Part 301 (1/2)
[470] ”As soon as language proceeds, from mere _articulation_, to coherency, and connection, _accent_ becouide of the voice It is founded upon an obscure perception of symmetry, and proportion, between the different sounds that are uttered”--_Noehden's Gra to Johnson, Walker, Webster, Worcester, and perhaps all other lexicographers, _Quantity_, in gra a _syllable_” And, to this main idea, are conforiven of it by grammarians and critics, except that which appeared in Asa Hulish Prosody, published in 1847 In this work--the h not the most accurate or consistent treatise we have on the subject--_Ti ”_two distinct things_;” and the latter is supposed not to have regard to _duration_, but solely to the _aiven to each syllable
This is not only a fanciful distinction, but a radical innovation--and one which, in any view, has little to recommend it The author's explanations of both _time_ and _quantity_--of their characteristics, differences, and subdivisions--of their relations to each other, to poetic numbers, to emphasis and cadence, or to accent and non-accent--as well as his derivation and history of ”these technical terh to be satisfactory According to his theory, ”Poetic nu_ and _short_ syllables alternately;” (page 5;) but the difference or proportion between the times of these classes of syllables he holds to be _indeteran with destroying the proper distinction of quantity, or tinition of an indefinite nu of our syllables at large, ”some are LONG, some SHORT, and some are of INTERMEDIATE LENGTHS; as, _mat, not, con_, &c are short sounds; _al sounds are LONGER STILL; as, _voice, noise, sound, bound_, &c OTHERS are seen to be of INTERMEDIATE _lengths_”--_Humphrey's Prosody_, p 4
On a scheme like this, it must evidently be impossible to deter_ and what _short_, or what is the difference or ratio between _any two_ of the innuths”
of that ti, short, variously interain _variously interenious author scans some lines in a manner peculiar to himself
[472] It was the doctrine of Sheridan, and perhaps of our old lexicographers in general, that no English word can have more than one _full accent_; but, in some modern dictionaries, as Bolles's, and Worcester's, iven by Bolles's as having three Sheridan erroneously affirmed, that ”_every word_ has an accent,” even ”all monosyllables, the particles alone excepted”--_Lecture on Elocution_, pp 61 and 71 And again, yetin accent, as that of syllables in articulation; we know that there are _as many syllables as we hear articulate sounds_, and _as many words as we hear accents_”-- _Ib_, p 70 Yet he had said before, in the saer polysyllables, have frequently _two accents_, but one is so er than the other, as to shew that it is but one word; and the inferior accent is always less forcible, than any accent that is the single one in a word”--_Ib_, p 31 Wells defines accent as if it ht lie on _many_ syllables of a word; but, in his examples, he places it on no more than one: ”_Accent_ is _the stress_ which is laid on _one or more syllables_ of a word, in pronunciation; as, re_ver_berate, under_take_”--_Wells's School Graht as well have accented at least one other syllable in each of these examples; for there seems, certainly, to be some little stress on _ate_ and _un_ For sundry other definitions of accent, see Chap IV, Section 2d, of _Versification_; and theto Obs 1st on _Prosody_
[473] According to Dr Rush, Emphasis is--”a stress of voice on one orthe”--_Philosophy of the Voice_, p 282 Again, he defines thus: ”Accent is the fixed but inexpressive distinction of syllables _by quantity and stress_: alike both in place and nature, whether the words are pronounced singly from the columns of a vocabulary, or connectedly in the series of discourse _Emphasis_ may be defined to be the _expressive_ but occasional distinction of a syllable, and consequently of the whole word, by one or more of the specific modes of _time, quality, force_, or _pitch_”--_Ibid_
[474] 1 This doctrine, though true in its main intent, and especially applicable to the poetic quantity of _monosyllables_, (the class of words lish poetry,) is, perhaps, rather too strongly stated by Murray; because it agrees not with other state the power of _accent_ over quantity; and because the effect of accent, as a ”regulator of quantity,” _reat as that of emphasis Sheridan contradicts himself yet more pointedly on this subject; and his discrepancies may have been the efficients of Murray's
”The _quantity_ of our syllables is perpetually varying with the sense, and is _for the ulated by_ EMPHASIS”--_Sheridan's Rhetorical Graain: ”It is by the ACCENT _chiefly_ that the _quantity_ of our syllables is regulated”--_Sheridan's Lectures on Elocution_, p 57
See Chap IV, Sec 2d, Obs 1; and inal note on Obs 8
2 Some writers erroneously confound _emphasis_ with _accent_; especially those who make accent, and not quantity, the foundation of verse Contrary to coe, and to his own definition of accent, Wells takes it upon him to say, ”The term _accent_ is also applied, in poetry, to the stress laid on monosyllabic words; as,
'Content is _wealth, the riches of the mind'--Dryden_”
--_Wells's School Grammar_, p 185
It does not appear that stress laid on monosyllables is anyof poetry, than when in the utterance of prose Churchill, who makes no such distinction, thinks accent essential alike to eards monosyllables, dependent on them both! His words are these: ”Monosyllables are sometimes accented, so _ or short_ We cannot give _emphasis_ to any word, or it's [_its_]
proper duration to a _long vowel_, without _accenting_ it”--_Churchill's New Gram_, p 182
[475] Not only are these inflections denoted occasionally by the accentual marks, but they are so called by that name This practice, however, is plainly objectionable It confounds things known to be different,--mere stress with elevation or depression,--and may lead to the supposition, that to accent a syllable, is to inflect the voice upon it Such indeed has been the guess ofthe nature of Greek and Latin accents, but of the English accent, the couishi+ng some one syllable of a word froives in his Key, of ”e e,” charges this current opinion with error, dissenting fro asserted, that, ”in speaking, the voice is continually _sliding_ upwards or doards,”
proceeds to contradict hih and low, loud and soft, forcible and feeble, are comparative terms, words of one syllable pronounced alone, and without relation to other words or syllables, _cannot be said to have any_ ACCENT The only distinction to which such words are liable, is an _elevation or depression_ of voice, e co with the end of the word or syllable Thus a her tone in the question _No?
