The philosophy of the human voice: embracing its physiological history; together with a system of principles, by which criticism in the art of elocution may be rendered intelligible, and instruction, definite and comprehensive. To which is added a brief analysis of song and recitative ... / By James Rush, M.D.

  • Rush, James, 1786-1869.
Date:
1833
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The philosophy of the human voice: embracing its physiological history; together with a system of principles, by which criticism in the art of elocution may be rendered intelligible, and instruction, definite and comprehensive. To which is added a brief analysis of song and recitative ... / By James Rush, M.D. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    It follows also from the assumed causation of a syllable, that two tonics can not be united into one vocal impulse. For each haying by nature its own radical and vanish, they must produce two syllables. Consistently with this, we find that whenever two elementary tonics are in sequence, they always belong to se- parate syllables in pronunciation. If the concrete function of the voice alone constitutesasyllable, it follows that the atonics, from being incapable of that func- tion, can not make a new and distinct impulse when joined with the tonics. The word ‘speaks’ exhibits the meaning of this inference. For the syllabic function, as I suppose it to be, is here made on the tonic ee-l, whilst s, , # and s, add to the time, but do not destroy the monosyllabic character of that word, The sound is not indeed so gliding and equable as on a single tonic, which shows a syllable in its purest form: yet the slight obstruction to the singleness of impulse is very dif- ferent from the threefold emphatic division heard in the word ‘ Ohio’—For if this be properly pronounced, that is, if each of the three tonics receive its radical and vanish, it will be im- possible to condense them into one impulse-or syllable. In answer to the first question, then,—It is the concrete move- ment of the elementary sounds, or the radical and vanishing function of the voice, which produces the characteristics of those successive impulses of speech called syllables. Syllables are of different lengths. Is this an arbitrary varia- tion: or is it the unavoidable product of the properties of the elementary sounds? This question is not asked in reference to prosodial quanti- ties ; nor to those abridgments and prolongations of voice that appropriately mark the force and solemnity of oratorical ex- pression. It regards especially the variation of length in syl- | lables, which is unalterably created by their literal constituents; for it will be shown that their limits are determined by the arrangement of these. In order to render this subject perspicuous, let us take a synthetic view of the literal series in words. Several of the tonics individually form English syllables : and these exhibit the syllabic impulse of the radical and vanish in its most simple condition. But elements can not be com- pounded, with a view to lengthen a syllable, by the addition