CHAPTER III. 

 QUALITATIVE ANALYSIS. 



The entire intellectual and emotional impression conveyed by the 

 voice from the speaker to the hearer is contained in the speech vibration 

 and registered in the speech curve. Hardly any problem of greater 

 interest could be proposed than that of discovering the manner of getting 

 from a voice curve the data concerning the action of the vocal organs in 

 such an exact and minute form that conclusions can be drawn concerning 

 the variations in the voice as depending on every emotion, on every 

 condition of health, on everj^ step in voice culture, on every difference 

 in vowels and consonants, on each change in dialect, etc. The problem, 

 however, is too vast for solution in a short time. 



The curve itself is at the outset as unintelligible as a mass of Chinese 

 word-signs. The key to the outline features lies in comparing the 

 curve with the original spoken record of the disc or cylinder; this work 

 may be termed " translating the curve." The actual interpretation of the 

 details of the curve is an art that requires extensive knowledge of phonetics, 

 physics, physiology, and psychology; this art may be called "quaUtative 

 analysis." The full content of the curve is found by methods that may 

 be termed "quantitative analysis" and "mathematical analysis." 



To interpret a record the words are first written down exactly as 

 spoken by the gramophone or the phonograph, the long and short pauses 

 being indicated by rests. The long straight lines in the record are then 

 assigned to the respective pauses; a portion of the record between two 

 long straight lines thus corresponds to a phrase between two pauses. Each 

 phrase is written in phonetic notation according to the ear. The inter- 

 pretation of the curve for a phrase proceeds by assigning the short straight 

 portions to the surds, and by picking out the curves for the various sonants. 

 This latter work is sometimes very difficult, as the original division of 

 the words into phonetic elements by the ear fails to take account of the 

 details found in the curve ; the ear is also easily deceived, and the usual 

 phonetic transcriptions are often erroneous. 



The fundamental supposition on which the interpretation depends is 

 as follows: The record itself is at least as good as the sound which it can 

 be made to give. Every technical expert knows that the record itself is 

 far better than the sound it gives and that the difference between the 

 original sound and the reproduced sound arises less from the recording 



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