E. W. Scripture — Nature of Vowels. 305 



of diminished amplitude. This would be followed by a third 

 of still less amplitude, just as in a, but a new explosion from 

 the cords occurs at just that moment. The coincidence of 

 double the period of the resonance tone with the period of the 

 cord explosions explains the rapid rise in amplitude when the 

 cord tone rises sufficiently to produce the coincidence. 



The maximum is followed by a relaxation in the force of 

 breath, but the two tones maintain the same relation for a con- 

 siderable time. As the sound finally dies away, the cords also 

 relax, both breath and pitch falling together. 



In my the m vibrations are too faint for accurate measure- 

 ment. The a resembles somewhat but not closely the a of I. 

 The period of the cord explosions remains constant at 0'0074 s 

 (135, frequency) instead of decreasing. The lower resonance 

 tone has a period in the neighborhood of 00022 s (455, fre- 

 quency) ; it apparently undergoes a slow change from the 

 beginning of the a to the i. 



The last third of the curve somewhat resembles the i por- 

 tion of I. There is, however, only a faint rise in amplitude, 

 and the i portion is very brief. The vibrations in this portion 

 are in groups of three ; the groups have a period of 0*0074 s 

 (135, frequency) constant to the end. The vibrations within 

 the group have a period one-third that of the group itself, 

 indicating a constant resonance tone of 0*0025 s (400, frequency). 



In the a of parson the cord tone rises from a period of 

 0-0090 8 (111, frequency) to one of 0'0072 5 (139, frequency) and 

 falls again to the pitch from which it started. There are indi- 

 cations of a constant resonance tone of 0*0022 s (455, frequency) 

 and of higher tones with changing periods. In respect to 

 the pitch of the lowest resonance tone there is more agree- 

 ment of this a with that of my, yet the form of the curve 

 resembles that of a in I more closely than that in my. The 

 peculiarity of my seems to lie chiefly in the suddenness with 

 which the vibrations within a group fall in amplitude after 

 the initial strong vibration. In both parson and /the «-vibra- 

 tions die away less quickly. Such differences may perhaps find 

 their explanation either in the greater friction in the free 

 vibratory movement in the mouth (less rigidity of the walls?) 

 or in the sharper character of the cord explosions in the case 

 of my. 



The curve for a in saw him indicates a quite different vocal 

 action from that present in a. Instead of a strong initial 

 vibration followed by decreasing ones the earlier portion of 

 the vowel shows groups that contain at least two strong vibra- 

 tions. It is presumably the case that the cord explosions are 

 of a more gradual character or else that. the action of friction 

 is much less. Even later in the vowel where there is appar- 



