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XIII. — On the Place and Power of Accent in Language. By Professor Blackie. 



(Read 6th March 1871.) 



On the subject of accent and quantity as elements of human speech, there has 

 been such an immense amount of confusion, arising from vague phraseology, 

 that in renewing the discussion nothing seems more necessary than to start 

 with a careful and accurate definition of terms ; and that a definition not taken 

 from books, and the dumb bearers of a dead tradition, but from the living facts 

 of nature, and the permanent qualities belonging to articulated breath. Now, 

 if we observe accurately the natural and necessary affections of words in human 

 discourse, considered merely as a succession of compact little wholes of arti- 

 culated breath, without regard to their signification, we shall find that all the 

 affections of which they are capable amount to four. Either (1), the mass 

 of articulated breath which we call a word, is sent forth in a comparative^ 

 small volume, as in the case of a common gun, or it is sent forth in large 

 volume, as in the case of a Lancaster gun ; this is a mere affair of bulk, in virtue 

 of which alone it is manifest that any word rolled forth from the lungs of a 

 Stentor must be a different thing from the same mass of sound emitted from 

 a less capacious bellows. In common language this difference is marked by 

 the words loud and low. A broader wave of air impelled against the acoustic 

 machinery of the ear will always make a more powerful impression independent 

 of any other consideration. But (2), an equal or a stronger impression may 

 be made on the ear by a less volume of sound, if it be sent forth with such 

 an amount of concentrated energy and force as to compensate for its deficiency 

 in mass. A more sharp and intense clap of thunder, for instance, may in this 

 way affect the ear more powerfully than a greater peal less vigorously sent 

 forth and more widely spread. The affection of sound brought into action here 

 is what in language we generally call stress or emphasis ; and it depends altogether 

 on the intensity of the projectile force, and gives to speech the qualification of 

 more or less forcible. But (3), this force may often be, and very naturally is, 

 accompanied with another affection of sound altogether distinct, viz., the 

 sound may be deep and grave, or high and sharp, corresponding to what in 

 music we call bass and treble notes. The analogy between music and articulate 

 speech is here so striking, that it has passed into common use ; as when we talk 

 of a person speaking in a high or a low key, in a monotone, or in a deep low 

 sepulchral tone, and so forth. And in reference to single words, we are 



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