264 ROMANCE LANGUAGES 



most recondite problems of speech-enunciation by the skillful mani- 

 pulation of ingenious mechanical appliances, and the interpretation 

 of their data, has abundantly demonstrated the unforeseen practical 

 and theoretical possibilities of development in what was not long 

 since an inconspicuous branch of knowledge. So that it has now 

 become the task of the experimental phonetician not only to register 

 accurately the length, pitch, intensity, and rhythm of speech-sounds, 

 but also to analyze those motions of the organs of speech which are 

 invisible to the eye and to determine scientifically those physiolog- 

 ical and phonetic changes which are imperceptible to the ear. It 

 has thus become possible on the one hand to clear up many theo- 

 retical uncertainties, and on the other to introduce a remarkably 

 successful corrective treatment for those suffering from peculiar 

 difficulties, defects, and abnormalities of speech, not to mention the 

 aid afforded in the ordinary acquisition of foreign sounds. 



The important subject of morphology which should naturally 

 next engage our attention must be slighted here, with the remark 

 that its problems, in the last analysis, are in the main to be solved 

 by tracing the effects of the operation of analogy; and that, inasmuch 

 as the verb, with its multifarious forms and categories, affords the 

 richest opportunities for the exercise of this potent and far-reaching 

 influence, it is in the doctrine of the verb-forms that most still 

 remains to be accomplished in the way of morphological investiga- 

 tion in the Romance languages; and that the same statement is 

 likewise largely true of the problems of word-formation may be 

 strikingly illustrated by calling attention to the great number of 

 enigmas that a few years ago were satisfactorily elucidated by 

 Gustav Cohn in his treatise on the Substitution of Suffixes in Old 

 French. 



In approaching the topic of Romance syntax, syntax! long 

 accounted the dryest and most forbidding of subjects by reason of 

 the woodenness and artificiality with which it has commonly been 

 treated in the past, how shall we be able in brief space sufficiently 

 to set forth the wealth and delightsomeness of interest that attaches 

 to the elucidation of the manifold delicate problems of this domain? 

 Just as the field of Greek syntax has been made to blossom as the 

 rose by a Gildersleeve, and that of Latin syntax by a Hale, so that of 

 the Romance languages has been not only most successfully, but also 

 most delightfully, cultivated by a Tobler. Here Diez, to be sure 

 (more truly than in his already antiquated Phonology and Morpho- 

 logy) , still continues to be the guide, philosopher, and friend of 

 the neophyte in Romance syntax. But for an introduction to the 

 lofty avenues and difficult byways that open invitingly to the more 

 fully initiated, unfailing recourse must be had to the subtle and 

 erudite professor of Berlin. For many years, from the cathedra of his 



