primitive final syllabe ending in a vowel or a consonant; or, inorganic, that is to say, without a basis in Etymology. In many words, especially those ending in le, re after a mute consonant e has arisen by metathesis from el, er. The organic e has been in many cases rejected, the inorganic in many cases added: the fluctuation is in this respect sec. XIV, uncommonly frequent. In modern English e after a simple or a mute and liquid consonant has been preserved or added, mostly after the long vowel, and its part is therefore, though mute, to serve for a sign of the prolongation of the syllable now ending with a consonant sound: pane, scene, here, ōre, glebe, weave, grieve, able, idle, trifle, mētre; even after a long syllable not accented: theatre. e even stands after a short vowel, and after a mute and liquid consonant: ripple, ruffle, rattle, drizzle. It is rare after two other consonants, as after st: taste; except in unassimilated foreign words, as banquette &c. and a few others, as childe (along with child). After a simple consonant, it sometimes stands, partly unorganically, after the accented syllable: ǎte, både, have, dove, glóve, lóve, cóme, óne, nóne; were. It frequently concludes unaccented derivative syllables: rápine, exténsive, préssure.

For exceptions in Greek and Lat. words, see above, e.

After c and g it serves, either with or without a previous second consonant, after a long or a short vowel, although arising organically or by methathesis, to designate the dental sound of those gutturals: piece, siege; prince; hence, sconce, hinge, bilge, ledge, lodge, bridge; so too after ng and a long syllable: change. After th it becomes significant of the soft th: breath breathe.

It stands in union with u after q and g in the French mode: pique, antique, risque, casque, mosque; fatigue, plague, cátalogue, rogue, harángue, tongue.

This mute e also remains mute, when preserved before consonants in the amplification of the stem through derivation or composition: crime crimeful; confine confineless, confinement; sole sóleness, sólely; arrange arrangement; lodge lódgement; note notebook. Exceptions are formed by whólly, áwful, and, if we reckon ue here; důly, trúly, in which e falls out. Some also spell judgment, abridgment, acknowledgment instead of judgement &c. After gutturals, which have become dental it stands as a mute letter even before obscure vowels: nótice - noticeable; lodge lódgeable; courage - courageous.

Consonants in General.

The consonant is formed by the action of the moveable organs, the lips, the tongue and the throat, the breath which renders the formation of sound possible being modified either through the lips, on the teeth or in the throat. Thus we distinguish lipsounds, toothsounds, and throatsounds (Labials, Dentals, Gutturals).

If, in the production of the consonant, the mouth is completely closed and again opened at any definite place, the consonant is called

Mätzner, engl. Gr. I.

explosive, is divided or divisible in its production, and may therefore, under certain circumstances, in collision with others, or at the end of the syllable be shortened by its latter half. If, in the pronunciation of the consonant a mere approximation of the organs takes place, without an interruption of the vocal breath, the consonant is fricative, or is audible as friction, and therefore uninterrupted, or continuous. The liquid consonants, or melting sounds, and r; produced by the partial closure and the slight pressure of the lip of the tongue, and r produced by vibration, and the tremulous movement of the tongue or the palate (dental and guttural r), partake of both qualities. The nasals, m and n, belong according to the place of their origin, to the labial or to the dental letters, and are, in the mode of their production, at the same time explosive, but, a simultaneous opening of the channel of the nose (the nostrils) taking place, they become nasal. Inasmuch as they can be made to sound continuously they have been reckoned among the liquids. Semivowels, that is to say. sounds formed unter the cooperation of the consonantal organs, while the voice, in commencing to form a vowel, does not set the glottis in decided vibration, are w and y.

A representation of the phonetic relations of consonants in modern English in the respects above stated, is contained in the following table:

A compound of the throat and the toothsound is xcs and gs; its s may therefore pass into the sibilant.

General Observations.

The representation of sounds by different consonants and combinations of consonants rests partly on the mixture of the Anglosaxon and the French modes of representation, partly on the retention of sounds, justified etymologically, but whose pronunciation has changed. The representation of various sounds by the same sign springs partly from the same cause, but on the other hand, in part, from the becoming identical of vocal signs originally different.

