ADVERTISERS In the first issue of 1925: Henry Holt and Co., 19 West 44th St., New York City. Oxford University Press, 35 West 32nd St., New York City Ginn and Company, Boston, Mass. In the fourth issue of 1925: George Melville Bolling, Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio. Robert Morris Pierce, 8 West 40th St., New York City. BOOKS RECEIVED American Oriental Series, Vol. 1. A Grammar of the Tagálog Language, the chief native idiom of the Philippine Islands. By FRANK R. BLAKE. Pp. xxxi + 324. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1925. American Speech. Vol. I, Nos. 1-3, pp. 1-133. Baltimore: Williams and Wilkins, 1925. Anthropos; Ephemeris Internationalis Ethnologica et Linguistica. Vol. XX, Nos. 5–6, pp. 817-1203. Wien: Anthropos-Administration, 1925. Biblica; commentarii editi a PONTIFICIO INSTITUTO BIBLICO. Vol. VI, Nos. 1-3. Roma: Piazza della Pilotta, 1925. Bolletino delle Publicazioni Italiane ricevute per diritto di stampa. Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Firenze. Nos. 289-90. Firenze: Presso La Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale, 1925. La Compensación entre Versos en la Versificación Española. By AURELIO M. ESPINOSA. Pp. 24. (The Romanic Review, Vol. XVI, No. 4, October-December, 1925). The Correction of Speech Defects. By HELEN M. PEPPARD. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1925. Dissertations of the UNIVERSITY OF GIESSEN, 1924-5. Die Zusammenbildungen im Mittel- und Neuhochdeutschen. By HERMANN EICHHOLZ. Pp. 9 (abstract.)-De capitulis Lucretianis. By HANS FISCHER. Pp. 71. Die Abderitenfabel. By KARL KRAFT. Pp. 95.-Lessing und die Schauspielkunst. By VICTORIA PFEIL. Pp. 71.-De Graecorum poesi historica quaestiones selectae. By HERMANN SCHMITT. Pp. 50.-Die Verteilung der Handlung im neueren Drama auf Vorgänge auf der Bühne und solche hinter der Szene. By KARL SCHNEIDER. Pp. 31.— Die Vergleiche in den Dramen Grabbes. By KARL WITTMANN. Pp. 31. Das Neuhebräische in babylonischer Überlieferung: I. Handschriften und Akzente. By ANTON RICHTER. Pp. 31. Einiges vom germanischen Wortschatz. By LEONARD BLOOMFIELD. From Germanica, presentation-volume to E. SIEVERS, pp. 90–106. Gothic 'siponeis', a loan word from Greek. By HERMANN COLLITZ. (American Journal of Philology 46. 213-21 [1925]). The Jewish Quarterly Review. Edited by CYRUS ADLER. Vol. XV, Nos. 3-4, pp. 285-545. Philadelphia: Dropsie College, 1925. The Journal of the Polynesian Society. Vol. XXXIV, Nos. 1-3, pp. 1-275. New Plymouth, N.Z.: 1925. Leuvensche Bijdragen; Tijdschrift voor Moderne Philologie. Vol. XVII, Nos. 1-2, pp. 1-96, and Supplement, pp. 60. 'S Gravenhage: Martinus Nijhoff, 1925. Le Maitre Phonétique; organe de l'Association Phonétique Internationale. Edited by PAUL PASSY and DANIEL JONES. Third Series, Nos. 9-12, and Supplement. London: 1925. Man, a monthly record of Anthropological Science. Published under the direction of the ROYAL ANTHROPOLOGICAL INSTITUTE OF GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND. Vol. XXV, Nos. 10-12 pp. 96-200. London: 1925. La Méthode Comparative en Linguistique Historique. By A. MEILlet. Pp. viii+117. Oslo: Institutet for Sammenlignende Kulturforskning, 1925. Miscellanea Phonetica; to commemorate the 25th year of "Le Maître Phonétique". Edited by PAUL PASSY and DANIEL JONES. Pp. 43. London: University College, 1914. Modern Language Bulletin. Vol. X, Nos. 1-4. Los Angeles: Modern Language Association of Southern California, 1925. Modern Philology; a Journal devoted to research in Modern Languages and Literatures. Vol. XXIII, No. 2, pp. 129-256. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1925. Monatsschrift für Geschichte und Wissenschaft des Judentums. Edited by I. HEINEMANN. Vol. LXIX, Nos. 7-8, pp. 195–336. (Sonderheft zum 70. Geburtstage Eduard Baneths). Frankfurt am Main: J. Kauffmann Verlag, 1925. The Oscan Curse of Vibia. By ROLAND G. KENT. Pp. 25. (Classical Philology, Vol. XX, No. 3, July, 1925). Philologus: Zeitschrift für das Klassische Altertum und sein Nachleben. Vol. LXXXI, No. 2, pp. 129-240. Leipzig, Dieterich'sche Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1925. T. Macci Plauti Mostellaria. Edited with an introduction and notes by EDGAR H. STURTEVANT. Pp. 125. