THE PRODUCTION OF THE VOICE. 849 



muscular action, in proportion as the force of the current of the breath 

 through the glottis is increased. When a note is rendered fainter, the 

 reverse of this must occur. 



The arches of the palate and the uvula become contracted during the 

 formation of the higher notes; but their contraction is the same for a 

 note of given height, whether it be falsetto or not ; and in either case 

 the arches of the palate may be touched with the finger, without the 

 note being altered. Their action, therefore, in the production of the 

 higher notes seems to be merely the result of involuntary associate ner- 

 vous action, excited by the voluntarily increased exertion of the muscles 

 of the larynx. If the palatine arches contribute at all to the production 

 of the higher notes of the natural voice and the falsetto, it can only be 

 by their increased tension strengthening the resonance. 



The office of the ventricles of the larynx is evidently to afford a free 

 space for the vibrations of the lips of the glottis; they may be com- 

 pared with the cavity at the commencement of the mouthpiece of trum- 

 pets, which allows the free vibration of the lips. 



Speech. Besides the musical tones formed in the larynx, a great 

 number of other sounds can be produced in the vocal tubes, between 

 the glottis and the external apertures of the air-passages, the combination 

 of which sounds by the agency of the cerebrum into different groups 

 to designate objects, properties, actions, etc., constitutes language. The 

 languages do not employ all the sounds which can be produced in this 

 manner, the combination of some with others being often difficult. 

 Those sounds which are easy of combination enter, for the most part, 

 into the formation of the greater number of languages. Each language 

 contains a certain number of such sounds, but in no one are all brought 

 together. On the contrary, different languages are characterized by the 

 prevalence in them of certain classes of these sounds, while others are 

 less frequent or altogether absent. 



Articulate Sounds. The sounds produced in speech, or the articu- 

 late sounds, are commonly divided into vowels and consonants: the dis- 

 tinction between which is, that the sounds for the former are generated 

 by the larynx, while those for the latter are produced by interruption 

 of the current of air in some part of the air-passages above the larynx. 

 The term consonant has been given to these because several of them are 

 not properly sounded, except consonantly with a vowel. Thus, if it be 

 attempted to pronounce aloud the consonants b, d, and g, or their modi- 

 fications, p, t, k, the intonation only follows them in their combination 

 with a vowel. To recognize the essential properties of the articulate 

 sounds, it is necessary first to examine them as they are produced in 

 whispering, and then investigate which of them can also be uttered in 

 a modified character conjoined with vocal tone. By this procedure we 



