditions, depending on whether the relative clause and matrix sentence verbal phrases represent actions vs. states, or are habitual vs. non-habitual. When verbal phrases of both the relative clause and the matrix sentence name non-habitual past actions, the occurrence of relative-clause-final -ta, -te iru, and -te ita can be explained in terms of the opposition simultaneous vs. non-simultaneous. Comparison of examples with verbal phrases of stative non-habitual matrix sentences leads to the formulation of a ‘principle of convergence’, which is later extended to other cases. When the verbal phrase of a relative clause designates a habitual past action, relative-clause-final verbal forms in -ru, -ta, and -te ita all occur, but these forms connote varying degrees of randomness, two of which are contrasted in detail as the ‘true habitual’ vs. ‘iterative’ usage.