which_ may therefore be called _the acute_ ACCENT: and falls froher to a lower tone upon the same word in the answer _N, which_ rave_ [ACCENT]”--_Walker's Key_, p 316 Thus he tells of different accents on ”_a , ”cannot be said to have any accent”! and others read and copy the text with as little suspicion of its inconsistency! See _Worcester's Universal and Critical Dictionary_, p 934
[476] In Hulish Prosody, _cadence_ is taken for the reverse of _accent_, and is obviously identified or confounded with _short quantity_, or what the author inclines to call ”_small_ quantity” He defines it as follows: ”Cadence is the reverse or counterpart _to_ accent; a falling or depression of voice on syllables unaccented: _and by which_ the sound is shortened and depressed”--P 3 This is not exactly what is generally understood by the word _cadence_ Lord Kames also contrasts _cadence_ with _accent_; but, by the latter ter different from our ordinary accent ”Sometimes to humour the sense,” says he, ”and soher tone_; and this is ter it with an accent Opposed to the accent, is the _cadence_, which I have not mentioned as one of the requisites of verse, because it is entirely regulated by the sense, and hath no peculiar relation to verse”--_Elements of Criticism_, Vol ii, p 78
[477] The Latin terree with _verba, words_,) is _subaudita, underheard_--the perfect participle of _subaudio_, to _underhear_ Hence the noun, _subauditio, subaudition_, the recognition of ellipses
[478] ”Thus, in the Proverbs of all Languages, many Words are usually left to be supplied from the trite obvious Nature of what they express; as, _out of Sight out of Mind; the more the merrier_, &c”--_W Ward's Pract
Gram_, p 147
[479] Lindley Murray and some others say, ”As _the ellipsis occurs in ale_, nuiven”--_Murray's Gram_, p 220; _Weld's_, 292; _Fisk's_, 147
They could, without doubt, have exhibited many true speciiven, are only fanciful and false ones; and their notion of the frequency of the figure, is monstrously hyperbolical
[480] Who besides Webster has called syllepsis ”_substitution_,” I do not know _Substitution_ and _conception_ are terms of quite different import, and many authors have explained syllepsis by the latter word Dr Webster gives to ”SUBStitUTION” twoin the _place_ of another to _supply_ [his or] _its_ place--2 In _grammar_, syllepsis, or the use of one word for another”--_American Dict_, 8vo This explanation seems to me inaccurate; because it confounds both substitution and syllepsis with _enallage_ It has signs of carelessness throughout; the forraures, some writers attempt a full distinction; but this, if practicable, is of little use According to Holle _Words_; but FIGURES, whole _Sentences_”--_Rhetoric_, B i, p 28 ”The CHIEF TROPES in Language,” says this author, ”are seven; a _Metaphor_, an _Allegory_, a _Metonymy_, a _Synecdoche_, an _Irony_, an _Hyperbole_, and a _Catachresis_”--_Ib_, p 30 The terures_ is more comprehensive than _Trope_ or _Tropes_; I have therefore not thought it expedient to ular or the plural form Holmes's seven tropes are all of them defined in the main text of this section, except _Catachresis_, which is co to this sense, it seeeneral to differ but little from impropriety At best, a Catachresis is a forced expression, though soreat exciteure by which a word is used in a sense different froous to, its own; as,
”And pity, like a naked new-born babe, Striding the blast, as heaven's cherubihtless _couriers_ of the air, Shall blow the horrid deed in every eye, That tears shall drown the wind”--_Shak, Macbeth_, Act i, Sc 7
[482] Holmes, in his Art of Rhetoric, writes this word ”_Paraleipsis_”