that the sonant utterance can be no longer sustained, the contact of the tongue with the roof of the mouth is broken at its sides, but kept up at its tip, in which position the continuance of intonated emission generates an l. Finally, the tongue is released at the tip and elevated in the middle, to a posture nearly the same with that in which the former vowel was spoken, only a little closer, and we have another vowel, a short i. Here, unless some other word immediately follows, the process is ended, and inarticulate breathing is commenced again. Thus, during the pronunciation of so brief and simple a word, the mouth-organs have been compelled to assume in succession seven different positions: but all their movements have been made with such rapidity and precision, one position has followed another so closely and accurately, that no intermediate sounds, no slides from one to another, have been apprehended by the ear; it has heard only the seven articulations. The action of the throat has varied once; passing without modification the breath expended in uttering the f, it has intonated, in one unbroken stream, all that followed. The general effort of utterance, too, the degree of exertion put forth by the lungs, has not been the same throughout: the former part of the word has been accented—that is to say, spoken with a fuller and stronger tone—with which effect, when not contravened by the emphasis, or tone of the sentence, a slight rise of musical pitch is wont to ally itself. And yet once more, we have to note that our word, whether we regard it as seven-fold or as one-fold in respect to the action of the articulating organs, presents itself to our apprehension as a two-fold entity: it is dissyllabic. This property, the foundation of which is in the ear of the hearer rather than in the mouth of the speaker, depends upon the antithesis of the opener and closer sounds composing the word: the comparatively open and resonant vowels strike the ear as the prominent and principal constituents of the series, while the closer consonants appear as their adjuncts, separating at the same time that they connect them.
This example brings to light the principal elements which enter into the structure of spoken signs for ideas, and which have to be taken into account in all inquiries into the phonetic
