There are also many peculiar and occasional substitutions of sounds as in any and many (a as ĕ), women (o as ĭ), busy (u as ĭ), said (ai as ĕ), people (eo as ē), build (u as ĭ), gauge (au as ā), what (a as ŏ), etc.
When any of these combinations are to be pronounced as separate vowels, in two syllables, two dots should be placed over the second, as in naïve.
4. The chief modifications of the elementary sounds are the following:
before r each of the vowels e, i, o, u, and y has almost the same sound (marked like the Spanish ñ) as in her, birth, honor, burr, and myrtle; o before r sometimes has the sound of aw, as in or, for, etc.;
in unaccented syllables, each of the long vowels has a slightly shortened sound, as in f_a_tality, n_e_gotiate, int_o_nation, ref_u_tation, indicated by a dot above the sign for the long sound; (in a few words, such as d_i_gress, the sound is not shortened, however);
long a (â) is slightly modified in such words as care, fare, bare, etc., while e has the same sound in words like there, their, and where; (New Englan{d}פּ people give a the short sound in such words as care, etc., and pronounce there and where with the short sound of a, while their is pronounced with the short sound of e: this is not the best usage, however);
in pass, class, command, laugh, etc., we have a sound of a between Italian a and short a (indicated by a single dot over the a), though most Americans pronounce it as short, and most English give the Italian sound: the correct pronunciation is between these two.
The Sounds of the Consonants. We have already seen that there are two
classes of consonant sounds, those which have a voice sound, as b,
called sonant, and those which are mere breath sounds, like p,
called surds or aspirates. The chief difference between b and p
is that one has the voice sound and the other has not. Most of the
other consonants also stand in pairs. We may say that the sonant
consonant and its corresponding surd are the hard and soft forms of
the same sound. The following table contains also simple consonant
sounds represented by two letters:
Sonant Surd
b p
d t
v f
g (hard) k
j ch
z s
th (in thine) th (in thin)
zh (or z as in azure) sh
w
y
l
m
n
r h
If we go down this list from the top to the bottom, we see that b is the most closed sound, while h is the most slight and open, and the others are graded in between (though not precisely as arranged above). These distinctions are important, because in making combinations of consonants in the same syllable or in successive syllables we cannot pass abruptly from a closed sound to an open sound, or the reverse, nor from a surd sound to a sonant, or the reverse. L, m, n, and r are called liquids, and easily combine with other consonants; and so do the sibilants (s, z, etc.). In the growth of the language, many changes have been made in letters to secure harmony of sound (as changing b to p in sub-port——support, and s, to f in differ—from dis and fero). Some combinations are not possible of pronunciation, others are not natural or easy; and hence the alterations. The student of the language must know how words are built; and then when he comes to a strange word he can reconstruct it for himself. While the short, common words may be irregular, the long, strange words are almost always formed quite regularly.
Most of the sonants have but one sound, and none of them has more than three sounds. The most important variations are as follows: