1897 - 98 .] Mr B. J. Lloyd on Consonant- Sounds. 
221 
always more sonorous than t. But in the contrary order there is 
no difficulty : compare bolt with bottle , ivound with wooden , and 
the like. But when the inherent difference of sonority is small, 
the required rise or fall may he created by addition or subtraction 
of stress ; compare wist and wits, tsar and star. 
The essential weakness of consonant sounds is generally based 
upon a relative obstruction of exit. M. Marichelle in his excellent 
little work, La Parole d'apres le Trace du Phoiiographe (Paris, 
1897), makes this the universal test of the difference between vowel 
and consonant. But there is practically no h in French, otherwise 
M. Marichelle would have seen that this criterion is faulty. The 
exit of h is generally just as wide as that of the following vowel 
( v . infra). Phoneticians, however, use this fact of constricted exit 
to classify consonants in two different ways, first, as to the mode, 
and secondly, as to the place or places of the constriction. They 
then divide them a third time, according to the manner in which 
the larynx is concerned in their respective production. Under 
the first head it will be simplest to regard at first only three chief 
categories — fricative, plosive, and nasal. A fricative sound such 
as z or h is distinguished by the frictional rush of breath through a 
more or less obstructed opening ; a plosive, such as p, b, t , or d, is 
marked by a sharp percussion, the result of the sudden creation or 
sudden removal of a complete stoppage ; a nasal also implies a 
complete stoppage in the mouth, but with free exit through the 
nose. 
Under the second head, the places of constriction normal to 
English and Scotch pronunciation are fully enumerated below. 
Under the third head there are three well-marked categories of 
consonants — toned, whispered, and spirate. In a toned consonant 
the larynx is vibrating — producing tone ; in a whispered consonant 
it is in a hissing position — producing whisper ; in a spirate conso- 
nant it is wide open — giving nothing but a full supply of breath. 
Of the examples already given, s , /, h, p, and t are spirate ; and v , 
z, b, and d are ambiguous, because they may he either toned or 
whispered. But the toned and whispered classes are precisely of 
equal extent ; it will suffice, therefore, simply to remember that 
every toned symbol has always a whispered value, acoustically very 
different from the toned value, and highly important to this in- 
