[If we accept the Indo-Hittite hypothesis, the existence of middle r-paradigms in both Hittite and Indo-European puts the middle ending -r back into Indo-Hittite. Even if we assume that Hittite is simply one of the IE dialects, the evidence for medial r-forms in PIE is still overwhelmingly strong. The semantic aspect is important. There is virtually no positive evidence for a volitive impersonal in -r. But verbal r-forms with middle meaning occur in Indo-Iranian, Tocharian, Hittite, Armenian, Phrygian, Venetic, Italic, and Celtic. This proves that not only r-forms, but r-forms with middle meaning, were inherited.]

Hittite verbs fall into two conjugations, one of which shows in the first person singular active an ending -mi and the other an ending -ḫi; it is customary to speak of the mi-conjugation and the ḫi-conjugation. Now Greek verbs are commonly classified as μι-verbs and ω-verbs. Consequently it naturally occurred to Hrozný, Sprache der Hethiter 101, that, as the Hittite ending -mi is identical with Gk. -μι, so Hitt. -ḫi ought to be identical with Gk. -ω. The first attempt to carry through this suggestion in detail has just been published by Couvreur, Annuaire de l'Institut de Philologie et d'Histoire Orientales et Slaves 4.551-73 (1936).

The forty odd years which have elapsed since the first publication of a Tocharian text leave much for the comparativist to do. As clear as is the affinity of both dialects A and B to Indo-European, even so inexplicable are still many of the countless special developments that have led to their remarkable appearance alongside the other languages of the family. It is, in fact, the problem of the relationship of Tocharian to the other Indo-European dialects which has most interested scholars from the very beginning, while very little time has been devoted to the comparative study of the two dialects themselves. Indeed, their interrelationship is as yet quite imperfectly understood. As remarked already by M. Sylvain Levi, in speaking of the vocabulary, the more one observes their fundamental identity, the more one is struck by their divergences. The remark may apply no less appropriately to the phonology.

This article was suggested by that of Edgerton in Lang. 10.235 ff., in which he shows the insufficiency of the arguments adduced from Sanskrit for the existence of a schwa secundum in Indo-European times. Since the facts alleged in support of the theory from this language may as well be explained otherwise, the question of the existence of the ъ is thrown back upon other languages, notably upon Latin and Greek, the proof from which is supposed to be most conclusive. The writer of this article consequently wishes to point out that the evidence from these also has no compelling power, and that it can be interpreted otherwise more persuasively. He also wishes to show the complete lack of conclusiveness of the a-prioristic generalities used to support the schwa-secundum theory. While he therefore does not take it upon himself to say that he is positive that there was no such thing, he is certain that no decisive evidence for it has as yet been found.