NATURE OF LANGUAGE JONES 



489 



pressed by the letters most commonly used to designate them. In 

 the case of some of the vowels arbitrary markings are emploj'ed to 

 distinguish sounds which are different but which are represented 

 by the same letter. The examples given in parentheses will help to 

 interpret the sounds, and it is believed that for most readers the 

 classification will be apprehended more readily with the symbols 

 used than with a system employing entirely different symbols for 

 each sound some of which would necessarily be new and strange. 



FLg. I 



Classification Of The Speech Sounds 



1. vo weLs 



(tooL) O? 



(booK) X<^^ 



(tone) ^ OU 

 (awL) "O 

 (nut) X)^ 



^^■(far) 



2. CombLnatLonaL and TransLtLonaL VoweLs 



w-y - ou-L-h 



3 SemL VoweLs 

 L-r 



(tee) 



4. Slop Consonants 

 yotCgd Unvoiced HasaLLzed , 



f P m 



d t 



J ch 



g K 



5. FricatLve Consonants 



Voice d Unvoiced 



V f 



z s 



th(then) th (tMLn) 



Zh (azure) Sh 



Formation of Stop 

 Lip against Lip 

 tongue against teeth 

 tongue against hard palate 

 tongue against soft palate 



Formation of Air Outlet 

 Lip to teeth 

 teeth to teeth 

 tongue to teeth 

 tongue to hard palate 



issue 



Headers familiar with phonetics will easily be able to express these 

 sounds in the international phonetic alphabet or in other systems of 

 phonetic symbols. 



The classified letter sounds are thirty-six in number. The vowel-^ 

 and consonants may be classified phonetically into (a) pure vowels, 

 (b) transitional vowels, (c) semivowels, {d) stop consonants, and 

 (e) fricative consonants. Referring to Figure 1, the triangular 

 diagram at the top of the table represents the first two classes. When 

 a vowel is spoken the vocal cords vibrate in a complicated manner, 



