4 PREFACE. 



The last method is the one I have used for most of my work. An 

 apparatus was devised for tracing off the curve from a gramophone plate; 

 it is still the only one in existence. At a later date one was made for tracing 

 phonograph records. 



The expectation of at once obtaining results concerning the laws of 

 verse proved to be illusory ; the recorded curve of the spoken verse proved 

 to be a problem in itself, and extensive researches had to be made before 

 it could be understood. The record from the mouth of the poet is a speech 

 vibration. The first thought is that such a vibration can be readily inter- 

 preted. Indeed, we would naturally expect to learn a kind of vibration 

 alphabet by which we could read a curve into its elements. The first 

 curve I obtained showed that every individual vowel had its peculiar 

 curve. An attempt to classify them according to types indicated a far 

 larger number of different typical vowels than was allowed for in the works 

 of phoneticians. Again, the curve of a vowel changed with every shade 

 of emotion; moreover, each curve changed more or less gradually from 

 beginning to end in every individual vowel. Every single wave of a vowel 

 was thus a problem that had to be investigated. 



The fundamental problem to be attacked was, therefore, the analysis of 

 each wave into its elements. To this I devoted a large part of my efforts. 

 Previous investigators had confined themselves to vowels sung for a time 

 at a constant pitch, that is, to purely mechanical performances totally 

 devoid of expression. In spite of the schematic character of such curves 

 the results had shown little but mutual disagreement. I tried to clear 

 up the difficulties by analyzing large numl^ers of waves from spoken vowels 

 obtained from many speakers, but I found within a single vowel more 

 discordance than ever. It became evident that the fundamental supposi- 

 tions concerning the vowels were inadequate, and that new views of their 

 nature and modified methods of analysis were required. 



Our views of the nature of speech are, in fact, so inadequate that 

 even the very problems to be investigated can not be formulated in advance. 

 "We stand at the limits of an unexplored world" (Professor Brandl), 

 The one thing to do is to make a systematic study of speech curves of the 

 most varied kinds. In this way we may expect to discover the funda- 

 mental facts concerning the elements of speech, physically, physiologically, 

 and psychologically. We may learn for the first time the laws of com- 

 bination of sounds and the laws of change, and may thus hope to advance 

 beyond the elementary rules of the phonetics of to-day. We may estab- 

 lish theories of verse and prose that are more than pieces of typographical 

 jugglery. This is the way the natural sciences have traveled, and it is the 



