Abstract: Like the other works of its author, this book is lucid, well-informed, and contains no more than a fair share of nonsense. As an example of nonsense may be taken the way in which the author sets up a principle of "phonetic realism" but concludes by saying: "There is one aspect of phonologiC analysis where the usual principle of phonetic realism, in the writer's opinion, must be not merely suspended but almost rever~ed. This is the search for junctures ... " What sort of a principle can this be? It runs like this: "Segments which are in complementation are nevertheless pho· netically distinct unless they resemble each other phonetically in such a way that the differences can be extracted fro~ the segments themselves and assigned, instead, to the environments, in some phonetically realistic way". (p. i 56) The word phonetically occurs here three times. In the first occurrence it would seem to be a misprint for phonemically; in the third oc~urrence it would seem to be redundant. With what non-phonetic reality could we be concerned?

Abstract: The Outline of English Structure which George L. Trager and Henry Lee Smith, Jr., published in 1951 is generalJy known and widely accepted, at least in the United States, as the best available statement of the English phonemic system and as a stimulating first approach to certain problems of English morphology and syntax. A revised edition is in preparation. Meanwhile, in his notable Manual of Phonology, Charles F. Hockett has attempted a structural restatement of the facts of English stress and pitch as Trager and Smith presented them. In this paper, I shall consider the adequacy of that re-statement. Adverse judgment on so small a part of a rich boo should not conceal my respect for Hockett's work.