The Grammar of English Grammars Part 251

In the first chapter of Part I, the powers of the letters, or the elementary sounds of the English language, were duly enumerated and explained; for these, as well as the letters themselves, are few, and may be fully stated in few words: but, since we often express the same sound in many different ways, and also, in some instances, give 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,--must, it was thought, 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 most commonly used for this purpose,--such as _long_ 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 pa.s.ses in forming them. Thus, _a_ in _father_, and _o_ in _nor_, are called _open_ sounds, because they are formed by a _wide opening_ of the organs 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 import of words. How does the pa.s.sage 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 p.r.o.nouncing Dictionary, mentions a similar distinction of vowels, "which arises from _the different apertures_ of the mouth in forming them;"

and says, "We accordingly find vowels denominated by the French, _ouvert_ and _ferme_; by the Italians, _aperto_ and _chiuso_; and by the English [,]

_open_ and _shut_. But whatever propriety there may be in the use of these terms in other languages, it is certain they must be used with caution in English for fear of confounding them with _long_ and _short_. Dr. Johnson and other grammarians call the _a_ in _father_ the _open a_: which may, indeed, distinguish 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 may be called a _shut_ sound; but the _long_ 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 same may be observed of the _o_. This letter has three long sounds, heard in _move, note, nor_; which graduate 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 _machine_, the slender _i_; though each of them is equally _long_; and though these vowels that are _long_ [,] may be said to be more or less _open_ according to the different apertures of the mouth in forming them, yet the _short_ vowels cannot be said to be more or less _shut_; for as _short_ always implies _shut_ (except in verse,) though _long_ does not always imply _open_, we must be careful not to confound _long_ and _open_, and _close_ and _shut_, when we speak of the quant.i.ty 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, compared with its long 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. p.r.o.n. 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 vowels with respect to other letters.

These principles improperly give to each of the contrasted epithets two very different senses: as, with respect to aperture, _wide_ and _narrow_; with 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 a.s.sumption hardly scholarlike.

According to Walker, "_we must be careful_ not to confound" _open_ with _long_, or _shut_ with _short_, or _close_ with _shut_; and yet, if he himself does not, in the very paragraph above quoted, confound them all,--does not identify in sense, or fail to distinguish, the two words 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 seem most natural to express these by regularly comparing the epithet preferred; as, _open, opener, openest_; or _broad, broader, broadest_. And again, if "all vowels that end syllables may be said to be open," then it is not true, that "the long sounds" of _a_ in _paper, father, water_, cannot be so "denominated;" or that to "call the _a_ in _father_ the _open a_, may, indeed, distinguish 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 names _long, short, slender_, and _broad_, which convey no idea of the nature of the sound, for _mat_ and _not_ are as long 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 Gram._, p. 73.

OBS. 5.--Walker thought a long or short vowel sound essential to a long or short quant.i.ty in any syllable. By this, if he was wrong in it, (as, in the chapter on Versification, I have argued that he was,) he probably disturbed more the proper distinction of quant.i.ties, than that of vowel sounds. As regards _long_ and _short_, therefore, Perley's regret seems to have cause; but, in making the same objection to "_slender_ and _broad_," he reasons illogically. So far as his view is right, however, it coincides with the following earlier suggestion: "The terms _long_ and _short_, which are often used to denote certain vowel sounds; being also used, with a different import, to distinguish the quant.i.ty of syllables, are frequently misunderstood; for which reason, we have subst.i.tuted for them the terms _open_ and _close_;--the former, to denote the sound usually given to a vowel when 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 Inst.i.tutes_, p. 285.

I. OF THE LETTER A.

The vowel A has _four_ sounds properly its own; they are named by various epithets: as,

1. The English, 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, warm, water_.

OBSERVATIONS.

OBS. 1.--Concerning the number of sounds pertaining to the vowel _a_, or to certain other particular letters, and consequently in regard to the whole number of the sounds which const.i.tute the oral elements of the English language, our educational literati,--the grammarians, orthoepists [sic--KTH], orthographers, 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 them at "_forty-one_." See the last and very erroneous pa.s.sage 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 from all others. Sheridan and Jones admitted _twenty-eight_. Churchill acknowledges, as undisputed and indisputable, only _twenty-six_; though he enumerates, "Of simple vowel sounds, _twelve_, or _perhaps thirteen_" (New Grammar, p. 5,) and says, "The consonant sounds in the English language, are _nineteen_, or _rather twenty_."--P. 13.

OBS. 2.--Thus, while Pitman, Comstock, and others, are amusing themselves with the folly of inventing new "Phonetic Alphabets," or of overturning all orthography to furnish "a character for each of the 38 elementary sounds,"

more or fewer, one of the acutest observers among our grammarians 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, "may be found in the following 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 same, the former differing from the latter only by being lengthened in the p.r.o.nunciation.

