For many years, now, and particularly within the last decade, there has been increasing use of the term ‘phoneme’, ‘wenn man sich auch nicht immer über seine definition einig ist’. Parallel to this increased use of the term, there has been the re-emergence of a concept of some unit of spoken language, a unit which is not the same as a ‘sound of speech’. It has long been known to phoneticians and linguists in general that the sounds of speech, even within the narrowest restrictions of time and place, even within the usage of a single individual, present an almost infinite variety. Scarcely any two speakers of a given dialect pronounce the same word exactly alike, either as to their articulatory movements or as to the sound-waves which those movements set up in the atmosphere. And yet, within the communicative and expressive medium, those (articulatorily and acoustically) slightly different processes are still the same word; and the ‘sounds’ which comprise this same word are in some way the same sounds, within the frame of that communicative and expressive medium which is the language of the community. It is the recognition of this sameness, this effective unity, which has found expression in the term ‘phoneme’ as a unit of spoken language.

There are in Hittite several groups of words that show alternation between a and e in a way that has suggested to certain scholars assimilation of a vowel to the vowel of the following syllable. The following pairs illustrate the principal groups that have been brought into the discussion.

The present study is a small portion of a study entitled: Prefix Be- Privative in Germanic. The purpose of this study is to determine, on the basis of chronology and syntax, the development of meaning of so-called privative verbs with prefix be-.

[Description of the stressed vowel phonemes of Central Western Standard-English as spoken in Chicago. The article possesses a more general interest as an example of the technique of analyzing phonemically the structure of a dialect.]

§1. Studying the excellent paper on ‘Sievers's Law’ by Franklin Edgerton (Language 10. 235 sqq.) I was surprised to see that on page 252 (§34) illustrative quotations were missing for *diyāvāpṛthvī, suggested by him in the RV in certain positions instead of the traditional dyāvāpṛthivī. Therefore, I tried to furnish the proofs myself; but very soon I saw that Edgerton's interpretation is impossible.

Sturtevant's translation of KUB XIII 4 (and duplicates), JAOS 54.363-406, renders ša-an-na-pí (XIII 4 III 48) by ‘ashes’, a translation which (404) is suggested merely by the context. The word is a hapax, but fortunately we have the obviously related word šannapili-, and this is more frequently attested in our materials. A study of the latter word leads to conclusions which are of more than usual interest.

Etymologies heretofore proposed for Grk. ταχύ𝗌 ‘swift’, τάχo𝗌 ‘swiftness’, have met little favor. The notion of ‘swiftness’ is frequently a by-product of ‘tension’: e.g., cf. ON snarr literally ‘tightly twisted’ of a string (: snara ‘turn, twist, wring'), but chiefly ‘swift'; and more especially Lat. contendo frequently ‘hasten', or NE speed, OE spēd, OHG spuot ‘speed, success’, ChSl. spěšiti ‘hasten’, all probably from the root ∗spē(i)- in Grk. σπéω ‘draw’. With this in mind one is tempted to derive Grk. ταχύ𝗌 < ∗thgh- from the root in Av. θang-‘pull, draw’, θanvan-, θanvar- ‘bow’, ChSl. tęgnąti ‘draw’, etc. According to Osthoff the comparative σσωv, ττωv represents ∗éωv with the gradation to be noted in Skt. bahú- ‘much’ and the comparative bánhīya- ‘very stout’, hence the root must be ∗thangh-/∗thṇgh-. In this case all the Slavic forms in tęg- (ChSl. tęgnąti, etc.) represent the weak grade of the root and Slavic ∗tog- in Russ. tugój ‘tight, solid, stretched (of the bow)', Pol. lęgi ‘hard, solid, strong', etc., represents a Pre-Slavic ∗tang-, The representation of IE th by Grk. ∂ though often denied seems clear in several other cases.

[Attestation and meaning of Etr. ancar; various proper nouns connected with this word; connection between it and the goddess Angerona.]

It is generally recognized that Italian meschino and French mesquin go back to Arab, miskîn ‘poor, humble, submissive’. To Semitists it is obvious, moreover, that the latter form cannot be a direct, inner-Arabic development from one of the roots which appear as skn. The adjective is found also in Ethiopic and Aramaic (meskîn), and in Hebrew (miskên); now if the Arab, form had been derived from skn ‘dwell, rest’, the Heb. and Aram, cognates would have displayed š (from škn), in accordance with the normal laws of correspondence between the Northwest-Sem. and Arab, sibilants. Since, however, the Heb. and Aram, forms of the adjective in question are written with the samek-sign. (s, which remains unchanged in the Sem. languages), the word cannot be related to s/škn 'dwell, etc.'; Arab, sakuna 'to be poor' is thus clearly a separate root, in all probability a denominative.

Tocharian possesses three paradigms of demonstrative pronouns which are characterized by m, n (written -m when final), and s (alternating with ). Compare SSS 168 ff., who rightly maintain that these three paradigms go back to a single kernel. It is also clear that this kernel is the IE stem ∗to- ∗tā- with s-forms in the nom. sing. masc. ∗so, fem. ∗sā. On the other hand the interpretation of the three characteristic consonants as being added particles (SSS 28 f.) cannot be upheld when It is realized that some of these forms correspond in their entirety to IE forms of the same meaning. Thus tērm, the fem, oblique of the first series, is identical with the IE acc. fem. ∗tā-m; and to, the nom. pl. fem, of the third series, is the IE ∗tās of Skt. tāh, Goth, ōs, Lith. tõs. Instead of seeing particles in these elements -m and -s, which from the Tocharian point of view seem secondary additions, we must therefore interpret as IE inheritances as many of the entire forms as possible, and then the others can be understood as formed analogously to these. However, the more precise history of these paradigms can be understood only in the light of the history of the Tocharian nominal declension, for the demonstrative paradigms are the result of the influence of Tocharian nominal paradigms on the inherited pronominal forms of the nominative and accusative (Toch. oblique).

[In Messapic IE s, both initial and intervocalic remains unchanged. The function of the symbol h is graphic, to indicate hiatus or vowel length. The effort is made to collect all relevant material.]