We by K; so that this inscription gives us a good example of the early indiscriminate use of these letters. must not, however, suppose that virgo was pronounced with the c- or k-sound. Though written -CO it was pronounced -GO, just as the names Gāïus and Gnaeus in Classical Latin were in abbreviations written in the oldfashioned style C., Cn., though they were never pronounced with any but the g-sound. 9. Of the forms of Declension and Conjugation which may have prevailed in this earliest period, we can say little. It is a common case in the history of a language, that its early stages are marked by an abundance of forms of which, in later stages, only the fittest' survive. How many and how various modes of declining Nouns and Pronouns and of conjugating Verbs may have sunk in the 'struggle for existence' before we have sufficient records of the language, we cannot tell. Our earliest inscription shews us a Perfect of facio whose existence we should never have guessed, had it not been thus accidentally preserved to us. Fefakei was an old byform of fékei (Class. Lat. fēcī), as pěpigi is of pēgi. But how many similar by-forms the Perfects of other Verbs may have had, it is impossible to say. It is a significant fact that our second oldest inscription, the Dvenos Inscription, though nearly every letter of it can be determined with exactness, is yet in great part unintelligible We cannot with certainty assign to some of its forms equivalents in Classical Latin. to us. 10. But from the middle of the third century B.C. we have more material for ascertaining the actual forms of the early language, and can draw up paradigms of the Declensions in some such shape as this: Gen. (1) terrās (cf. class. paterfamilias) | Gen. terrai, which became (1) terrā, Dat. Abl. terrais, then (2) terrai, then terrai Dat. Acc. terram, then terrăm afterwards dropped, (2) terrai terreis SING. Nom. M. dolos (N. donăm) Gen. doli Second Declension, e.g. dõlõs (class. dõlus). PLUR. Nom. M. dolor, then dolei (N. dona, then donă) Gen. (1) dolōm, then dolom Third Declension, e.g. gěnõs (class. gěnés). The older language allowed the Particle -ce to be added or left out at will, e.g. O. Lat. haec, hae Fem. Pl. ollois ollōs ollās 12. At the time when the imitation of Greek literature was begun by Livius Andronicus, c. 250 B.C., the older law of accentuation, by which the first syllable of every word received the accent (§ 3), had been replaced by the new law, the law which remained in force in classical Latin. By the new law the accent fell on the paenultima, if the paenultima were long, and on the antepaenultima if the paenultima were short. The older accentuation, however, as we have seen, still persisted in four-syllabled words of the scansion , e.g. fácilius, bálineum (class. balneum), vigilia, which did not become facilius, vigília, etc., till the first century B.C. It is easy to see how the change from the old to the new Accentuation Law would gradually be effected. tempestatibus would at all times have two accents, a main accent and a secondary, just as long words with us, e.g. 'characteristic,' have a secondary accent on the first syllable, ‘char-,' as well as the main accent on the penult. Under the Old Law of Accentuation the main accent belonged to the initial syllable 'tem-,' the secondary accent would fall on the antepenultimate syllable '-sta-.' Under the new law the main accent was transferred to the antepenultimate, the secondary to the initial syllable. So that the change from the old to the new accentuation in such a word as tempestatibus would be merely the change from témpestàtibus to tempestátibus. Long words like 13. In any account of the accentuation of a language this secondary accent, though it is to be found in all languages, is seldom mentioned. It is the main accent which is thought of and spoken of as 'the accent' of the |