The Sounds of the Consonants, 4l 



while the breath issues through the narrow passage then 

 left. The larynx produces its note, consisting of the funda- 

 mental vibrations with its harmonics, but there is now no 

 resonating cavity to strengthen any one of these harmonics, 

 and so the letter I passes forth as an almost purely musical 

 note ; none of the harmonics being strengthened, they are 

 unable to make any impression on the tin-foil, and so we 

 have nothing more than a series of simple dashes. 



M seems likewise to consist of a series of dashes, but at 

 the end of every dash there occurs a small dot indicating, I 

 suppose, the existence of some harmonic. The sound of 

 this letter is made by allowing the breath to pass through 

 the nose, and the nasal cavity must in some manner act as 

 a resonator, giving prominence to certain of the partials, 

 but this effect is weak in comparison with the similar action 

 by which the mouth produces the vowel sounds. At the 

 same time the nasal cavities cannot have all to do in the 

 production of the sound of m, for if while sounding this 

 letter we raise the tongue and so contract the cavity of the 

 mouth, even though the latter is still kept shut, we change 

 from the sound of m to that of n, in which the long dash is 

 divided into a shorter dash, followed by a dot, so that the 

 phonogram of -Ji is a short dash with two dots. 



The phonograph is of little use in the determination of 

 wave-forms for sibilants. It is difficult to obtain records of 

 these sounds, and their excessive minuteness makes it diffi- 

 cult to decide as to their shape. They seem, however, to 

 consist of an excessively numerous series of small dots. 



The remaining consonants are all formed in the same 

 way, that is by either checking or letting go the breath ; at 

 the beginning of a syllable, we suddenly permit the 

 sound to escape, at the end we suddenly stop it, and the 

 ear recognises these sudden changes as consonants. The 

 change may take place in three ways, either sharply and 

 instantaneously, in which case we have the hard consonants 

 p, t, k, or rather more gradually, which gives the softer 

 sounds of b, d, g, or it may take place by stopping or com- 

 mencing the sound without at the same time stopping or com- 

 mencing the breathing. If we stop a sound at the end of a 

 syllable, but aUow the breath still to pass out, we have the 

 sounds of f, V, th, or ch. The phonograms placed on the 

 table show the differences between these three classes of 

 consonants. With the explosive consonants p, t, k, the 

 vowel sounds commence sharply ; with the soft consonants 



