S. Porter on the Vowel Elements in Speech. 183 
egree 2.— Vowel 6?'. The shorter German @, as Worter, 
méchte; the French ew in leur, jewne, peur, &c. 
wel 62. There i is, In English, a class of cases in which e, 
in up, but, or burn, urge. But orthoépists agree, for the most 
Pah that a different Utterance in these cases is sanctioned y 
e best usage,—without mang well agreed, however, as to its 
ost character. As I he e describe it, the vowel differs from 
the French leur simply re the acti of the labial modification, 
i Prin. of ae §§ 14 
egree 3.— Vowe 16%, The 2 in up, but, &e.; o and oo in don 
company, flood, &c.; oe in does; .—unaecented syllables tend Ri 
this sound, as altar, os, tapir, "zephyr, verbal, bedlam, ballad, 
methed, &e, Fre equen inglish, but rare in other European 
tongues, In French, occurs nasalized in wn, brun, Pr and is 
the so-called “e feminine,” as e, ce, de mande, dame, when 
not elided,—aunless this takes PEE OH of a labial modification.’ 
This English vowel is described by some German grammari- 
ans as appre e the short German 6 and lying between that 
and the short 0.” some English phonologists, it has be een 
called “the — vowel,” and by others “the neutral vowel” 
and for the most part they seem ata loss how to locate it ee 
their systems. Dr. Rapp, in his Physiologie der sarees ae : 
it the Urlaut, Urvocal, the original, or primitive vowel. It 
y some described as “the unmodified vowel.” To pe se 
that this vowel is not mere vocal tone unmodified, we need but 
to notice the fixed, rigid position of the tongue in the utterance, 
e vocal e ement or tone, In the consonants wv, zy &e., is 
unmodified ous wise, but is clearly unlike the vowel in ques- 
tion. Only, when the ‘vowel is slurred and almost elided, as in 
perform, token, or Fr. eg dela, there is probably no deter- 
minate vowel modifcatio 
Degree 4.— Vowel 6*!, tthe best French orthoépists have dis- 
tinguished the aa of eu before r, in beurre, coeur, &e., as a 
road and open one; as do also some of the best instructors. 
It is recognized by the ear as an approach to an open- depre 
a or d, and falls exactly into the place here assigned it. 
Vou vel i, This, as by itself, we have only to “note as a broad, 
flat, drawling utterance of the w in up, but, (G3), and by some 
clerical speakers affected in church, work, ke. 
. Vaisse ranks this ¢ as a “ labio- palatal. ”  Palsgrave (1530) ascribes to 
it a nasa aiguctty: : says the reader should “ sodeynly nh BN his voyee when 
cometh to the soundynge of hym, and also sounde hym ¥ in the | 
wD. Eclaireixsem ssement, &e,: ed. Genin. 
* See Matzner, , Eng. Grammatik, i, 14; and Fiedler, p. 115, 
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