BREV TIL: Charles Ernest Bazell FRA: unsure (1957-06-07)

7-6 56

Deer Daze11,

Thank you £x® for your letter from May 5- -When I readmy -last letter before sending it, I noticed that the-'tone sounded offended, but I flid not bother to change it, since there was no reason for such feelings. By the way,I never feel offended, I simply do not care. Holt’sMxHsfcxix. content-analysis would be quite all right if Hjelms had begn, rigt$0in maintaining (in earlier writings) that the content consists of things. In this casethe c..pfuautation best in the case bull, coww' etc. should take place in the Vete- rinary High School.

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I have just made a funny blunde myself. In a report for “•"’"Fop's survey of phonetic laboratories I wrote ther‘fo 1 lowing ; "Finalement on possede un noinbre de valses phonographiques." ( Danish valse, French cylindre)})- I managed to correct it in the last proofs, it was almost a pity. - I advise you to "read the report from Strasbourg in this volume (which is going to appear soon). It appears that in the laboratory in Strasbourg they have such rare ii instruments as ; " du coton hydrophilffi^x , de la vaseline, une casserole "etc. fou may also find a really amusing article in Orbis by Gerhardt Schmidt ,- we returned it recently to him, whne he wanted to publish it in Acta Linguist! ca. - He suggests e.g. that assimilations are more common in hot climatex -xk,since the heat make the sounds axik ruse. - I should be very interested in seeing Haas's article , particularly as I am going to write a reviww myself. But I am afraid I have been so 4±sic Long in answering, that you have nob got it any more.

I have read Jakobson's Fundamentals. The book is better than Preliminaries, but, as you write, he has not proved, that everything must be binary, and ,by the way, I wonder whether the binary description is always the most economic. - J^is mathematic argument p. 46 presupposes that there is no system at all, so that all distinctions are of different nature, but p-t-k or i-e-æ are ordered according to one quality, and why sho Id p-t-k be more complicated than „ k . « b-d-g ^ 1

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Hsxk The"constant" feature is also a dubious thing . - — xte In the phonetic description he hosiert out jgq&e of the worst things from Preliminaries, but his description of tense- lax ana of jounding are still wrong. By the way R man Jako son passed, here some weeks, ago .. nvited to partrleipae in the

"“‘on his way to Russia, where he was planning of the next Slavic congress. It was the first time in 4o years that he v.as going to Russia, and of connse he very excited about it.

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Best vished

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