40 Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal. [February, 1911. 
all it is necessary to know exactly what is meant with hard and 
soft sounds. A hard consonant is pronounced without voice, 
it is breathed, 7.e., to quote Mr. Sweet, ‘‘ the glottis is wide open 
and no sound is produced by the outgoing breath, except that 
caused by the friction of the air in the throat, mouth, etc.’’ 
Soft consonants, on the other hand, are voiced, i.e., the glottis 
is at least so much closed that the vocal chords vibrate. 
With regard to the semi-consonants we are here not con- 
cerned with the open consonants such as the nasals, liquids 
and s-sounds, but only with the so-called stops, gutturals, 
palatals, dentals and labials, and with these only as finals. 
Like other consonants the stops ‘ consist acoustically of 
three elements, the consonant itself, and its on- and off-glide.’ 
Glides are ‘ transitional sounds, produced during the transition 
from one sound to another.’ ‘The on-glide after a vowel is 
generally voiced.’ The off-glide is always voiceless after voice- 
less stops. In the case of g, j, d, may, according to Mr. 
Sweet, distinguish three different kinds : (J) voiceless stop and 
the impression made on an untrained ear is different. Simi- 
larly the French and South German k, ¢, p will strike an 
Englishman as g, d, b, respectively. 
ow I turn to Mr. Mehl’s explanation of the formation of 
the Mundari semi-consonants. 
the air is made to pass over them. For instance, in pro- 
nouncing labials, the lips have first to be closed. This being 
done, 1 can pronounce a p, or b, or ph, or bh, as like. Now 
the semi-consonants nd 
duced by the first part of the process described... They, there- 
fore, naturally cannot be hard, but must be neutral, A neutral 
8 
ound, however, stands, I think, nearer to a soft than to a 
hard sound.’ 
1 Handbook of Phonetics, p. 154. 
