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far greater perhaps, than the intelligent reader may experience from the descriptions in this section. Yet now after three years, the various forms of pitch, are much more perceptible to him, than differences of colors without direct comparison; and quite as distinguishable as the literal and syllabic sounds of discourse.

SECTION III.

Of the Elementary Sounds of the English Language; with their Relations to the Radical and Vanishing Movement.

The radical and vanishing concrete, under all its forms, is employed on a limited number of elementary sounds, said to amount in the English language, to thirty-five. It seems useless to raise a distracting question, on the subject of the kind and number of the elements. There will perhaps always be refinements and differences on this point. The thirty-five here assumed, afford all the distinctions required for the purposes of this work. And they have been found sufficient for all practical purposes, by those who have no time nor fondness for dispute.*

An alphabet should consist of a separate symbol for every ele

*English philologists have, according to their real or affected nicety of ear, differed on the subject of the number of the elements of their language. The differences refer to the character of the sounds, or to the time, or manner of pronouncing them. Thus the sound of a in all, and of o in occupy have been enumerated as different. But that difference sems to consist in the abrupt utterance of oc, or the suddenness with which the sound breaks from the organs. Α like distinction has been made between o in ooze, and u in bull: where the explosive accent seems to give the perceptible difference to the short vowel. Now this abruptness of voice, is a generic function, applicable to all vowels, and therefore not a ground for specific distinction. After all however, it is of little practical consequence, whether cases like these are decided one way or the other.

mentary sound. Under this view, the deficiencies, redundancies, and confusion of the system of alphabetic characters in the English language, prevent the adoption of its common grammatical subdivisions here.

The sounds of the alphabetic elements are the material, and their combination into significant words, the formal causes of all language. It appears to me however, that a classification, according to their functions in producing other phenomena of speech, besides that of mere articulation, would be practically useful as well as logically just. It will not be denied that Intonation is one of the most important functions of speech: consequently the ordering of the elements if practically regarded, should have some reference to it. In the present section therefore, these elements will be described and classed, according to their use in intonation.*

*I set aside, in this place at least, the sacred division into vowels, consonants, mutes and semivowels. The complete history of nature will consist of a full description of all the interchangeable relationships, not of notions, but of perceptible things. We received the classication of the alphabet from Greek and Roman grammarians: and their division, according to organic causes, into labial, lingual, dental, and nasal elements, is now strictly a part of the physiology of speech. But whatever reason, connected with the vocal habits of another nation, or the etymologies of another tongue, may have justified the division into vowels and consonants according to their definition, it does not exist with us. Without designing to overlook or destroy any arrangement, truly representing the relationships of these sounds, it is only intended in this essay to add to their history a classification grounded on their important functions in speech. The strictness of philosophy should not be so far forgotten, as to suffer the claim of this classification to be exclusive. Let it remain, as a constituent portion only, of new and wider prospects, yet to be opened in the art.

Passing by other assailable points of our immemorial system, the contra-distinction of its two leading divisions, is a misrepresentation. Had he an ear who said a consonant cannot be sounded without the help of a vowel?

Among the thousand mismanagements of literary instruction, there is at the outset in the horn-book, a pretence to represent elementary sounds, by syllables composed of two or more elements, as: Be, Kay, Zed, double-U, and Aitch. These words are used in infancy, and through life, as simple elements in the process of synthetic spelling. But no error or oversight of the school should ever make us forget the realities of nature.

Any pronouncing-dictionary shows that consonants alone may form syllables; and if they have never been appropriated to words which might stand solitary in

As the number of elementary sounds in the English language exceeds the literal symbols, some of the letters are made to represent various sounds, without a rule for discrimination. I shall endeavor to supply this want of precision, by using short words of known pronunciation, containing the elementary sounds, with the letters that represent them, marked in italics.

The thirty-five Elements are now to be considered under their relationships to the radical and vanish. And as the properties of this function are-prolongation of sound, and variation of pitch, with initial force and final feebleness; these elements should be regarded in their varied capacity for the display of these properties.

With this view, our elements of articulation may be arranged under three general heads.

The first division embraces sounds with the radical and vanish in its most perfect form. They are twelve in number; and are heard in the usual sound of the separated italics, in the following words:

A-ll, a-rt, a-n, a-le, ou-r, i-sle, o-ld, ee-l, oo-ze, e-rr, e-nd, and i-n.

From their being the purest and most manageable material of intonation, I have called them Tonic sounds.