They also reckon the seventh sound, to be the third shortened; the twelfth, the fifth shortened; and the eleventh, the ninth shortened. Some consider the fifth and sixth as differing only in length; 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 some degree 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.

Grave; as in _father_. 3. Broad; as in _fall_. 4. Short; as in _man_. 5.

The sound heard in _care, hare_. 6. Intermediate between _a_ in _man_ and _a_ in _father_; as in _gra.s.s, pa.s.s, branch_."--_School Grammar_, 1850, p.

33. Besides these six, Worcester recognizes a seventh sound,--the "_A obscure_; as in _liar, rival_"--_Univ. and Crit. Dict._, p. ix. Such a multiplication of the oral elements of our first vowel.--or, indeed, any extension of them beyond four,--appears to me to be unadvisable; because it not only makes our alphabet the more defective, but is unnecessary, and not sustained by our best and most popular orthoepical [sic--KTH] authorities.

The sound of _a_ in _liar_, (and in _rival_ too, if made "_obscure_") is a borrowed one, pertaining more properly to the letter _u_. In _gra.s.s, pa.s.s_, and _branch_, properly uttered, the _a_ is essentially the same as in _man_. In _care_ and _hare_, we have the first sound of _a_, made as slender as the _r_ will admit.

OBS. 5.--Concerning his fifth sound of _a_, Wells cites authorities thus: "Walker, Webster, Sheridan, Fulton and Knight, Kenrick, Jones, and Nares, give _a_ in _care_ the _long_ sound of _a_, as in _late_. Page and Day give it the _short_ sound of _a_, as in _mat_. See Page's Normal Chart, and Day's Art of Elocution. Worcester and Perry make the sound of _a_ in _care_ a separate element; and this distinction is also recognized by Russell, Mandeville, and Wright. See Russell's Lessons in Enunciation, Mandeville's Elements of Reading and Oratory, and Wright's Orthography."--_Wells's School Grammar_, p. 34. Now the opinion that _a_ in _care_ has its long, primal sound, and is not properly "a separate element," is maintained also by Murray, Hiley, Bullions, Scott, and Cobb; and is, undoubtedly, much more prevalent than any other. It accords, too, with the scheme of Johnson. To count this _a_ by itself, seems too much like a distinction without a difference.

OBS. 6.--On his sixth sound of _a_, Wells remarks as follows: "Many persons p.r.o.nounce this _a_ incorrectly, giving it either the grave or the short sound. Perry, Jones, Nares, Webster, and Day, give to _a_ in _gra.s.s_ the grave sound, as in _father_; while Walker, Jamieson, and Russell, give it the short sound, as in _man_. But good speakers generally p.r.o.nounce _a_ in _gra.s.s, plant_, etc., as a distinct element, intermediate between the grave and the short sound."--_School Gram._, p. 34. He also cites Worcester and Smart to the same effect; and thinks, with the latter, "_There can be no harm_ in avoiding the censure of both parties by _shunning the extreme_ that offends the taste of each."--_Ib._, p. 35. But I say, that a needless multiplication of questionable vowel powers difficult to be discriminated, _is_ "harm," or a fault in teaching; and, where intelligent orthoepists [sic--KTH] dispute whether words have "the _grave_ or the _short_ sound" of _a_, how can others, who condemn both parties, acceptably split the difference, and form "a distinct element" in the interval? Words are often misp.r.o.nounced, and the French or close _a_ may be mistaken for the Italian or broadish _a_, and _vice versa_; but, between the two, there does not appear to be room for an other distinguishable from both. Dr. Johnson says, (inaccurately indeed,) "_A_ has _three_ sounds, the slender, [the] open, and [the] broad. _A_ slender is found in _most words_, as _face, mane_. _A_ open is the _a_ of the Italian, or nearly resembles it; as _father, rather, congratulate, fancy, gla.s.s_. _A_ broad resembles the _a_ of the German; as _all, wall, call_. [fist] The _short a_ approaches to the _a_ open, as _gra.s.s_."--_Johnson's Grammar, in his Quarto Dictionary_, p. 1. Thus the same word, _gra.s.s_, that serves Johnson for an example of "the _short a_"

is used by Wells and Worcester to exemplify the "_a intermediate_;" while of the Doctor's five instances of what he calls the "_a open_," three, if not four, are evidently such as nearly all readers nowadays would call close or short!

OBS. 7.--There are several grammarians who agree in ascribing to our first vowel _five_ sounds, but who nevertheless oppose one an other in making up the five. Thus, according to Hart, "A has five sounds of its own, as in fate, fare, far, fall, fat,"--_Hart's E. Gram._, p. 26. According to W.

Allen, "A has five sounds;--the long or slender, as in _cane_; the short or open, as in _can_; the middle, as in _arm_; the broad, as in _all_; and the _broad contracted_, as in _want_."--_Allen's E. Gram._, p. 6. P. Davis has the same sounds in a different order, thus: "a [as in] mane, mar, fall, mat, what."--_Davis's E. Gram._, p. xvi. Mennye says, "A has five sounds; as, 1 fame, 2 fat, 3 false, 4 farm, 5 beggar."--_Mennye's E. Gram._, p. 55.

