860 OF THE VOICE AND SPEECH. 



there is complete contact of the tip, the air is allowed to pass out around it. 

 II. In the second class of continuous consonants, including the letters m, n, 

 I, and r, the nostrils are not closed ; and the air thus undergoes very little 

 compression, even though the passage of air through the oral cavity is almost 

 or completely checked. In pronouncing m and n, the breath passes through 

 the nose alone ; and the difference of the sound of these two letters must be 

 due to the variation in the form of the cavity of the mouth, which acts by 

 resonance. The letter m is a labial, like b; but in the former the nasal 

 passage is open, the mouth remaining closed, whilst in the latter the nose is 

 entirely closed, and the sound is formed at the moment of opening the mouth ; 

 hence the passage from m to b is made with great facility. The same corre- 

 spondence exists between n and t, or n and g (the particular part of the tongue 

 approximated to the palate not being of much consequence in the pronun- 

 ciation of n} ; and hence it is that the transition from n to t, or from n to g, 

 is so easy that the combinations nt and ng are found abundantly in most 

 languages. The sound of I is produced by bringing the tip of the tongue 

 into contact with the palate, and allowing the air to escape around it, at the 

 same time that a vocal tone is generated in the larynx ; it differs therefore 

 from th in the position at which the obstruction is interposed, as well as in 

 the slight degree of compression of the air which it involves. The sound of 

 the letter r depends on an absolute vibration of the point of the tongue, in 

 a narrow current of air forced between the tongue itself and the palate. 1 - 

 iii. The sounds of the third class are scarcely to be termed consonants, since 

 they are merely aspirations caused by an increased force of breath. These 

 are h, and the guttural ck' 2 of most foreign languages (the Greek /). The 

 first is a simple aspiration ; the second au aspiration modified by the eleva- 

 tion of the tongue, causing a slight obstruction to the passage of air, and an 

 increased resonance in the back of the mouth. The souud would become 

 either g or k, if the tongue, whilst it is being produced, were carried up to 

 touch the palate. 3 



707. These distinctions come to be of much importance, when we apply 

 ourselves to the treatment of defects of articulation. Great as is the number 

 of muscles employed in the production of definite vocal sounds, the number 

 is much greater for those of articulate language ; and the varieties of com- 

 bination which we are continually forming unconsciously to ourselves, would 

 not be suspected without a minute analysis of the separate actions. Thus, 

 when we utter the explosive sounds, we check the passage of air through 

 the posterior nares in the very act of articulating the letter; and yet this 

 important movement commonly passes unobserved. We must regard the 

 power of forming the several articulate sounds which have been adverted to, 

 and their simple combinations, as so far resulting from intuition, that it can 

 in general be more readily acquired by early practice than other actions of 

 the same complexity ; but we find that among different Races of Men, there 

 exist tendencies to the production of different sounds, which, though doubt- 

 less influenced in great degree by early habit (since we find that children, 

 when first learning to speak, form their habits of vocalization in great de- 



1 Bonders describes no less than four modes in which the letter r can be made. 

 1, \>y the lips; 2, by the tongue ; :], by the uvula ; and 4, by some part between this 

 and' the chordae vocal es. The / as ordinarily but distinctly pronounced, is produced 

 by about thirty vibrations of the tongue in the second. The uvular r by from nine-^ 

 teen to twenty-eight. 



2 The English c/i. is merely a combination of t with sh ; thus chime might be spelt 



. 



3 The general classification proposed by Dr. Marshall Hall has been here adopted, 

 with soim- inodih'cation as to the details. 