1) Lipsounds. The introduction of the sound v, along side of w, the latter of which corresponds to the Anglosaxon v (w), is to be ascribed to the influence of the French. The combination wh is, properly, a composite sound. It is the inverse of the Anglosaxon he, with the retention of the ancient succession of sounds, unless w is silent (who hu) On the unwarranted wh, see below. gh as f is retained etymologically, although phonetically transformed.

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2) Among toothsounds the initial dental and the final guttural r, either with or without other consonants are to be distinguished (right and her, hard). The hard and the soft th, two lispingsounds corresponding to the Anglosaxon p and (at is were th and dh) although no longer strictly divided into the initial, the medial and the final, are both often expressed as in the later English by th, so in OldEnglish by p concurrently with th, as in ROB. OF GLOUCESTER pis, per, pou, Bape, oper, wollep, bep, forp. The s is divided into a hard and a soft hissing sound (sister and his). The c of the same sound before clear vowels (certain, cancer) is to be ascribed to the Romance influence. The Anglosaxon seems not to have known the sound 2, which is also represented by s (frozen, zeal; wisdom, bosom) as it also rarely employs the sound z instead of d. Moreover z in the middle of Gothic words seems to have been soft, as s seems everywhere to have been hard. The sibilant ch is frequently met with in non-Germanic as well as in Anglosaxon words. distinguished from sh, t is prefixed to the former, except in modern French words. s and t are equivalent to the sibilant sh in those cases where the sound of y hardened into a consonant is developed out of i ore (also û = iú) and blends with it (mănsion = manshon, nâuseous naush'ous, nation nashon, süre = shure, censure = censhur). To these hard sibilants are opposed the soft j, g (under French influence) and then s, z, in which y developed out of clear vowels unites with the dental. The dental d is placed phonetically before the sibilants j and g. The Anglosaxon sound j, which we find interchanging with g, ge and ige, answers only to the English y. In the case specified English orthoepists denote the sound of s and z by zh, as opposed to sh vision =VIZhon, pleasure pléazhur, răzure răzhur). In Old-English the sound sh is often found represented by sch, also by ssh.

As

3) The nasal ng cited among the throatsounds is the sound in which n is affected by a guttural. n experiences a similar affection before gutturals in general (vanquish, anxious). See more particularly below. The Anglosaxon c-sound for which the k, frequent in Gothic and Anglosaxon was seldom substituted. is now often represented by k, and the guttural ch, appearing chiefly in non-Germanic words, shares the same sound, to which also the Latin romance qn (conquer) partly corresponds, being, on the other hand, equivalent to the Anglosaxon ce (quick). To this hard guttural is opposed the soft g, which at times becomes known as such by a suffixed hor u (gh, gu), while gu (analogous to quer) replaces the combination of ge (distinguish). The is hardly ever preserved phonetically save at the commencement of Germanic and non-Germanic words, although it seems in Anglosaxon to have sounded strongest

and to have been partly equivalent to the Highdutch ch, precisely where in English it has completely disappeared. The Old-English often employed for g and y the Anglosaxon 3, which, strange to say, is often rendered in modern copies by z.

Among the English consonants j can never end a syllable; v, as well as the dental c and g appear only with a following mute e, g with ue at the end of a syllable.

The pronunciation of consonants in detail.

1) The nasal and the liquid sounds m, n, 1, r.

m at the beginning, in the middle and at the end of a syllable, sounds like the Highdutch m: man, márry, complaint, ambition, immórtal, imitate, claim, form.

The words formerly spelt compt, accómpt, comptrol, comptroller are at present spelt count, account, contróll, contróller, and the former, when they occur, pronounced like the latter. The first two answer to the Latin: computare, Old-French conter, cunter, in modern French dissimilated into compter and conter (m becomes n before the dental). The latter come from the French contrôle (= contre-rôle Lat. rotulus).

