QUALITATIVE ANALYSIS. 41 



records; the glottal tone is never still, even within a very short vowel. 

 Are there any laws governino; the rise and fall of the voice within vowels? 

 We will return to this proljlem later. 



The second observation is that, although neighboring groups resemble 

 each other, no two are exactly ahke ; we also note that the change is gradual 

 as we pass along the series of groups. The vibrations within a group 

 represent the action of the vocal cavities in response to the glottal puff; 

 the form of the small vibrations depends on the sizes, connections and 

 openings of these cavities. The gradual change is to be found not only 

 in every curve in the plate but also in every speech curve. We draw 

 the conclusion that the cavity tones in the spoken vowels are never 

 constant. This fact, when thoroughly understood and recognized, must 

 effect changes in the prevailing views of sounds found in the books on 

 phonetics and the dictionaries. These are really written with notions 

 of sounds that are derived from typography and not from actual speech; 

 the conclusions often have little relation to the really spoken sounds. 

 Attempts have been made to modify these views Ijy concepts such as 

 glides and the like, but the results have an artificiality that makes them 

 of httle use. Spoken sounds are phenomena whose very nature lies in 

 their changes from instant to instant; and there is no possibility of getting 

 any scientific information concerning them, except directly from the sounds 

 themselves. 



Another observation forces itself upon us in the curve for [au]. 

 Since the form steadily changes from beginning to end of [au] we must 

 conclude that this sound is not a diphthong composed of a sound [a] fol- 

 lowed by a sound [u], but is a single sound which begins in one way, 

 passes gradually through various forms, and ends in another way. That 

 we think we hear the two sounds [a] and [u] is mainly a matter of sugges- 

 tion from teaching. Many other so-called diphthongs show a structure 

 like this one. Is it an illustration of a general law for all diphthongs? 

 or are there different kinds of diphthongs? or is it an isolated fact? If 

 the sound changes steadily from beginning to end, was any [a]-sound or 

 [u]-sound really present in the sound for which we have used the symbol 

 [au]? If vowels also show continuous change as a fundamental element, 

 are all vowels really diphthongs? or are diphthongs really only long vowels? 

 or, finally, are these concepts merely suggestions from type or illusions of 

 the ear? These are problems whose solutions may be found in the study 

 of speech curves. 



Comparison of the curve for [a], lines 99-101, with that for [au], lines 

 95-96, shows considerable resemblance of the middle portion (line 100 and 

 first half of line 101) of [a] to the middle portion (first two-thirds of Une 90) 



