246 Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh. [sess. 
any great difference between its initial and final resonance, 
there will be a gradual change in the resonantal vibrations, 
right through the consonant. It is no longer a continuant 
consonant, consisting of similar parts repeated many times, 
but a gliding consonant, consisting of parts gradually and 
steadily changing. But it is not a glide in the special sense 
here attached to that word — the sense of a purely connective 
sound ; every part of it belongs to the consonant, because every 
part of it contains that special or specially situated friction 
and that special distortion of the resonance which make the 
consonant. Such a consonant, however, may also need a true 
glide to connect it with the following vowel, but such a glide 
never contains more than a brief fading-off or growing-up of 
the characteristic friction of the consonant. 
The case of the spirate fricative leading from vowel to silence 
is the reverse of all this, and may be left for the reader to work 
out. The case of a spirate fricative between dissimilar vowels is 
the case most frequently occurring in actual speech; and in 
most cases it will naturally produce both a gliding consonant 
and a pair of connective glides. 
Looking back on the rude sketch of connected speech which 
we are now able to put together, from the limited material of 
vowels and spirate fricative consonants, we are struck by the 
way in which all its elements tend to link and interpenetrate 
each other. 
Sometimes the resonance of the consonant becomes absolutely 
identical with one resonance of the adjacent vowel ; sometimes, 
again, two such resonances draw nearer without becoming identical ; 
but even then the gap is bridged by a ladder of gradual changes. 
There is plenty of room for such ladders ; for the absolutely 
inaudible glide, not sec. long, has room for scores of successive 
resonantal waves, each differing imperceptibly from its neighbour. 
Bearing these facts in mind, it is possible to understand the view 
which M. Marichelle has taken of consonants (op. cit. 3 p. 128), 
“ Les periodes de la consonne, soumises a l’action continuellement 
modificatrice de la fermeture ou de l’ouverture progressives, ne 
sont que les formes memes de la voyelle, plus ou moins alterees.” 
At the end of a paper treating of the spirate fricative consonants 
