By the courtesy of Prof. J. H. Breasted, head of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, the Illustrated London News for April 8, 1933, has a page of illustrations in color, representing recent finds of the Institute's expedition at Persepolis, under the field-directorship of Dr. Ernst Herzfeld. Among them is an Old Persian cuneiform inscription of Xerxes, on colored enameled bricks, forming a plaque to ornament a wall of the royal palace; in this function it is identical with the inscription on similar enameled bricks, found by Scheil at Susa and published by him as No. 12 of his Inscriptions des Achéménides à Suse (cf. my comments in JAOS 51.218-21 and 53.2-3), which formed a frieze about the great hall of Darius's palace at that place.

The word kutrus ‘witness’ is represented also in the secondary formations kutruwatar The giving of evidence’, kutruwā(i)~ To cause witnesses to testify’(?), and the preterite form kutruwahhun ‘made (one) a witness.’ Abstracts in -tar (gen. -nnas < *-tnas) are frequently formed in Hittite from nominal stems, e.g. parkuwatar ‘height’ : parkus ‘high’, irmatar ‘illness’: irmas ‘ill’, antuhsatar ‘virtus’: antuhsas ‘man.’ Examples of denominative verbs in -ā(i) are: hu(w)es(u)wā(i)- ‘be alive’: hu(w)esus ‘alive’, dammeshā(i)- ‘harm, punish’: dam(m)eshas ‘harm, punishment’, happarā(i)- ‘give out, sell’: happar ‘business transaction.’

[The author argues that Hittite is not a continuation of Indo-European, but that both Indo-European and Hittite are developments of one and the same language, which he terms Indo-Hittite. The basis of the argument is that there are a number of phenomena in which Hittite is more archaic than Indo-European.]

The purpose of this treatise is to discuss the use in Plautus and Terence of the endings of the third person plural perfect indicative active: -ēre,-ērunt, and -ěrunt. The relation of these three endings in Latin has remained doubtful, chiefly because it has been impossible to determine their relation in the comedies of Plautus and Terence, the earliest Latin literary works that have survived in fairly complete form. No complete and thoroughgoing presentation of the material available for a study of the endings in these authors has appeared. It was therefore the hope of the present writer that a careful examination of all the verses in which the forms occur, might yield new results, or at least more precise information on the occurrences of each ending. My conclusions regarding the number of times each ending occurs in Plautus and Terence do not differ essentially from conclusions previously reached, but the material seems to be definite and extensive enough to justify an attempt to account for the use of the endings. The evidence found to explain this has determined the present form of my treatise. In view of the complicated nature of the problems concerned, I have preferred to present the facts first, then to deduce probable explanations for the usages in Plautus and in Terence. Finally, some suggestions are added as to the possibility of applying the explanations derived from these authors to established facts concerning the later history of the endings.

[An attempt to show that the Hittite ai-verbs are not continuants of IE āyo-verbs, but an analogic modification of IE denominatives in -ā-mi thru association with forms of the thematic verbs.]

This study proposes to examine the phonetic ongm of the Latin diminutive suffixes in -ellus -a -um and -illus -a -um, and to trace the lines of their analogical extension as independent formative elements, a phenomenon which is later than the origin of -ello/ā and -illo/ā- through phonetic processes. Since scholars have expressed several opinions on the phonetic origin of these suffixes, it is perhaps justifiable to examine the validity of the view most commonly held, by adducing all the extant pertinent materials, inasmuch as no such detailed presentation has yet, to my knowledge, been made. Moreover, little or no consideration has been given to the problem of the extension of the suffixes -ello/ā- and -illo/ā- from words or groups of words where their development was phonetic, and of the possible points of departure of this extension.

The accentuation of the Kiev Fragment (hereafter designated as KF) is of value because, with one minor exception, all other Church Slavonic accented texts were written after the several national redactions of the Old Church Slavonic language had taken form, none being prior to the fourteenth century, so that they were influenced by the different dialects. The only other accented text of so early a date, is the distinctly Slovene Freising Fragment, which bears mere traces of a system of accentuation, and is not conclusive; it is, moreover, written in Latin characters, and is thus separated from the main body of Church Slavonic writing. KF is in OCS, with Moravian (or Pannonian) influences, and in content resembles both the Freising Fragment and another Glagolitic fragment known as the Wiener Blatter; it is a Western (Roman Catholic) missal, but the exact Latin original has not been found.

