Page:The Journal of English and Germanic Philology Volume 18.djvu/377

 Ablaut and Sentence- Accent 373 THE MAN SEES REPEATEDLY. Now in these three sentences the stress on the vb. sees corresponds exactly to the three degrees of ablaut, e, o, 9, or. Pre-Germanic pres. ind. sekwe, pft. sesdkwe, pft. pi. sesdkwime ( = sehwum). In the first two cases, the verb represents that which is predicated about a subject, and either occupies alone the focus of attention, in which case it is most strongly stressed, or is slightly removed from the focus toward the margin of attention, in which case it is some- what less strongly stressed. In the third example, the verb represents the original general concept, the context or background of the idea, the basis, from which one or two elements are singled out and presented to the attention; here the verb has the weakest stress, and in the I E ablaut reaches the d or stage. The perf. ptc. sdkwonds, ddtds, and the aorist, e.g. Greek iTrov, are similar to the pft. pi., i.e., the verb with its reduced vowel stage represents the original concept, and not a fact predicated about a subject; the attention is centered on the person or thing affected by the act, or the past time at which the act was performed, and the act itself is taken for granted, is the element that makes up the general context of the whole concept. It looks, then, very much as though the IE ablaut arose from the perfectly natural sentence accent, and that this accent did not differ essentially from that of modern English. C. M. LOTSFEICH University of Cincinnati. 1