248 STUDIES IN ADVANCED PHYSIOLOGY. 



palate and the air allowed to escape on its sides. With 

 some consonants there is an admixture of vocal sounds, as 

 in B, D, G (hard), V and Z. In the production of other 

 consonants the nose is called into play as a resonance cav- 

 ity, and so arise M, N and NG. In the consonant R there 

 is a vibratory motion, either dental, as is more common in 

 the English language, or gutteral, more usual in the Ger- 

 man. H, finally, is hardly more than a laryngeal sound, 

 little more than hard breathing. 



Whispering differs from true speech in the absence of 

 all vowels. It is, therefore, in a physical sense, a noise 

 only. In whispering, although the glottis is considerably 

 narrowed, the cords are not stretched enough to vibrate, 

 and the air made to rush past them is therefore thrown, not 

 into regular, but into irregular vibrations . Such irregular vi- 

 brations as happen to coincide in period with the air in the 

 throat or mouth serve to characterize the vowels, while con- 

 sonants are produced in the ordinary way. 



In the discussion of the voice reference has always been 

 to what is commonly known as the chest voice. It is pos- 

 sible in addition to produce what are called falsetto tones, 

 but the manner in which this is accomplished is not yet 

 satisfactorily known. 