[An effort is made to show that none of the Alexandrians attempted to foist his theory of the dual into the text of Homer, but that each followed the manuscript evidence as he had it. Instances of the 'false' dual are found chiefly in interpolations, although there are one, or possibly two, passages in which a 'false' dual has been created by the use of borrowed materials. ]

Prof. R. G. Kent in his article, The Development of the Indo-European Dental Groups, LANG. 8. 18-26, has advanced a theory, which is undoubtedly correct, to explain the development of a non-morphological dental sibilant between the members of the morphologically-developed group dental stop + dental stop. Primitive Indo-European at the time when this development took place had in its phonemic system no long consonants. Consequently the group dental stop + dental stop could not be actualised in speech as a long dental stop (which would presumably have been simplified at once), but was actualised through analogical workings as a ‘doubled’ consonant, i.e. the breath was released after the first stop and a second stop was then formed. The breath-release is indeed audible enough in such a type of articulation. That it ‘became stronger in an effort to articulate clearly, the ultimate product being the dental sibilant’, appears doubtful. It seems more probable, from a phonetic point of view, that the sibilant fricative resulted from the manner in which the stoppage was broken by the tip of the tongue. A clean movement of the tip from the point of contact would not result in a fricative; a less complete break of the contact, whether due to comparative immobility of the organ or to lack of time to complete the break, would produce a fricative.

[After separation from IE Hittite and Tocharian must have constituted for some time a dialectic unity, because they possess in common certain innovations. These are summarized near the close of the article.]

In a previous article (Language 7.194-9) U. T. Holmes sought to establish the probability of German influence on the syntax of late Latin as spoken in northern Gaul. He also suggested a method for determining those Germanic constructions which differed most from popular Latin; and, where these German constructions are present in OFrench syntax he assumed that an interconnection was quite possible. Willem L. Graff has observed recently that ‘it is not yet possible to formulate the general laws that are thought to rule the drift of syntactical features.’ This may be true, in part, but it is safe to argue that every language has inherent tendencies which work themselves through to an expected conclusion, once the restrictions of artificial grammar become lax. It is possible to foresee much of late vulgar Latin in primitive and early Latin. The drift is continuous—no radical departures of syntactical construction are apt to develop without a rude shock from without, and, as was argued on good authority in the earlier article, the most vigorous shock which Gallo-Latin had to bear was from the horde of Germanic speakers who eventually took political possession of northern France. Furthermore, whatever we may say of the phonology and spelling of Saint Jerome's Vulgate Bible, its syntax (particularly before the revision by Alcuin) shows the popular concept of the phrase and sentence as held in the fourth century A.D. By confronting the Vulgate text with painfully literal translations made from it into OHG it is not difficult to discover those Germanisms which were essentially different from the late Latin drift. At the same time no construction must be labelled Germanic, even by this careful comparison, until a check has established that it is not present, or only slightly so, in the other Romance tongues. Italian and Provençal suffered less Germanic influence than French; Spanish had still less, and Roumanian almost none at all.

Of these compounds the example of particular interest, because of the uncertainty of the meaning, is that in Thuc. 4. 25. 5 of a movement of ships: άποσιμωσάντων κ∈íνων καί προ∈μβaλóντων. The general idea, at least, is clear in Xenophon's πρòs κ∈ívous μν οκ ∈v, έπισιμώσαs δ πρòs τv Hell. 5. 4. 50. The Thebans had occupied a strong position some distance from the city to meet (άντ∈τάξαντο) the approaching army of the Spartans. If, as is probable, they had placed themselves between the city and the enemy, the movement of Agesilaus must have appeared like an attempt to go around the occupied position. Xenophon calls it a clever ruse on the part of Agesilaus because, πóρρω άπαγαγv àπó τν πóλ∈μίων, he caused them to leave their position and run to save their unprotected city. The Spartans get into a position to make some attacks upon them as they run by (παραθονταs). Whatever then, the exact force of έπισιμώσαs, and, in particular, of the έπι, it is evident that the Spartans made some kind of turning movement.

[This inscription, first published by Herzfeld, is by far the longest and most important inscription of Xerxes, containing new OP words and idioms, and giving considerable historical information, in which it confirms Herodotus's account of the accession of Xerxes. But Herzfeld is wrong in interpreting it as showing that Darius, after making Xerxes co-regent, actually abdicated the throne.]