THE LAPSES OF SPEECH 123 



sistent and interchanging parts of words, and parts of phrases, yield to 

 confusion because of the psychological equivalence of the confused 

 portions. Such equivalence of value or function in the attentive con- 

 sciousness of the sentence-builder is determined by many considera- 

 tions. Similarity of sound; similarity of stress; similarity in the 

 syntax of phrases; similarity of position; similarities due to subjective 

 attitudes — all enter in separate or combined form. Most conspicuous 

 are confusions of the initial sounds of words; those for the leading 

 words in the sentence receive about the same prominence of emphasis; 

 thus corch and pool, noyful and joise, waiter and wetter. The reader 

 need only reread the series of lapses just recorded, with his attention 

 directed to the relative balance or equivalence of the confused sounds 

 and words, to find convincing proof of the parallelism that determines 

 such confusion. There is even a slight advantage in taking foreign 

 sounds in which, with the meaning less prominent, the sound-values 

 to our apperception stand out more conspicuously. We can appreciate 

 how readily Alabasterbilchse becomes Alabuchsebaster (interchange), 

 or Alabasterbaclise (persistence), or Alabusterbuchse (anticipation); 

 while Paprikasclinitzel not only emerges as Piprihaschnatzel and the 

 other variants, but is even recorded as being contorted into Schnipri- 

 Icapatzl. When, however, frbhliche Festfeier emerges before the aston- 

 ished hearers as Festliche Fressfeier, one appreciates that the accidental 

 pertinence of the result may have been a still deeper subconscious 

 inducement to attract the utterance into the form that likewise meets 

 the linguistic expectations. 



What all this means in terms of psychological processes is that the 

 constructive consciousness requires and utilizes the marginal areas that 

 spread to either side of the progressive focus of utterance. The wider 

 this span, the greater the area within which confusion is possible. 

 Ordinarily lapses are confined to elements close to the central moment; 

 occasionally they extend to the next line or the next measure of thought, 

 while in leading up to a climax, the speaker maintains a distant sub- 

 consciousness thereof and occasionally betrays the fact by an inad- 

 vertent precipitation of what was to have been the final triumphant 

 flourish. Quite the same relation holds within the sentence when it 

 is a long and complex one. The German construction has an unen- 

 viable reputation in this respect, and certainly makes strenuous de- 

 mands upon the architectural skill of the sentence-builder; the inclu- 

 sion and sub-inclusion of phrase within phrase, each with rigidly regu- 

 lated gender and case and mood and tense forms, the distant relations 

 of the parts of the separable verbs, and the final mood and tense auxil- 

 iaries that must ever be held in mind to round up the series of gram- 

 matical obligations incurred en route, — these demand a wide and alert 

 spread of consciousness and permit of little loitering by the wayside. 



