This was first conceived as a partial editio minor of my recent Inflectional Morphology (in the Cambridge Studies in Linguistics). But it has become, I think, a little more interesting. I hope that it will be of value to specialists in particular European languages, as well as to postgraduate and undergraduate students of general linguistics.

I am very grateful to my colleagues R. W. P. Brasington, D. Crystal, G. C. Lepschy, F. R. Palmer, K. M. Petyt and Irene P. Warburton, who read the book in typescript and have helped me to make a number of corrections and improvements. I look forward with pleasure to a fresh collaboration with the University Printers, who set my first book so beautifully.