The semivowels, although flat, admit of being followed by a sharp consonant.
The law exhibited above may be called the law of accommodation.
Combinations like gt, kd, &c., may be called incompatible combinations.
[§ 216]. Unstable combinations.—That certain sounds in combination with others have a tendency to undergo changes, may be collected from the observation of our own language, as we find it spoken by those around us, or by ourselves. The ew in new is a sample of what may be called an unsteady or unstable combination. There is a natural tendency to change it either into oo (noo) or yoo (nyoo); perhaps also into yew (nyew).
[§ 217]. 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, k, or s, as tya, tyo; dya, dyo; kya, kyo; 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 instability of the combination ew, accounts for the tendency to pronounce dew as if written jew.
[§ 218]. The evolution of new sounds.—To an English ear the sound of the German ch falls strange. To an English organ it is at first difficult to pronounce. The same is the case with the German vowels ö and ü and with the French sounds u, eu, &c.
To a German, however, and a Frenchman, the sound of the English th (either in thin or thine) is equally a matter of difficulty.
The reason of this lies in the fact of the respective sounds being absent in the German, French, and English languages; since sounds are easy or hard to pronounce just in proportion as we have been familiarised with them.
There is no instance of a new sound being introduced at once into a language. Where they originate at all, they are evolved, not imported.