9S 



NATURE 



[October 4, 191 7 



Fig. II. — Moutli-tracings of (A) fully asp-rated / ;(!'') 

 / ; (D) unvoiceJ /' ; and (K) liiily voicei i — j-i 



There are scmt.i! \v.i\s of recorclinif 

 ■mechanicallv the presence or absence 

 of voice. The method which gives the 

 most satisfactory results from the point 

 of view of the linguist consists in usins^ 

 a kymoi^rapli fitted with one or more 

 tambours of Marey's model. This 

 method was described in N.'\turk for 

 June c) last, and readers are referred to 

 that article for details. 



Fips. II, 12, and 13 are some addi- 

 tional kymographic tracings illustrat- 

 ing linguistic phenomenri. 



The above examples show to what 

 extent experimental phonetics may b'> 

 useful to the language learner. It 

 furnishes him with much of the in- 

 formation he w.ants in regard to pro- 

 nunciation. The practical linguist 

 ■should make these ascertained facts the 

 basis of his study of the pronunciation 



• linily fspirate.i/; (C) unafpiratcd 

 f llo^eu by the vowtl a. 



of the language he is learning. He 

 will be able to infer from them how 

 he must proceed in order to get his 

 own organs of speech to perform the 

 movements required by the foreign 

 language. 



In conclusion, it may be as well to 

 point out that as these scientific 

 methods of analysis are useful to the 

 linguist, so also the accomplishments 

 of the linguist are sometimes found to 

 have their uses to the man of science. 



Thus it is possible by means of a 

 speech process to demonstrate in a 

 remarkable way the existence of har- 

 monics in a musical note — to show, 

 for instance, that if the note c 

 is sung, there is sounding simul- 

 taneously the well-known series of 



-Simultaneous mouth- and nose-tracings or (A) French plante (female v..ice) ; 

 (») English plant (male voice). Note the absence of n in French. 



harmonics, c', g\ c" , e" , g", etc. 

 This fact is made evident by put- 

 ting the mouth into a series of posi- 

 tions which will act as resonators 

 and reinforce different harmonics 

 one after the other. If only one 

 position is taken up by the mouth, 

 some harmonic or other is necessarily 

 reinforced, though it is extremely 

 difficult to detect which. But by mak- 

 ing rapid changes from one mouth- 

 position to another, the successive 

 harmonics become clearly audible 

 hy contrast. The speech-movement 

 which makes these harmonics come 

 out most clearly is to start by hold- 

 ing the tongue in the position of 

 the English sound of ng and round- 

 ing the lips and gradually separat- 

 ing them. At close quarters the 

 effect is that of an arpeggio played 

 on a tiny harp. If the voice-note 

 is changed, the same arpeggio is 

 heard in a different key. 



This phonetic experiment may or 

 may not prove to have some direct 



Fig. i3.--Simul:aneousmouth-anInoe-lracingsof (A) .f/V/,.-: (i!) ./>«; (C)«/'/^; an'i(D) «/«,BS ^alue in the direction of elucidating 

 pronouncjJ in cockney-fashion. Note the difference in the nose-tracings. The words were all f problems of SOUnd-quality, but at any 



., .. " Di. SSi^^^~^ .u- 1 ■ 1 1- u V. . t ;, „ ^ ' rate it is useful as a practical demon- 



said on the monotcne Bp j ^ _ j^ — j this being the note to which the nose-tanibour happened " *^ 



to re-poiid bes'. 



NO. 2501, VOL. 100] 



stration of the presence of har- 

 monics in a musical sound. 



