130 THE STUDY OF SPEECH CURVES. 



action of the ear. All previous investigations have been made on song, 

 and it is quite conceivable that the tones of a vowel in song may be main- 

 tained with sufficient constancy through several vibrations to make it 

 possible to use a number of successive waves for the inharmonic analysis. 

 A harmonic analysis of a single wave can be used only to obtain the 

 inharmonics on the centroid principle. The friction would probably have 

 to be considered also. Thus for song an inharmonic frictional analysis 

 offers a prospect of obtaining results that correspond to the action of the 

 ear. For really spoken sounds there is no such possibility at present, and 

 the one claim put forward by investigators to support their use of the 

 simple harmonic analysis— namely, that it agrees with the action in the 

 ear — has not the slightest justification. 



