OF THE INFLUENCE OF ACCENT ON THE SOUNDS OF THE LETTERS. I£

palate as suffers it to jar against it when thebieath is propelled from the throat to the mouth.

lif. NO in ring, sing, &c.. is formed in the sametfeat of sound as hard g; but while the middle ofU\e tongue presses the roof of the month, as ui Lr,the voice passes principally through the nose, asin -V. .

5$. Y consonant is formed bj r placing the organsin the position of e, and squeezing the tongueagainst ihei-oof of the mouth, which produces ce,which is equivalent to initial V •

SO. IF consonant is formed by placing the or-gans in the position of oo, described under it, andclosing the lips a little more, in order to propelthe breath upon the succeeding vowel which it

unietihites.

6). In this sketch of the formation and distri-bution of the consonants, it is curious to observe•> i how few radical principles the almost infinitevariety of combination in language depends. Itis with some degree of wonder we perceive thafthe slightest aspiration, the almost insensible in-flection of nearly similar sounds, often' generatethe most different and opposite meanings. In thisview of nature, ‘as in every other, we find uni-formity and variety very conspicuous. The singlefiat, at first impressed on the chaos, seems to ope-rate on languages; which, from the simplicity andpaucity of their principles, and the extent andpovve*” of their combinations, prove the goodness,Wisdom , and omnipotence ot their origin. .

Cl. This analogical association of sounds IS notonly curious, but useful: it gives us a compre-hensive view of the powers of the letters ; and,from the small number that are-radically dif-ferent, enables us to see the rules on which theirvarieties depend: it discovers to us the geniusand propensities of several languages and dialects,and, when authority is silent, enables us to de-cide agreeably to analogy.

Qt. The vowels, diphthongs, and consonants,thus enumerated and defined, before we proceedto ascertain their different powers, as they are'differently associated with each other, it may benecessary to give some account of those distinc-tions of sound in the same vowels which expresstheir quantity as long or short, or their qualityas open or close, or slender and broad. Thiswill appear the more necessary, as these distinc-tions so frequently occur in describing the soundsof the vowels, and as they are not unfveqnentlyused with too little precision by most writers onthe subject.

OJ the Quantity and Quality of the Vowels •

63. The first distinction of sound that seems toobtrude itself upon us when we utter the vowelsis a long and a short sound, according to thegreater or less duration of time taken up in pro-nouncing them. This distinction is so obvious as? o have been adopted in all languages, and is*»at to which we annex clearer ideas than to any»thev ; and though the short sounds' of some-owe!s have not in our language been classedwith sufficient accuracy with their parent long"»nes, y e t this lias bred but little confusion, asvowels long and short are always sufficientlydistinguishable i and the nice appropriation ofshort sounds to their specific long ones is not ne-cessary \o our conveying what sound we mean,when tlie letter to which %ve apply these soundsis known, and its power agreed upon.

CJ. The next distinction of vowels into theifspecific sounds, which seems Vo be the most ge-nerally adopted, is that which arises from thedifferent apertures of the mouth in forming them.It is certainly very natural, when we have scmany more simple sounds than we have charac-ters by which to express them, to distinguishthem by that which seems their organic defini*i<m; ami we accordingly find vowels denoniinaiecl by th e French ouvert and ferml ; hy theinlums aperio and chiuso; and by the English op vn and shut. J

05. But whatever propriety there may be irthe ( >f these terms in other languages, it hlid ‘ ll . n 1 ml . ,st he used with caution in EngsClJ lor ' eiU '<>} confounding them sviVh long wtt !2 n ‘- D /- Jolm , son and otll cr grammarians cald "'father the open a : which may, indeed*»sting,ush it from the slender a in paper; bu01 ,rom Hie broad a in water which is still raori

open. Each of these letters 1ms a short sound,which may be called a shut sound ; but the longsounds cannot be so properly denominated openas more or less broad ; that is, the a in paper theslender sound ; the a in father the broadish ormiddle sound ; and the a in water the broadsound. The same may be observed of the <>.This letter has three long sounds, heard in move ,note, nor ; which graduate from slender to broad-ish, and broad like the a. The i also in minemay be called the broad i, and that in machinethe slender i; though each of them is equallylong; and though these vowels that are long may-be said to be more or less open according to thedifferent apertures of the mouth in forming them,yet the short vowels cannot be said to be moreor less shut: for as short always implies shut(except in verse), though long does not alwaysimply open, we must be careful not to confoundlong and open, and close and shut, when wespeak of the quantity and quality of the vowels.The truth of it is, all vowels either terminate asyllable, or are united with a consonant, lu thefirst case, if the accent be on the syllabic, thevowel is long, though it may not be open : in thesecond case, where a syllable is terminated by aconsonant, except that consonant be r, whetherthe accent be on the syllable or not, the vowelhas its short sound, which, compared with itslong one, may be called shut: but as no vowelcan be said to he shut that is not joined to a con-sonant, ail vowels that end syllables may be saidto be open, whether the accent be on them ornot. 550 , 551 .

06. But though the terms long and short, asapplied to vowels, are pretty generally under-stood, an accurate car will easily perceive thatthese terms do not always mean the long andshort sounds of the respective vowels to whichthey are applied ; for if we choose to be directedby the ear in denominating vowels long or short,wc must certainly give these appellations to thosesounds only which have exactly the same radicaltone, and differ only in the long or short emissionof that tone. Thus measuring the sounds of thevowels by this scale, we shall find that the longI and y have properly no short sounds but suchas seem essentially distinct from their long ones;and that the short sound of these vowels is noother than the short sound of e, which is the lat-ter letter in the composition of these diphthongs,

67. The same want of correspondence in class-ing the long and short vowels we find in a, e, o ,and m; for as the e in theme does not find itsshort sound in the same letter in them, but in thei in him; so the e in them, must descend a steplower into the province of a for its long sound intame. The a in carry is not the short sound ofthe a in cure, but of that in car. father, &c. as theshort broad sound of the a in w ant is the true ab-breviation of that in until. The sound of o in don,gone, &e. is exactly correspondent to the a inswan, and finds its long:.sound in the a in wall, orthe diphthong aw in dawn, lawn, &c.; while theshort sound of the o in tone is nearly that of thesame letter in ton, (a weight,) and correspondingwith what is generally called the short sound ofu in tun , gun, &c. as the long sound of u in pulemust find its short sound in the n in pull, bull,&c.; for this vowel, like the i and y, being adiphthong, its short sound is formed from thelatter part of the letter, equivalent to double o,as the word pule, if spelled according to thesound, might be written peoole.

08 . Another observation preparatory to a con.sideration of the various sounds of the vowelsand consonants seems to be the influence of theaccent; as the accent or stress which is laid uponcertain syllables has so obvious an effect upon tltbsounds of the letters, that, unless we take accentinto the account, it will be impossible to reasonKghtly upon the proper pronunciation of the Elc*ments of Speech.

Of the Influence of Accents on the Sounds of theLetters.

CD. It may be first observed, that the exertionof the organs of speech necessary to produce theaccent, or stress, has an obvious tendency to pre-serve the letters in their pure and uniform sound,while the relaxation or feebleness which succeedsb %

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