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1925. Revista de Filologia Española. Edited by RAMÓN MENÉNDEZ PIDAL. Vol. XII, No. 3, pp. 229-332. Madrid: Calle de Almagro 26, 1925. Rheinisches Museum für Philologie. Edited by FRIEDRICH MARX. Vol. LXXIV, No. 1, pp. 1-114. Frankfurt am Main: J. D. Sauerländers Verlag, 1925. Ricerche Religiose. Edited by ERNESTO BUONAIUTI. Vol. I, No. 5-6, pp. 401-596. Rome: Via Giulio Alberoni 7, 1925. ZAПÞоTE MEAH: the fragments of the lyrical poems of Sappho. Edited by EDGAR LOBEL. Pp. lxxviii + 81. Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1925. Schriften der hessischen Hochschulen: Universität Giessen, 1924. Griechische Papyrusurkunden aus ptolemaischer und römischer Zeit. BY HANS KLING. Pp. 38.- Hellenismus; akademische Rede. By RICHARD LAQUEUR. Pp. 36. Giessen: Alfred Töpelmann, 1925. The Smithsonian Reports. Historical Tradition and Oriental Research By JAMES HENRY BREASTED. Report for 1924, pp. 409-14.Shamanism of the Natives of Siberia. By I. M. CASANOWICZ. Ibid. pp. 415–34, with 2 plates.—Egypt as a Field for Anthropological Research. By P. E. NEWBERRY. Ibid. pp. 435-59. North American Indian Dwellings. By T. T. WATERMAN. Ibid. pp. 461-85, with 11 plates.The Nature of Language. By R. L. JONES. Ibid. pp. 487– 506.- -John Mix Stanley, Artist-Explorer. By DAVID I. BUSHNELL, JR. Ibid. pp. 507-12, with 7 plates. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1925. Some New Indo-European Coincidences in Hittite. By ROBERT JAMES KELLOG. Pp. 48. Ottawa (Kansas) University, The Quarterly Bulletin, October, 1925. Zeitschrift für Indologie und Iranistik. Edited for the DEUTSCHE MORGENLÄNDISCHE GESELLSCHAFT by WILH. GEIGER. Vol. III, Nos. 1-2, pp. 1–319. Leipzig: F. A. Brockhaus, 1924. Zeitschrift für Semitistik und verwandte Gebiete. Edited for the DEUTSCHE MORGENLÄNDISCHE GESELLSCHAFT by ENNO LITTMANN. Vol. III, Nos. 1-2, pp. 1–320. Vol. IV, No. 1, pp. 1-160 Leipzig: F. A. Brockhaus, 1924-25. SOME QUESTIONS OF PRACTICE IN THE NOTATION OF RECONSTRUCTED IE FORMS1 THE CARL D. BUCK UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO HE significance of our reconstructed forms, precisely what is intended by them, is an old question which some of us discussed briefly at the St. Louis Congress of Arts and Sciences of 1904 (cf. the publication, vol. III, pp. 35, 57), and which has been elaborated in the long article of E. Hermann, KZ 41. 1 ff. There is not only a difference in the views expressed by various scholars, but often in the case of the same one an apparent discrepancy between the interpretation of reconstruction that is explicitly professed and that which must be inferred from his practice. For example Meillet, Introd. 24 ff., insists on the unreality and the purely formulaic character of the reconstructions, saying that these are nothing but convenient formulae for given correspondences (similarly Oertel, Lectures 128, and others). Yet throughout the work he is constantly, like any other scholar in the field, asserting or discussing the sound, form, or type that must be assumed for the parent speech to account for given correspondences, and whether this and that type is inherited from the parent speech or an innovation. Again, not believing in the existence of three guttural series in the parent speech, he does not recognize the 'plain velars' of other scholars, whereas from his professed principle one would expect him to have the least compunction in admitting them as convenient formulae for a well-known set of correspondences. The fact is, of course, that to him, and to all, the reconstructions, while mainly useful as formulae, are still something more than mere formulae of correspondences, they imply a certain interpretation of these correspondences, a conviction or a provisional theory regarding their approximate common starting point. I believe that the difference in the principles professed is largely verbal, and that there is no real disagreement as to the purpose and the significance of the reconstructed forms. The reconstruction of the parent speech per se is not our object. It is neither possible nor important. We have no ambition to speak it, 1 Opening of a round table discussion at the meeting of the Linguistic Society of America, Dec. 29, 1925. |