The final m appears doubled in mumm, wherein only one m sounds.

n has in general the sound of the Highdutch n: nail, enforce, enjoy, éngine, énmity, hen, hand, finch, discérn. In Banf and Pontefract n is pronounced like m (= bamf, pomfret) as the latter is also sometimes written.

Before gutturals n assumes in general the sound of the Greek y or the Gothic g before a guttural (compare Gothic briggan, paghjan), which we are wont to represent by ng and which we denote by n*): úncle, ink, mónkey, banquet, ánguish, cónger.

In these cases n is on the one hand tinged with a guttural, but on the other hand also the guttural becomes audible at the end or the beginning of a subsequent syllable; compare: in-k, con-ger, En-gland.

g:

To this, however, exceptions are found. In syllables ending in ng the guttural n is alone heard, without the aftersound sin(g), lon(g), bóilin(g), although dialectically, for example, in the NorthEast of England g is sounded after it (kin-g, lon-g). In derivatives from such stems also ʼn alone continues audible: sin(g)in(g), sin(g)er, win(g)y, youń(g)ster. Yet here again the comparatives and superlatives from long, strong, young (lón-ger, youn-gest) form an exception, an anomaly blamed by some orthoepists.

In words whose stem syllable ends in ing, the convenience of pronunciation often completely extirpates the guttural tinge of the derivative syllable, so that we hear singin, bringin spoken, a

in comparative Grammar this sound is usually denoted by n with a point over it; for want of this character we have been forced to select n.

natural bias to dissimilation of syllables, which is nevertheless justly blamed.

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In composition a syllable ending in n undergoes before a guttural no guttural tinge (compare vanguard; otherwise, where the composition no longer comes into consciousness: Lincoln Lindum colonia, pronounced Lin-kun). Yet in prefixes ending in n the exception takes place that they assume the sound ʼn under the principal accent: conquer, conquest, cóngress, cóngruent, inchoate, inquinate: con even under the subordinate accent: cóncoagulate; but in regard to the prefix in there is no consistency or agreement income, increase, increate, inclavated, inquest being denoted as the usual pronunciation. In the unaccented syllable every guttural tinge is removed: congrúity, inclément, unquiet. This happens even in other unaccented syllables, as in augúst.

Final n is seldom doubled. (Compare inn) where it sounds like a single n.

1 has the sound of the Highdutch 1: lamb, plúral, blue, slang, climb, soil, fault, bulk It sounds after a consonant before a mute e, as in people, table, trîfle; shuttle; see above. A final double 1, which is usual at the end of monosyllablic words, is not to be distinguished from a simple l: kill, full, all; therefore in compound words the ll of the stem becomes a final single / without any sacrifice of sound: fulfil, wilful, withál, handful. I also, in immediate contact with a subsequent consonant, (also with a mute e between) sounds as a single 1: kill'd; as ll only sounds as a single I before a clear vowel hardened into y: búllion (= boolyon). Even a strongly aspirated initial double l is like the single 1: Llandaff, Llanelly. (The Celtic sound is represented in English by ll or Wh). Moreover in the middle of words, before vowels sounds at once as the final sound of the prior and as the initial sound of the subsequent syllable: allý, billow, follow.

7 is exceptionally pronounced like r, this often arises out of an 7: in colonel (pronounced curnel) in Spencer also coronel (comp. Span. coronel, French colonel), and in Cashalton (pronounced cashor❜tn).

r is either dental or guttural (see above):

a) dental at the commencement: run, rose; also in combination with other consonants: pride, bride, fresh, try, draw, spread, stride, crown, grow. When in the middle of a word begins a syllable after a short vowel. it becomes by attraction at the same time the final sound of the previous syllable, and therefore apparently doubles itself, so that e commences with a guttural sound and sounds on with the succeeding_syllable as a dental: pěril (like per-ril), förest, baron. after long vowels, when it begins the following syllable, it has a guttural influence on that vowel: várious, serious, fúry. b) guttural at the end of a syllable even with subsequent consonants: fir, her, star, cur, múrmur; hear, air, door; cóbler, cóllar, árbor; herb, earth, pearl, lord, hurt, worm,

Even