LARYNX AND PHONATWN. 361 



consonants, therefore, can only be pronounced by being joined 

 with a vowel, whence their name (cum sonare). When a 

 vowel is uttered, the cavities of the mouth and pharynx are 

 so arranged as to present certain obstructions to the air 

 which produces the vowel, and the interruption to these 

 latter causes the more or less loud sound of the consonants. 



The consonants are labial, lingual, or guttural, according 

 as the obstruction is found in the lips, the tongue, the velum 

 of the palate, or the pharynx ; and in accordance with the 

 force employed to overcome the obstruction, whether by a 

 sort of explosion, by vibratory friction, or by a trembling 

 movement, we have explosive labials (b,p), resonant labials 

 (f, v, m), explosive (t, a ) and trembling linguals (r), explosive 

 gutturals (k, g), resonant gutturals (j and cA, especially in 

 German), and trembling gutturals (the guttural r). In some 

 languages, especially the Arabic, the gutturals are very 

 marked, as, for instance, the sound which we designate as 

 ha, and which appears to be produced by some obstacle 

 situated as low down as the glottis. It was while seeking to 

 discover the mechanism by which the really guttural sounds 

 of the Arab tongue are produced that Czermak invented the 

 laryngoscope which is now so universally employed for the 

 exploration of the larynx. 



The labial consonants, especially the explosive labials (b, 

 p, m), are the most easy to pronounce, on account of the 

 simplicity of the movements required : they are the first 

 uttered by children (papa, mamma, etc.), and are those which 

 are most easily taught to certain animals, and are naturally 

 produced in bleating (L. Mandl). 



This combination of phenomena, by means of which a 

 sound is uttered by the glottis, modified by the pharyngeal 

 and buccal cavities in such a manner as to represent a vowel, 

 and joined to certain sounds, produced in the same cavities, 

 and which form consonants, serves to constitute the articu- 

 late voice, \vhile the intelligent combination of vowels and 

 consonants in syllables, and of syllables in words, constitutes 

 speech. In spoken words, the variations in pitch of the syl- 

 lables arc not strongly marked ; in singing, on the contrary, 

 the syllables, especially the vowels, which form their essential 

 element, are produced with considerable and harmoniously 

 arranged variations in pitch. 



Innervation of the Laryngeal Organ. The organ of. 

 phonation of the larynx is dependent on the inferior laryn- 

 geal nerve, which appears to come from the pneumo-gastric, 



