[59] This is rendered most clear by my ‘analphabetic’ notation (α means lips, β tip of tongue, δ soft palate, velum palati, and ε glottis; 0 stands for closed position, 1 for approximation, 3 for open position); the three sound combinations are thus analysed (cf. my Lehrbuch der Phonetik):
| p | n | p | m | m | n | |
| α | 0 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3 |
| β | 3 | 0 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 0 |
| δ | 0 | 3 | 0 | 3 | 3 | 3 |
| ε | 3 | 1 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
[60] The only clear cases of saving of time are those in which long sounds are shortened, and even they must be looked upon as a saving of effort.
[61] In the reprint in Samlede Afhandlinger, ii. 417 (1920), a few lines are added in which Thomsen fully accepts the explanation which I gave as far back as 1886.
[62] The above remarks are condensed from the argument in ChE 38 ff. Note also what is said below (Ch. XIX § 13) on the loss of Lat. final -s in the Romanic languages after it had ceased to be necessary for the grammatical understanding of sentences.
[63] Against this it has been urged that Fr. oncle has not preserved the stem syllable of Lat. avunculus particularly well. But this objection is a little misleading. It is quite true that at the time when the word was first framed the syllable av- contained the main idea and -unculus was only added to impart an endearing modification to that idea (‘dear little uncle’); but after some time the semantic relation was altered; avus itself passed out of use, while avunculus was handed down from generation to generation as a ready-made whole, in which the ordinary speaker was totally unable to suspect that av- was the really significative stem. He consequently treated it exactly as any other polysyllable of the same structure, and avun- (phonetically [awuŋ, auuŋ]) was naturally made into one syllable. Nothing, of course, can be protected by a sense of its significance unless it is still felt as significant. That hardly needs saying.
[64] Compare also the results of the same principle seen in writing. In a letter a proper name or technical term when first introduced is probably written in full and very distinctly, while afterwards it is either written carelessly or indicated by a mere initial. Any shorthand-writer knows how to utilize this principle systematically.
[65] “His pronunciation of some words is so distinct that an idea crossed me once that he might be an actor” (Shaw, Cashel Byron’s Profession, 66).
[66] Dickens, D. Cop. 2. 149 neverberrer, 150 I’mafraid you’renorwell (ib. also r for n: Amigoarawaysoo, Goori = Good night). | Our Mut. Fr. 602 lerrers. | Thackeray, Newc. 163 Whas that? | Anstey, Vice V. 328 shupper, I shpose, wharriplease, say tharragain. | Meredith, R. Feverel 272 Nor a bir of it. | Walpole, Duch. of Wrex. 323-4 nonshensh, Wash the matter? | Galsworthy, In Chanc. 17 cursh, unshtood’m. Cf. also Fijn van Draat, ESt 34. 363 ff.
[67] The inconveniences arising from having many homophones in a language are eloquently set forth by Robert Bridges, On English Homophones (S.P.E., Oxford, 1919)—but I would not subscribe to all the Laureate’s views, least of all to his practical suggestions and to his unjustifiable attacks on some very meritorious English phoneticians. He seems also to exaggerate the dangers, e.g. of the two words know and no having the same sound, when he says (p. 22) that unless a vowel like that in law be restored to the negative no, “I should judge that the verb to know is doomed. The third person singular of its present tense is nose, and its past tense is new, and the whole inconvenience is too radical and perpetual to be received all over the world.” But surely the rôle of these words in connected speech is so different, and is nearly always made so clear by the context, that it is very difficult to imagine real sentences in which there would be any serious change of mistaking know for no, or knows for nose, or knew for new. I repeat: it is not homophony as such—the phenomenon shown in the long lists lexicographers can draw up of words of the same sound—that is decisive, but the chances of mistakes in connected speech. It has been disputed whether the loss of Gr. humeîs, ‘ye,’ was due to its identity in sound with hemeîs, ‘we’; Hatzidakis says that the new formation eseîs is earlier than the falling together of e and u [y] in the sound . But according to Dieterich and C. D. Buck (Classical Philology, 9. 90, 1914) the confusion of u and i or e dates back to the second century. Anyhow, all confusion is now obviated, for both the first and the second persons pl. have new forms which are unambiguous: emeîs and eseîs or seîs.