They consist of different sorts of Vocality; or of that quality of voice in which we usually speak, and here contradistinguished from whisper or aspiration. They are produced by the joint functions of the larynx, and parts of the internal and external mouth.

The tonics are of a more tunable nature than the other elements. They are capable of indefinite prolongation; admit of the concrete and tremulous rise and fall, through all the intervals of pitch; may be uttered more forcibly than the other elements, as well as with more abruptness: and while these two last characteristics are appropriate to the natural fulness and

a sentence like the vowels a, i, o, ah, and awe, it is not that they cannot be so used; but because they have not that full and manageable nature which exhibts the quantity, force, and intonation of an unconnected syllable, with sufficient emphasis and with agreeable effect.

stress of the radical, the power of prolongation, upon their pure and controllable quality, is finely accommodated to the delicate structure of the vanishing movement. Altogether, they have, for the purposes of an agreeable intonation, a eutony, briefly so to call it, beyond the other elements.

The next division includes a number of sounds, possessing variously among themselves, a character analogous to that of the tonics; but differing in degree. They amount to fourteen; and are marked by the separated italics, in the following words: B-ow, d-are, g-ive, v-ile, z-one, y-e, w-o, th-en, a-z-ure, si-ng, love, m-ay, n-ot, r-oe.

From their inferiority to the tonics, for all the emphatic and elegant purposes of speech, while they admit of being intonated or carried concretely through the intervals of pitch, I have called them Subtonic sounds.

They all have a vocality; but in some it is combined with an aspiration. B, d, g, ng, l, m, n, r, have an unmixed vocality; v, z, y, w, th, zh, have an aspiration joined with theirs. We have learned that the vocality of the tonics is, in each, peculiar. The vocality of some of the subtonics is apparently the same; and among all, it does not greatly differ; resembling that of certain five of the tonics, to be described presently. Like the vocality of the tonics, it is formed in the larynx; but the sound in passing through the mouth may have a modifying reverberation in the fauces, and cavities of the nose. Some subtonic vocalities are purely nasal, as: m, n, ng, b, d, g. Others are partly oral. The nasal are soon silenced by closing the nostrils the rest are not materially affected by it. The vocality of b, d, and g, may not be immediately apparent to those who have not, by practice on the separate elements, attained the full command of pronunciation. Writers have spoken of the vocality of these elements, under the name of 'gutteral murmur,' and have regarded it as a peculiar sound. It is the vocality, heard in v, th-en, z, zh, and r, modified into the respective articulations of b, d and g. The vocality of b, d and g, in ordinary speech, has less duration and intensity, and is consequently less perceptible than that of v, th-en, z, zh, and

r, but is the same in kind. It is the vocality alone of b, that distinguishes it from p.

I have enumerated y and w, as the initial sounds of ye and wo; since y is a vocality, like that of the other subtonics, mixed with an aspiration over the tongue, when near the roof of the mouth, and w a similar vocality, mixed with a breathing through an aperture in the protruded lips. As b, d, g and zh are made by joining vocalities, instead of aspirations, with the organic positions of p, t, k and sh; so y and w are severally the mixture of vocality with the pure aspiration of h, as heard in he, and of wh, as heard in wh-irl'd. The addition of vocality to the aspiration changes these words respectively to ye and world.

This vocality of the subtonics, whether pure or mixed, nasal or oral, is variously modified by the nose, tongue, teeth and lips. An entire or partial obstruction of the current of breath through the mouth, and a subsequent removal of the obstruction, produces the peculiar sound of the subtonics: for, on pronouncing b, d, and g, and it is the same with all, the voice breaks from its obstruction, with a short terminative impulse. Now it is in the momentary portion of subtonic sound, heard on removing this obstruction, that the character of the vocality, in some of these elements, may be most readily perceived. This vocula or little voice, if it may be so called, is mentioned by writers as being necessary to complete the utterance of their class of Mutes; but it may be heard more or less conspicuously at the termination of all the subtonics. It is least perceptible in those, having the most aspiration. In ordinary utterance it is short and feeble; and is most obvious in forcible or affected pronunciation. When the subtonics precede the tonics, they lose this short and feeble termination, and take in its place the full sound of the succeeding tonic, thus producing an abrupt opening of the tonic.

I have called this last-vented sound of the subtonics, the Võcule; and have been thus particular in noticing and naming it, as both the function and the term will be referred to, in treating on Syllabication, and on Expression.

The five tonic sounds, to which the vocalities of the subtonics

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