The purpose of this article is twofold: to examine the various patterns of declension found in Russian and establish the morphemes in them; and, by this presentation, to exemplify a possible method of morphemic analysis.

[Proto-Dravidian had a class of kinship nouns which occurred only in the possessed construction (inalienably possessed) ; this probably was a syntactic rather than a morphological construction. The personal and reflexive pronouns which occurred as attributes in this construction were only the plural ones; distinction of number in the possessor was not indicated, and could be gathered only from the context. The evidence is drawn from Old Tamil, Kota, Gondi, Kolami, Kuwi, and Kurukh.]

Among the Burmese versions of the Pāli Jātaka there is one, the nga:ya. nga:ze ‘the five hundred and fifty’, which is a faithful rendition of the original and which retains the gathas in a Burmanized Pāli. These gathas are accompanied by Burmese commentaries, which present points of linguistic interest both in the Pāli and in the Burmese.

1. Proto-Malayo-Polynesian *R was reconstructed by Dempwolff to account for the correspondence of Tagalog g with Toba-Batak r and the lack of a corresponding phoneme in Javanese (i.e. loss of a consonant and contraction of the abutting vowels); thus, *beRas, Tg. bigás, Jv. wòs, TBt. boras ‘polished rice’. Certain contradictions to Dempwolff's formula appeared not only in the Javanese cognates, but in those of Ngaju-Dayak and Merina, a dialect of Malagasy. The present article will examine these contradictions, to see whether they suggest hitherto unrecognized PMP distinctions.

Possibly the most widely disseminated fact about the Chinese language is that each syllable has a definite musical accent or tone forming an inalienable part. This fact emerges from even the most casual inspection of a Chinese dictionary, in which the syllabic symbols are each labelled with one or more tones, and where it is obvious that the intelligibility of a particular syllable depends on its having the correct tone. Persons who try to talk standard Chinese have to be told that a large number of these tones disappear in connected speech, which only goes to show the universal sloppiness of people. A pedantic speaker, who is at the same time literate, can restore the tones by visualizing the graphs with which the speech would be written down. But it must be concluded that for illiterates the intelligibility of their communications cannot depend on a theoretical knowledge of the tones for syllables that have no tones. An examination of Tangsic brings to light in that Wu dialect a situation rather different from what is ordinarily imagined. (For a definition and general description of the Tangsic dialect see Lg. 28.457-8.)

The Miao-Yao languages are spoken by tribes scattered among the mountainous regions of southwestern China (in the provinces of Hunan, Kueichow, Kuangtung, Kuanghsi, Yünna, Szuchuan), in Viet Nam (in the area of Tonkin), and in Thailand. These tribes bear various Chinese names, with either Miao or Yao as their last element. On the basis of the information that I now have, I have tentatively classified this group of dialects into two main divisions: the first preserves the syllable-finals -p, -t, (k), -m, the second has lost them. The dialects of the second division in turn form two subdivisions: one displays a highly complicated system of initials, the other a comparatively simple one. In this paper ten dialects are discussed: MKC (Hungchan Miao in Kaop'o, Kueichu, Kueichow), MKS (Yi Miao in Kechengchai, Kuangshun, Kueichow), YLP (Hei Yao in Yaolu, Lipo, Kueichow), YYT (Tahua Yao in Hsishankai, Yungts'ung, Kueichow), MTK (Hei Miao in Shihtungk'ou, Taikung, Keuichow), MCF (Hei Miao in Chengfeng, Keuichow), MJC (Hei Miao in Kaot'ungchai, Jungchiang, Kueichow), YYL (Yao in Yaoling, in the districts of Lienchow, Lienshan, and Yangshan in Kuangtung), YHN (Ch'ing-yi Yao in Haining, Tonkin, Viet Nam), YTP (Tapan Yao in Tonkin, Viet Nam). Most of these dialects belong to the second main division; MKC, MKS, and YLP differ from MTK, MCF, MJC, and YYT by having nasal-prefixed initials (stops and affricates) and initial consonant clusters with -l- or -r- as the second element. The dialects of the first main division are YYL, YHN, and YTP; they are cited only to show the distinctive finals -p, -t, (-k), -m. The many seemingly irreconcilable irregularities in the phonology of the three Yao dialects YYL, YHN, and YTP may be due to the inaccuracy of the records made by Wong and Savina.