1896. | NEW YORK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. 271 
MINUTES OF THE MEETING. 
May 25th, 1896. 
A meeting of the Philological sub-section of the Section of 
Anthropology, Psychology, and Philology of the New York 
Academy of Sciences was held in Hamilton Hall, Columbia 
University, on the evening of May 25th, 1896, at eight o’clock. 
Fifteen members of the Society were present and President J. 
J. STEVENSON was in the chair. 
The President called upon Prof. Franklin H. Giddings, as 
Chairman of the sub-section to preside at the meeting. The 
presentation of the communications by the members which had 
been announced for the session was immediately begun. 
Prof. Thomas R. Price, of Columbia University, brought for- 
ward the results of certain investigations upon “‘ The Tradition 
of the Case-Forms in Chaucer’s Noun.” Carefully collected 
statistics show that Chaucer in his syntax, uses the case-forms 
in the following order of frequency: (1) dat. sg., (2) nom. sg., 
(3) ace. sg., (4) dat. pl., (5) acc. pl., (6) nom. pl., (7) gen. sg., 
(8) gen. pl. And again with reference to the relative propor- 
tion of usage there is a difference between the Teutonic noun 
and the Romance noun. Statistics were presented to illustrate 
the ratio. 
Prof. Laurence A. McLouth, of New York University, dis- 
cussed, “Some of the Sources of Burger’s Lenore,” basing his 
investigations mainly on studies of Burger’s letters and of the 
books that formed the chief part of his reading. No less than 
eight different sources were shown to be capable of being traced 
with fair certainty. Among these Shakespeare stood high upon 
the list. 
Prof. Henry A. Todd, of Columbia University, treated “‘ The 
Etymology of Italian andare and related Words.” Various 
etymologies that had been suggested were examined, but the pa- 
per favored bringing the word into association with Lat. in- 
dagare “ to investigate.” 
