a. He can compound′ medicine like a druggist.
b. Nitroglycerine is a dangerous com′pound.
As a further illustration, read the following stanza of poetry, especially accenting the syllables as marked:
Tell′ me not′ in mourn′ful num′bers,
“Life′ is but′ an emp′ty dream′!”
For′ the soul′ is dead′ that slum′bers,
And′ things are′ not what′ they seem′.
This is called scanning, and all verse may be scanned in the same way. It is an excellent drill in learning the art of throwing the stress of the voice on any syllable that may be desired.
Two Laws of Word-Formation.
We are now prepared to consider the two great laws governing word-formation. These are:
1. Law: All vowels in combination with consonants are naturally short unless the long sound is given by combination with other vowels, by accent, or by position in the syllable with reference to consonants.
2. Law: Words derived from other words by the addition of prefixes or suffixes always retain the original form as far as possible.
1. We are likely to suppose that the natural or original sound of a vowel is the long sound, because that is the sound we give it when naming it in the alphabet. If we will examine a number of words, however, we shall soon see that in combination with consonants all vowels have a tendency to a short or obscure pronunciation. The sounds of the consonants are naturally obscure, and they draw the vowels to a similar obscurity.