Part 251 (1/2)
In the first chapter of Part I, the powers of the letters, or the elee, were duly enumerated and explained; for these, as well as the letters themselves, are few, and may be fully stated in feords: but, since we often express the same sound in ive to the same letter several different sounds,--or, it may be, no sound at all,--any adequate account of the powers of the letters considered severally according to usage,--that is, of the sound or sounds of each letter, with its mute positions, as these occur in practice,--ht, descend to a minuteness of detail not desirable in the first chapter of Orthography For this reason, the following particulars have been reserved to be given here as an Appendix, pertaining to the First Part of this English Grammar
OBSERVATIONS
OBS 1--A proper discrimination of the different vowel sounds by the epithets _ and _short, broad_ and _slender, open_ and _close_, or _open_ and _shut_,--is made difficult, if not impossible, by reason of the different, and sometimes directly contradictory senses in which certain orthoepists [sic--KTH] have employed such terms Wells says, ”Vowel sounds are called _open_ or _close_, according to the _relative size of the opening_ through which the voice passes in for them Thus, _a_ in _father_, and _o_ in _nor_, are called _open_ sounds, because they are forans of speech; while _e_ in _me_, and _u_ in _rule_, are called _close_ sounds, because the organs are _nearly closed_ in uttering them”--_School Grammar_, 1850, p 32 Good use should fix the ie here cited comport with this hint of Pope?
”These equal syllables alone require, _Though oft the ear the open_ vowels tire”
--_Essay on Criticism_, l 344
OBS 2--Walker, too, in his Principles, 64 and 65, on page 19th of his Critical pronouncing Dictionary, mentions a similar distinction of vowels, ”which arises fro thely find vowels denominated by the French, _ouvert_ and _ferlish [,]
_open_ and _shut_ But whatever propriety there es, it is certain theytherammarians call the _a_ in _father_ the _open a_: which uish it from the _slender a_ in _paper_; but not from the _broad a_ in _water_, which is still more _open_ Each of these letters [the seven vowels] has a _short_ sound, which _ sounds cannot be so properly denominated _open_ as more or less _broad_; that is, the _a_ in _paper_, the slender sound; the _a_ in _father_, the broadish or middle sound; and the _a_ in _water_, the broad sound The sa sounds, heard in _raduate from slender to broadish, and broad [,] like [those three sounds of] the _a_ The _i_ also in _mine_ may be called the broad _i_, and that in _h each of the_ [,]to the different apertures of thethem, yet the _short_ vowels cannot be said to be more or less _shut_; for as _short_ always i_ does not always i_ and _open_, and _close_ and _shut_, e speak of the quantity and quality of the vowels The truth of it is,” continues he, ”all vowels either terminate a syllable, or are united with a consonant In the first case, if the accent be on the syllable, the vowel is _long_, though it may not be _open_: in the second case, where a syllable is terminated by a consonant, except that consonant be _r_, whether the accent be on the syllable or not, the vowel has its _short_ sound, which, co one, may be called _shut_: but [,] as no vowel can be said to be _shut_ that is not joined to a consonant, _all vowels that end syllables_ may be said to be _open_, whether the accent be on them or not”--_Crit pron Dict_, New York, 1827, p 19
OBS 3--These suggestions of Walker's, though each in itself may seem clear and plausible, are undoubtedly, in several respects, confused and self-contradictory _Open_ and _shut_ are here inconsistently referred first to one principle of distinction, and then to another;--first, (as are ”_open_ and _close_” by Wells,) to ”the _relative size_ of the opening,” or to ”the _different apertures_ of the mouth;” and then, in the conclusion, to the _relative position_ of the voith respect to other letters
These principles iive to each of the contrasted epithets two very different senses: as, with respect to aperture, _wide_ and _narroith respect to position, _closed_ and _unclosed_ Now, that _open_ may mean _unclosed_, or _close_ be put _for closed_, is not to be questioned; but that _open_ is a good word for _wide_, or that _shut_ (not to say _close_) can well mean _narrow_, is an assu to Walker, ”_we _, or _shut_ with _short_, or _close_ with _shut_; and yet, if he hiraph above quoted, confound theuish, the tords in each of these pairs,--I know not who can need his ”caution” If there are vowel sounds which graduate through several degrees of openness or broadness, it would see the epithet preferred; as, _open, opener, openest_; or _broad, broader, broadest_ And again, if ”all vowels that end syllablessounds” of _a_ in _paper, father, water_, cannot be so ”denominated;” or that to ”call the _a_ in _father_ the _open a_, uish it from the slender _a_ in _paper_” Nor, on this principle, can it be said that ”the broad _a_ in _water_ is still _more open_;” for this a no more ”ends a syllable” than the others If any vowel sound is to be called the _open_ sound because the letter ends a syllable, or is not shut by a consonant, it is, undoubtedly, the _primal_ and _most usual_ sound, as found in the letter when accented, and not some other of rare occurrence
