In 1955, a 396-page volume was published in Berne by the Francke Verlag, entitled Economie des changements phonetiques, Traite de phonologie diachronique. A majority of the chapters of that book had been translated, developed or adapted from English originals, published by this author, mainly in Word, be-tween 1948 and 1954. There followed translations into Russian in 1960, into Italian in 1968 and into Spanish in 1974. A thoroughly revamped version appeared in German in 1981, as Sprachokonomie und Lautwandel. About the same time, an English translation, improved by a former Columbia University student, was sent to the author and thoroughly revised by him and his associates. The University of Alabama Press decided to publish it but finally back-ed out. More recently, on the initiative of some Indian colleagues, it was decided to select some revised versions of English conributions to the problem of the internal conditioning of phonological changes, accompanied by a few original additions. Out of the 16 chapters, only two correspond to sections published in Economie. It is felt that this is a new book that deserves a new title, in spite of the fact that the approach to the problem remains the same. Yet, careful readers may become aware of a different slant between the 1955 and the 1995 texts, and this writer would be grateful to them for pointing out occasional divergences.
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