SUBANU PHONETICS AND COMPOSITION MEMBERS. (al 
Finally, weare to note one more phonetic principle of great interest. 
This is the speech necessity of supporting or prefacing the mutes with 
the nasal of their own proper series. I have already dwelt at some 
length upon my belief that the nasal, as the easiest and least forceful 
exercise of the speech activity of any organ of speech, is the earliest 
acquired, and that from the weakest exercise of the speech activity the 
man in his acquisition of control of the new power leaps next to the 
strongest exercise of that power. ‘This case of the prefaced mutes fits 
naturally into such an explanation. The particular organ (palate, 
tongue, or lips) to be used is naturally put into its most familiar posi- 
tion as a preliminary to the passage toward the more difficult. This 
preliminary position encourages a light vocalization which appears just 
prior to the enunciation of the more difficult sound, a principle which 
is entirely accepted as causative of the differentiation of sonant and 
surd. The prefaced palatal mute, ngg or ngk, undoubtedly occurs in 
Subanu as in the Visayan, although our vocabulary does not make its 
existence clear. 
Of the prefaced lingual mute nd and the prefaced labial mutes mp 
and mb we note that the occurrence is most marked when the mute 
which has been able to hold its own when in the forceful initial position 
becomes weakened by the employment of a prefix. Thus, from daay, 
daapa, and d1 we derive by composition gondaay, ondaapa, and ond1; 
from pia, pott and pulo we derive supported forms gompia, gompott, 
gompulo. Similarly, bagol, baya, and bata provide the prefaced forms 
gombagol, sogombaya, and gombata. 
We may see a reason underlying all these instances if we look back 
to the alphabetic diagram. It will be noticed that the vowel o—and 
it will undoubtedly have been noticed already that each one of the pre- 
faced mutes is introduced by this vowel—is set upon the diagram ina 
position midway between the region controlled by the tongue in speech 
and that regulated by the lips. When one is sounding 0 the lips and 
the forward cavity of the mouth are in position to pass to a lingual or to 
a labial consonant with equal ease. But when speech is yet a new art 
the speaker must, with more or less of design, pass to the first position 
which shall determine lingual or labial, namely, the nasal position. The 
very slightest vocalization of this position will exhibit to our compre- 
hension how it comes to pass that each mute is prefaced by the nasal 
proper to the organ wherewith it is formed. 
In all Subanu there is but one instance of a prefaced mute which 
does not represent the weakening of a strong initial, yet that one involves 
the same use of 0: this is sogmogombal, from stem gobal; yet on better 
acquaintance with the language this exception may prove more appar- 
ent than real. The general form of the prefix is sogmog, although 
sogmo occurs; the stem appears in our vocabulary as gobal, yet the abra- 
sion of initial palatal mutes is so frequent that it may very well be that 
