1.0. This paper investigates the results that may be obtained when phonemes, or utterances in general, are broken down into simultaneously occurring components : as when the English phoneme /b/ is said to consist of voicing plus lip position plus stop closure, all occurring simultaneously.

The Hitt. suffix -tar gen. -nnas appended to verb stems forms action nouns. Examples are a-ša-tar dat. a-ša-an-na beside e-eš-zi ‘sets’ pl. a-ša-an-zi midd. e-ša e-ša-ri (with reflexive -za) ‘seats himself’ pl. e-ša-an-da e-ša-an-ta-ri, and ú-wa-tar dat. ú-wa-an-na beside a-uš-zi ‘sees’ pl. ú-wa-an-zi midd. u-wa-it-ta u-wa-it-ta-ri ‘appears’. Benveniste has pointed out the etymology of the suffix; it is identical with a hitherto unrecognized IE suffix -ter -tnos. One difficulty remains to be cleared up; and some additional material on the IE side can be supplied. Hence the present paper.

[Rigvedic márate is not a present indicative, but a root aorist subjunctive. Middle Indic marati is of different origin; it is an innovation on the model of the non-present forms.]

[Despite the paucity of material, and notwithstanding the conflicting evidence, it would appear that Gaulish possessed a system of mutation like that of the other Celtic languages; and that this system resembled the Brythonic rather than the Goidelic. Certain analogous phenomena occur in French (and Engadine); but whether these are Gaulish survivals is a question, rather, for Romance scholars.]

By reference to Zipf's ‘standard curve of distribution’, we can conveniently describe the frequency distribution of words in any language. When the word-frequency curve for a given language is found to deviate markedly from the standard curve, then a consideration of such deviation may, as Zipf suggested, ‘shed welcome light on significant factors in the structure of the language.‘ By analysis of two vocabulary studies of French, I have found a French word-frequency curve which does in fact show definite peculiarities as compared with the standard. This paper is primarily to present that French curve for the consideration of linguists, and secondarily to suggest some approaches to ultimate interpretation of its significance.

[A review of the theory that the Germanic weak preterite is derived from the 2d person singular middle of the Indo-European root-aorist.]

In spoken Finnish the imperative mode occurs in the 2d person singular, the 1st person plural, and the 2d person plural. In each form it is marked by one or more suffixes, and in spoken Finnish exhibits certain interesting features presenting a different picture from the one found in Finnish grammars, which do not generally deal with the colloquial forms.

The state of our etymological knowledge of this word is excellently summarized by REW §9439:

*VOLUS ‘fliegend’.

Afrz. veule ‘eitel’, ‘leer’, nfrz. veule ‘schlaff’, ‘weichlich’.—Zussg.: afrz. vanvole ‘nichtige Sache’, volgrain ‘Spreu’, volgrener ‘fliegen machen’.—Thomas, Mél. 214. (Zweifelhaft; VOLA Diez 698 ist begrifflich, dän. hvegl, schwed. vägel ‘unstet’ Vising, NTF. n.v. 7, 33 formell schwierig.)

I am grateful to Professor Bloomfield who, by printing in its entirety my discussion of his principles, has, in accord with the wise and noble policy of Frederick the Great ('niederhängen!'), thereby given my remarks currency among the readers of this journal. But I am disappointed that he contents himself with brushing them aside as 'tertiary responses' or, as I would express it, 'linguistic folklore' (of course, they are folklore only provided Mr. Bloomfield's way of thinking is the truly scientific one—and, conversely, his remarks are linguistic folklore if mine is scientific), and that he does not answer the two main questions I raised: 1. how he can, as a mechanist, be willing to use the terms basic in our linguistics ‘Indo-European’, ‘Vulgar Latin’, ‘Proto-Romance’ etc., which are of mentalistic and even speculative origin; 2. why a stylistic study such as I am in the habit of undertaking, should be any more daring than is the reconstruction of Proto-Romance.