1897 - 98 .] Mr E. J. Lloyd on Consonant-Sounds. 237 
venient s passage, and its pitch about 4 semitones deeper. An 
additional convenience is that the same movement tunes the fore- 
‘ cavity also ; for it draws the tongue-tip 2 or 3 mm. backwards, it 
enlarges the space under the tongue, and thus creates the required 
fall of pitch in the fore- cavity without any other movement what- 
ever. 
My neutral s has a pitch of e 4 (? 2500 v.d. to e 4 2640 v.d., and 
my neutral f one of 5 3 b 1980 to c 4 2112 v.d. The remarkable 
thing about s is that its neutral pitch is nowhere near the middle 
of its possible range. The other consonants, it is true, have their 
neutral pitch somewhat above the middle of their range, but the 
neutral pitch of s is within 3 or 4 semitones of its highest 
extreme. . The old tinfoil phonograph failed more conspicuously 
to reproduce the keen sounds of i and .s than any other phones. 
It is, therefore, quite according to expectation when we find s to 
possess ordinarily the highest resonance of all consonants, and 
i of all vowels, and when we also find that their height is not 
dissimilar (i has one resonance about / 4 2816 v.d., see table infra). 
But it must he always remembered that this high pitch is not of 
the essence of the sensation called s : it is merely an accident, and 
not even a universal or necessary accident, of human physiology. 
-Not only s and f but every consonant yet treated, can he produced 
by human organs at identical pitches of resonance. Wherein then 
does their difference from the rest, and from each other, reside? 
It is easiest to answer this question by remembering that s differs 
from f, and f differs from 0, chiefly in the possession of a resonant 
fore-cavity. It is the reinforcement derived from this cavity which 
gives to both of them their great superiority in sonority over all 
■other spirate fricatives. This fact has its counterpart in the 
relative depth and distinctness of their phonograms. But the 
difference in kind between a phonogram of f and a phonogram of 
0 must be sought, as before, in the distortions of the resonance. 
So also, in a less accurate sense, with s and/: for there may in 
this case be some slight difference in the original friction made 
against a hard body like the teeth and a soft body like the 
alveolars, respectively. But whilst in / and 0 the friction was 
exterior, and its noises came to the ear in their crude original state, 
the frictions of s and f are interior, and their noises can only reach 
