CHAPTER III.
OF CERTAIN COMBINATIONS OF ARTICULATE SOUNDS.
[§ 127]. Certain combinations of articulate sounds are incapable of being pronounced. The following rule is one that, in the forthcoming pages, will frequently be referred to. Two (or more) mutes, of different degrees of sharpness and flatness, are incapable of coming together in the same syllable. For instance, b, v, d, g, z, &c., being flat, and p, f, t, k, s, &c., being sharp, such combinations as abt, avt, apd, afd, agt, akd, atz, ads, &c., are unpronounceable. Spelt, indeed, they may be; but all attempts at pronunciation end in a change of the combination. In this case either the flat letter is really changed to its sharp equivalent (b to p, d to t, &c.) or vice versâ (p to b, t to d). The combinations abt and agt, to be pronounced, must become either apt or abd, or else akt or agd.
The word mutes in the third sentence of this section must be dwelt on. It is only with the mutes that there is an impossibility of pronouncing the heterogeneous combinations above-mentioned. The liquids and the vowels are flat; but the liquids and vowels, although flat, may be followed by a sharp consonant. If this were not the case, the combinations ap, at, alp, alt, &c., would be unpronounceable.
The semivowels, also, although flat, admit of being followed by a sharp consonant.
[§ 128]. Unstable combinations.—That certain sounds in combination with others have a tendency to undergo farther changes, may be collected from the observation of our own language, as we find it spoken by those around us, or by ourselves. The diphthong ew is a sample of what may be called an unsteady or unstable combination. There is a natural tendency to change it either into oo or yoo; perhaps also into yew. Hence new is sometimes sounded noo, sometimes nyoo, and sometimes nyew.
[§ 129]. Effect of the semivowel y on certain letters when they precede it.—Taken by itself the semivowel y, followed by a vowel (ya, yee, yo, you, &c.), forms a stable combination. Not so, however, if it be preceded by a consonant, of the series t or s, as tya, tyo; dya, dyo; sya, syo. There then arises an unstable combination. Sya and syo we pronounce as sha and sho; tya and tyo we pronounce as cha and ja (i.e., tsh, dzh). This we may verify from our pronunciation of words like sure, picture, verdure (shoor, pictshoor, verdzhoor), having previously remarked that the u in those words is not sounded as oo but as yoo. The effect of the semivowel y, taken with the instability of the combination ew, accounts for the tendency to pronounce dew as if written jew.
[§ 130]. Double consonants rare.—It cannot be too clearly understood that in words like pitted, stabbing, massy, &c., there is no real reduplication of the sounds of t, b, and s, respectively. Between the words pitted (as with the small-pox) and pitied (as being an object of pity) there is a difference in spelling only. In speech the words are identical. The reduplication of the consonant is, in English and the generality of languages, a
conventional mode of expressing in writing the shortness or dependence, of the vowel preceding.