S. Porter on the Vocal Elements in Speech. 319 
production and modification of the voice in that manner. When 
we add that, for the labials, the voice is further reverberated in 
of mute and fluid consonants, or with a fluid consonant alone. 
PI, bi, er, kn, prb, tlb, rl, si, il, rrr, &. are utterable without the 
help of a vowel ;—but yet are never employed as words, though 
cesses of articulation, make up, by their varieties of combina- 
tion, the whole of the outward form, or body, of that divinely 
ordained product of human instinct and intellect which we call 
Speech or language, and which, in its various relations, presents 
One of the most interesting, and certainly not least important, 
Subjects of scientific study. 
® The fact is, that the want of resisting power in the lips, as against the vocal 
current, disqualifies them from acting alone in the articulation of a vowel,—limits 
them to the subordinate and secondarily modifying agency as above and before 
deseri That the palato-lingual is really the primary cy in the labial vow- 
els, may be readily proved by pronouncing, as can be done easily and with perfect 
distinctness, an 6, an w, an 0, and an d, with one and the same lip-modification for 
and all. 
