254 CARNEGIE INSTITUTION 



University of Munich the interest in this work led to loan of appa- 

 ratus from the Psychological Laboratory and to active assistance by 

 Professor L,ipps. 



(b) How does the melody of any given piece or of conversation 

 vary with the emotions, with the speaker, with the dialect, etc.? 

 Have the differences in melody anything to do with differences in 

 character among different persons and among different communi- 

 ties? For example, does the rising inflection at the end of each 

 sentence indicate as a permanent trait for all Saxony the dubitative 

 feeling that it indicates when used by a person in any other part of 

 Germany ? 



Quite a number of records of melody have been completely studied, 

 but the work should be considerably extended before conclusions are 

 finally drawn. 



3. The Rhythm of Speech. 



The same record that furnishes the data concerning the nature of 

 the sounds (see 1, above) and the melody (see 2, above) also fur- 

 nishes measurements of their length, or duration, and approximately 

 of their stress. These are the data for deductions concerning rhythm 

 or meter, and consequently of the solution of such problems as : 



(1) The nature of English verse. Is it mainly quantitative (i. e. , 

 distinguished by long and short syllables) , or melodic (i. e. , by rise 

 and fall of the voice), or emphatic (J. <?., by greater or less stress)? 

 These are the points under discussion at present. My results lead 

 to the conclusion that such questions are entirely aside from the 

 essentials of the case. Verse, I consider, is a form of mental ex- 

 pression with periodic recurrences of greater and less mental effort. 

 The problem is, then, to find how this greater effort expresses itself. 

 I find that it may occur not only by greater stress or by longer 

 duration, but also by a change in pitch, by decreased stress, by 

 shorter duration, by difficulty of enunciation, by pauses, by con- 

 trast of thought, by emotional content, or by any other element 

 that is appropriate to increased expression. This psychological 

 theory of the nature of verse renders it possible to gather the vari- 

 ous forms into one system explainable on common principles. The 

 usual division of English verse into feet and syllables has no poeti- 

 cal meaning ; no poet writes that way. 



For carrying this investigation into detail I have had two gramo- 

 phone records of verse made by an American poet. The tracing off 

 of one of these required over two months' running of the machine ; 