Here the fifth sound is the seventh of Worcester,--the "_A obscure_."

DIPHTHONGS BEGINNING WITH A.

The only proper diphthong in which _a_ is put first, is the word _ay_, meaning _yes_: in which _a_ has its _middle_ sound, as in _ah_, and _y_ is like _open e_, or _ee_, uttered feebly--_ah-ee_. _Aa_, when p.r.o.nounced as an improper diphthong, and not as pertaining to two syllables, usually takes the sound of _close a_; as in _Balaam, Canaan, Isaac_. In many words, as in _Baal, Gaal, Gaash_, the diaeresis occurs. In _baa_, the cry of a sheep, we hear the Italian sound of _a_; and, since we hear it but once, one _a_ or the other must be silent.

_ae_, a Latin improper diphthong, common also in the Anglo-Saxon, generally has, according to modern orthoepists, the sound of _open e_ or _ee_; as in _Caesar, aenigma, paean_;--sometimes that of _close_ or _short e_; as in _aphaeresis, diaeresis, et caetera_. Some authors, judging the _a_ of this diphthong to be needless, reject it, and write _Cesar, enigma_, &c.

_Ai_, an improper diphthong, generally has the sound of _open_ or _long a_; as in _sail, avail, vainly_. In a final unaccented syllable, it sometimes preserves the first sound of _a_; as in _chilblain, mortmain_: but oftener takes the sound of _close_ or _short i_; as in _certain, curtain, mountain, villain_. In _said, saith, again_, and _against_, it takes the sound of _close_ or _short e_; and in the name _Britain_, that of _close_ or _short u_.

_Ao_, an improper diphthong, occurs in the word _gaol_, now frequently written as it is p.r.o.nounced, _jail_; also in _gaoler_, which may be written _jailer_; and in the compounds of _gaol_: and, again, it is found in the adjective _extraordinary_, and its derivatives, in which, according to nearly all orthoepists, the _a_ is silent. The name _Pharaoh_, is p.r.o.nounced _F=a'r=o_.

_Au_, an improper diphthong, is generally sounded like _broad a_; as in _cause, caught, applause_. Before _n_ and an other consonant, it usually has the sound of _grave_ or _middle a_; as in _aunt, flaunt, gaunt, launch, laundry_. So in _laugh, laughter_, and their derivatives. _Gauge_ and _gauger_ are p.r.o.nounced _gage_ and _gager_, and sometimes written so.

_Aw_, an improper diphthong, is always sounded like _broad a_; as in _draw, drawn, drawl_.

_Ay_, an improper diphthong, like _ai_, has usually the sound of _open_ or _long a_; as in _day, pay, delay_: in _sayst_ and _says_, it has the sound of _close_ or _short e_.

TRIPHTHONGS BEGINNING WITH A.

_Awe_ is sounded _au_, like _broad a_. _Aye_, an adverb signifying _always_, has the sound of _open_ or _long a_ only; being different, both in sound and in spelling, from the adverb _ay_, yes, with which it is often carelessly confounded. The distinction is maintained by Johnson, Walker, Todd, Chalmers, Jones, Cobb, Maunder, Bolles, and others; but Webster and Worcester give it up, and write "_ay_, or _aye_," each sounded _ah-ee_, for the affirmation, and "_aye_," sounded _=a_, for the adverb of time: Ainsworth on the contrary has _ay_ only, for either sense, and does not note the p.r.o.nunciation.

II. OF THE LETTER B.

The consonant _B_ has but one sound; as in _boy, robber, cub_. _B_ is silent before _t_ or after _m_ in the same syllable; as in _debt, debtor, doubt, dumb, lamb, climb, tomb_. It is heard in _subtile_, fine; but not in _subtle_, cunning.

III. OF THE LETTER C.

The consonant _C_ has two sounds, neither of them peculiar to this letter; the one _hard_, like that of _k_, and the other _soft_, or rather _hissing_, like that of _s_. _C_ before _a, o, u, l, r, t_, or when it ends a syllable, is generally hard, like _k_; as in _can, come curb, clay, crab, act, action, accent, flaccid_. _C_ before _e, i_, or _y_, is always soft, like _s_; as in _cent, civil, decency, acid_.

In a few words, _c_ takes the _flat_ sound of _s_, like that of _z_; as in _discern, suffice, sacrifice, sice_. _C_ before _ea, ia, ie, io_, or _eou_, when the accent precedes, sounds like _sh_; as in _ocean, special, species, gracious, cetaceous_. _C_ is silent in _czar, czarina, victuals, indict, muscle, corpuscle_, and the second syllable of _Connecticut_.