CHAPTER II. CERTAIN COMBINATIONS. UNPRONOUNCEABLE COMBINATIONS. § 68. Two Consonant Sounds, the one marked SONANT in the table, and the other SURD, can not be pronounced in the same syllable. See Table of Elementary Sounds, § 61. 1. This may be understood by practicing a few combinations, according to the following table: Now, taking whatever letter we may from one side of the line, and joining it in the same syllable with any letter whatever from the other side of the line, we find the combination unpronounceable. Combinations like these can be written, and they can be spelled; indeed, as written combinations they occur very frequently; e. g., stags, lads, &c.; but they can not be pronounced, each sound remaining unchanged. In order to become pronounced, a change must occur; one of the sounds changes its character, and so accommodates itself to the other. This change takes place in one of two ways either the first of the two sounds takes the aspiration or the vocality of the second, or else the second takes the aspiration or the vocality of the first. For instance, abt be 1 As in thin. 2 As in thine. As in azure. $ As in gun. comes pronounceable either by b becoming p, or by t passing into d; in other words, it changes either to apt or to abd. So on with the list: avt becomes either aft or avd. asg 66 ast "azd. "asht "azhd. 664 "azg. 2. This change is necessary and universal. It holds good not for the English alone, but for all languages. The only difference is that different languages change different letters; that is, one accommodates the first letter to the second, and so turns agt into akt; the other accommodates the second letter to the first, changing agt into agd. 3. There is no fact that requires to be more familiarly known than this. There are at least three formations in the English language where its influence is most important. These are, (a) the Possessive forms in -s; (b) the plurals in -S; (c) the Preterites in -d and -t. 4. Neither are there many facts in language more disguised than this is in English. The s in the word stags is sharp; the g in the word stags is flat. Notwithstanding this, the combination ags exists. It exists, however, in the spelling only. In speaking, the s is sounded as z, and the word stags is pronounced stagz. Again, in words like tossed, plucked, looked, the e is omitted in pronunciation. Hence the words become toss'd, pluck'd, look'd; that is, the flat d comes in contact with the sharp k and s. Now the combination exists in the spelling only, since the preterite of pluck, look, and toss are, in speech, pronounced pluckt, lookt, tosst. $69. The reason for the difference between the spelling and the pronunciation is as follows: For the Possessive case Singular, for the Nominative plural, and for the Preterite tense of verbs, the forms in Anglo-Saxon were fuller than they are in the present English. The possessive singular ended not in -s only, but in -es; and the nominative plural in -as. Sim = = = = ilarly, the preterite of the verbs ended either in -od or -ed, not in -d only; e. g., wordes of a word (word's), flódes = of a flood (flood's), landes of a land (land's), thinges of a thing (or thing's), endas end's, and so on throughout the language. In this case the vowel separated the two consonants, and kept them from coming together. As long as this vowel kept its place, the consonants remained unchanged, their different degrees of sharpness and flatness being a matter of indifference. When the vowel, however, was dropped, the consonants came in contact. This reduced a change on one side or the other to a matter of necessity. Liquid and vowel sounds, though vocal or flat, will combine with aspirated or sharp consonant sounds. If this were not the case, the combinations ap, at, alp, alt would be unpronounceable. The law exhibited above may be called the Law of Accom modation. Combinations like bt, kd, &c., may be called Incompatible Combinations. UNSTABLE COMBINATIONS. $70. Certain sounds in combination with others have a tendency to undergo changes. The -ew in new is a sample of what may be called an Unsteady or Unstable Combination. There is a natural tendency to change it either into oo (noo) or yoo (nyoo), perhaps also into yew (nyew). If the letter y be preceded by t, d, s, as tya, tyo; dya, dyo; sya, syo, there arises an unstable combination: sya, syo we pronounce as sha, sho; tya, tyo we pronounce as cha and ja (i. e., tsh and dsh). This we may verify from our pronunciation of words like sure, picture, verdure. The u in these words is not sounded as oo, but as yoo. Hence we often have shoor, pictshoor, verdzhoor. The effect of y, taken with the instability of the combination ew, accounts for the tendency to pronounce dew as if written jew. § 71. To an English ear the sound of the German ch falls strange. To an English organ it is at first difficult to proThe same is the case with the German Vowels ō and ü, and with the French sounds u, eu, &c. To a Ger nounce. man, however, and a Frenchman, the sound of the English th (either in thin or thine) is equally a matter of difficulty. The reason of this lies in the fact of the respective sounds being absent in the German, French, or English languages, since sounds are easy or hard to pronounce just in proportion as we have been familiarized with them. See § 66. There is no instance of a new sound being introduced at once into a language. Where they originate at all, they are evolved, not imported. Let there be a language where there is no such sound as that of z, but where there is the sound of s. The sound of z may be evolved under (among others) the following conditions: 1. Let there be a number of words ending in the flat consonants; as, slab, stag, stud, &c. 2. Let a certain form (the Plural number or the Genitive case) be formed by the addition of is or es; as, slabis, stages, studes, &c. 3. Let the tendency that words have to contract eject the intermediate Vowel, e or i, so that the s of the Inflection (a Sharp Consonant) and the d, b, g, &c., of the original word (Flat Consonants) be brought into juxtaposition, slabs, studs, stags. There is then an incompatible termination, and one of two changes must take place; either b, d, or g must become p, t, or k (slaps, staks, stuts), or s must become z (stagz, studz, slabz). In this latter case z is evolved. Again: Let there be a language wherein there are no such sounds as sh, ch (tsh), or j (dzh), but where there are the sounds of s, t, d, and y. Let a change affect the unstable Combinations sy, ty, dy. From this will arise the evolved sounds of sh, ch, j. See $74 and 75. §72. It can not be too clearly understood that in words like pitted, stabbing, massy, &c., there is no real reduplica tion of the sounds of t, b, and s respectively. Between the words pitted (as with the small-pox) and pitied (as being an object of pity) there is a difference in spelling only. In speech the words are identical. The reduplication of the Consonant in English, and the generality of languages, is a conventional mode of expressing on paper the shortness (depend ence) of the Vowel that precedes. Real reduplications of Consonants, i. e., reduplications of their sound, are, in all languages, extremely rare. In compound and derived words, where the original root ends, and the superadded affix begins with the same letter, there is a reduplication of the sound, but not otherwise. In the word soulless the is doubled to the ear as well as to the eye; and it is a false pronunciation to call it souless (soless). In the Deformed Transformed it is made to rhyme with no less, improperly. "Clay not dead, but soulless, Though no mortal man would choose thee, An immortal no less Deigns not to refuse thee." In the following words, all of which are Compounds, we have true specimens of the Doubled Consonant: n is doubled in unnatural, innate, oneness; l in soulless, civil-list, palely; k in book-case; t in sea-port-town. It must not be concealed that, in the mouths even of correct speakers, one of the doubled sounds is often dropped. TRUE ASPIRATES RARE. § 73. The criticism applied to words like pitted, &c., applies also to words like Philip, thin, thine, &c. There is therein no sound of h. Ph and th are conventional modes of spelling simple single sounds, which might better be expressed by simple single signs. In our own language, the true Aspirates, like the true reduplications, are found only in compound words, and there they often are slurred in the pronun ciation. We find p and h in the words hap-hazard, upholder. Now, in certain languages, the true Aspirate, i. e., sounds like the th in nut-hook, the ph in hap-hazard, &c., are as frequent as the sounds of p, b, s, &c. sounds by means of the English, we In the spelling of these are hampered by the circumstance of the th and ph being already used in a different sense. |