OBS 4--Dr Perley says, ”It is greatly to be regretted that the different sounds of a vowel should be called by the na, short, slender_, and _broad_, which convey no idea of the nature of the sound, for _ in poetry as _mate_ and _note_ The first sound of a vowel[,] as [that of _a_ in] _fate_[,] may be called _open_, because it is the sound which the vowel generally has when it ends a syllable; the second sound as [that of _a_ in] _fat_, may be called _close_, because it is the sound which the vowel generally has when it is joined with a consonant following in the same syllable, as _fat-ten_; when there are more than two sounds of any vowel[,] they may be numbered onward; as 3 _far_, 4 _fall_”--_Perley's Gra or short vowel sound essential to a long or short quantity in any syllable By this, if he rong in it, (as, in the chapter on Versification, I have argued that he was,) he probably disturbed more the proper distinction of quantities, than that of vowel sounds As regards _long_ and _short_, therefore, Perley's regret see the saically So far as his view is right, however, it coincides with the following earlier suggestion: ”The ter_ and _short_, which are often used to denote certain vowel sounds; being also used, with a different iuish the quantity of syllables, are frequently misunderstood; for which reason, we have substituted for them the terms _open_ and _close_;--the foriven to a vohen it _forms_ or _ends_ an accented syllable; as, _ba, be, bi, bo, bu, by_;--the latter, to denote the sound which the vowel commonly takes when closed by a consonant; as, _ab, eb, ib, ob, ub_”--_Brown's Institutes_, p 285
I OF THE LETTER A
The vowel A has _four_ sounds properly its own; they are nalish, open, full, long, or slender _a_; as in _aid, fame, favour, efficacious_
2 The French, close, curt, short, or stopped _a_; as in _bat, banner, balance, carrying_
3 The Italian, broadish, grave, or middle _a_; as in _far, father, aha, comma, scoria, sofa_
4 The Dutch, German, Old-Saxon, or broad _a_; as in _wall, haul, walk, war the nu to the vowel _a_, or to certain other particular letters, and consequently in regard to the whole number of the sounds which constitute the oral elee, our educational literati,--the graraphers, elocutionists, phonographers, and lexicographers,--are found to have entertained and inculcated a great variety of opinions In their different countings, the number of our phonical elements varies from twenty-six to more than forty Wells says there are ”_about forty_ elementary sounds”--_School Gram_, --64 His first edition was more positive, and stated thee which I have cited at the foot of page 162
In Worcester's Universal and Critical Dictionary, there appear to be noted several _more_ than _forty-one_, but I know not whether this author, or Walker either, has anywhere told us how many of his marked sounds he considered to be severally different froht_ Churchill acknowledges, as undisputed and indisputable, only _twenty-six_; though he enumerates, ”Of simple vowel sounds, _twelve_, or _perhaps thirteen_” (New Gralish language, are _nineteen_, or _rather twenty_”--P 13
OBS 2--Thus, while Pit the new ”Phonetic Alphabets,” or of overturning all orthography to furnish ”a character for each of the 38 elementary sounds,”
rammarians can fix on no number more definite or more considerable than _thirty-one, thirty-two_, or _thirty-three_; and the finding of these he announces with a ”_perhaps_,” and the admission that other writers object to as many as _five_ of the questionable number Churchill's vowel sounds, he says, ” words: 1 B_a_te, 2 B_a_t, 3 B_a_ll; 4 B_e_t, 5 B_e_; 6 B_i_t; 7 B_o_t, 8 B_o_ne, 9 B_oo_n; 10 B_u_t, 11 B_u_ll; 12 Lovel_y_; 13 _W_ool”--_New Grammar_, p 5 To this he adds: ”Many of the writers on orthoepy [sic--KTH], however, consider the first and fourth of the sounds above distinguished as actually the sathened in the pronunciation
They also reckon the seventh sound, to be the third shortened; the twelfth, the fifth shortened; and the eleventh, the ninth shortened Soth; and most esteem the eleventh and thirteenth as identical”--_Ib_
OBS 3--Now, it is plain, that these six identifications, or so many of them as are admitted, must diminish by six, or by the less number allowed, the thirteen vowel sounds enumerated by this author By the best authorities, _W_ initial, as in ”_W_ool” is reckoned a _consonant_; and, of course, its sound is supposed to differ in soree from that of _oo_ in ”B_oo_n,” or that of _u_ in ”B_u_ll,”--the ninth sound or the eleventh in the foregoing series By Walker, Murray, and other popular writers, the sound of _y_ in ”Lovel_y_” is accounted to be essentially the same as that of _e_ in ”B_e_” The twelfth and the thirteenth, then, of this list, being removed, and three others added,--namely, the _a_ heard in _far_, the _i_ in _fine_, and the _u_ in _fuse_,--we shall have the _fourteen vowel sounds_ which are enumerated by L Murray and others, and adopted by the author of the present work
OBS 4--Wells says, ”_A_ has _six_ sounds:--1 Long; as in _late_ 2