Abstract: The diction of La3amon is so rich, varied and expressive, and contains so many interesting features, that it is worth while to bestow a rather particular consideration upon it. The enquiry here undertaken is designed to exhibit, on the one hand, the persistence of the old poetical tradition in the use of words and phrases, and, on the other, certain departures from this in the adoption of new words, or the employment of old words or bases in new ways, or in fresh combinations, whether of words in the sentence, or of elements in compounds. If the historical and social events are borne in mind which had taken place between the writing of the latest Anglo-Saxon poetry still preserved, and the composition of the Brut, it will perhaps appear less remarkable that new usages should have sprung up than that so much of the old poetical and literary vocabulary should still survive. Amid all the chances and changes of the century and a half which had elapsed since the Conquest, the work of the Worcestershire poet retains the ancient poetic atmosphere, and embodies the ancient culture of his people. The Brut deserves to be studied with reverence and patience. It is high time that students of English should recognize that here is one of the noblest landmarks in English poetry, which expresses in a masterly manner the genius of our race. It is a rich treasure-house of early poetical English, and of stories and traditions which later poets have made immortal. Yet the young student reads it, for the most part, in mere snippets and brief extracts!

Abstract: The realization that Hittite and Tocharian, although in territory of the satdm-languages, nevertheless themselves belong to the centumgroup, and that both have a set of medio-passive r-endings comparable to those of Italic and Celtic, naturally leads to raising the question as to the meaning of these facts. Is this a coincidence due to the peripheral position' of these two languages, which, as Meillet, BSL 32. 1 ff., asserts, brought it about that changes which affected the rest of the IE territory did not reach so far, or do we find here a closer and more intimate connection which sets off Hittite and Tocharian over against the rest of the IE languages? If we attempt to apply the recognized test of the relationship of languages, sc. the existence of innovations made in common, we meet with the difficulty that in both instances it is hard to determine whether Hittite and Tocharian were the innovators or whether they have retained old characteristics lost by the others. The latter is certainly the correct alternative to explain the existence of the labio-velars2 in these two languages as opposed to the loss of the labialization in adjoining territory, for a development of such a peculiar nature in two disconnected territories cannot be made probable. The palatals, however, present a more complex problem. If we assume that these at one time existed throughout the entire IE territory and were

Abstract: Following a suggestion of Forrer's I have for several years held that Hittite separated from the Indo-European parent speech earlier than any of the previously known Indo-European languages.' If this position is accepted it is logically necessary to assume a stage of the parent speech more ancient than our reconstructed IE, for the reconstruction of which primitive IE and Hittite are the available sources. I have called this earlier stage Indo-Hittite. It does not necessarily follow, however, that the attempt to reconstruct IH will be scientifically fruitful; that will depend chiefly upon the number and extent of the changes that prove to have occurred in the pre-IE period, or, in other words, upon the extent of the difference between primitive IE and primitive IH. This seems to be approximately the point of view of two scholars who have recently discussed the question, namely Meillet and Petersen. Meillet2 holds that Hittite was one of the first of the known languages to break away from the parent stock, but for him Tokharian, Armenian, Italo-Celtic, and perhaps Indo-Iranian went their separate ways at practically the same time; if he should reconstruct an additional parent speech he would presumably use as coordinate sources Hittite, Armenian, Italo-Celtic, Indo-Iranian, and the combined evidence of the remaining IE languages. He does not, however, propose any such task, no doubt because he considers the differences from our reconstructed

Abstract: 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

Abstract: The inscription, he tells us, is on a block of limestone almost crystallized into marble, carefully cut into brick shape 52 x 53 x 6-11 cm., so that it closely resembles a clay tablet. It was found on November 3, 1931, in the remains of the palace harem at Persepolis, below the lowest bricks of the walls. The inscription has 48 lines, 22 on each face and 2 on each edge; the characters are written with great care, being almost stoichedon in their arrangement.2 Herzfeld has not given us a facsimile of the original, but only a normalized transcription, which is unsatisfactory in several places, especially as his method of transliterating and normalizing varies materially from that in general use. Thus he uses superior letters not only for sounds omitted in the writing, as in his normalization Darayavanhul, but also for the y and v written after the corresponding final vowels: apiy, pdtuv. He doubles the graphically single consonants in aciy (a-ca-i-ya) and pasd (pa-sa-a), writing acciy and passe because the consonants are etymologically double. He omits a non-etymological i before postconsonantal y, as in his xs~dya0ya for xa-sa-a-ya-0a-i-ya, and thereby fails to inform us of the division of the characters between lines 11 and 12. His transcript fails also to give the division between lines 28 and 29, where the numeral is lacking; and it lacks the divider after the first word of line 45.

Abstract: [It has frequently been suggested that a rise in cord tone is accompanied by changes in the position of the superglottal organs of speech, but the nature and extent of these modifications have not been systematically studie4.1 This paper presents the results of an X-ray investigation of the changes which take place in the articulation of a vowel when it is pronounced first on a low pitch and then on a high pitch.]