Iambic tetrameters; four-verse stanzas.
Rhymes are indicated by 'a' and 'a,' 'b' and 'b.' Italic letters are read 'poor rhyme;' 'o' is read 'no rhyme.'
The table shows that there is a decided tendency to prefer rhymes in which the members of the rhyme have the same interval. The only exception is in the case of couplets, where two contrasting slides 5/ and . rhyme, whenever the finality interval occurs last. Perhaps the similarity of pitch of the rhyming syllables is a part of the 'Gestaltqualität' whose recognition brings about the release and satisfaction of the state which we know as the 'feeling of expecting a rhyme.' Definite pitch relations in music seem to make rhyme of little significance. We seldom notice the rhymes in a hymn or in a song of any musical worth. In comic operas and popular ditties rhyme does now and then figure. In such cases the pitch of the two or more rhyming syllables is identical; often the whole phrase is repeated for each rhyming verse. A few experiments in singing a rhyme to simple intervals show that when the identical interval is used the two syllables rhyme well, but if the interval be in the opposite direction, or in another chord, the rhyme is very uncertain. It seems that in music we usually have 'feelings of expectation' (i.e., tensions of some sort, central or peripheral), which are adequate to unite the phrases into larger unities. These tensions are so definite and vivid that they quite obscure and swallow up the related condition of rhyme expectation. These experiments on the modification of the rhyme by the various pitch and accent factors are not at all exhaustive or conclusive. An extended series of experiments is needed. The study of sound records for pitch is peculiarly tedious, but it should reveal some interesting relations between rhyme and speech melody.
III. THE SPEAKING OF A RHYTHMIC SERIES.
I. Methods of Making Speech Records.
The study of spoken rhythm is of primary importance. Observations on what the subject really does are always open to the objections that subjective factors play a large part, and that the observer's perception of a rhythm is after all his perception of the rhythm, not the subject's. The voice is an important indicator of the activities which generate the rhythms of verse and music, and some objective method of measuring the sounds made is essential to a study of the rhythm production.
Methods of recording and studying the tones of the voice are as numerous as they are unsatisfactory. In the main the work has been done for purposes of phonetics, and but few of the methods are applied in the psychological laboratory.
Marage[13] has an excellent summary of the methods with practical comments on their applicability. Rousselot[14] (Histoire des applications de phonétique expérimentale, 401-417: objets et appareils, 1-10 et 669-700) gives a careful history of the methods from the phonetic point of view. Scripture[15] gives a convenient English summary of the processes.
A few methods have been devised which avoid the difficulties incident to the use of a diaphragm, but they are not applicable to the measurement of rhythm material. The instruments which might be used for recording spoken rhythms are all modifications of two well-known forms of apparatus, the phonautograph and the phonograph. The phonograph record is incised in wax, and presents special difficulties for study. Boeke, however, has studied the wax record under a microscope, with special arrangements for illumination. The work is quite too tedious to permit of its use for material of any length, though it is fairly satisfactory when applied to single vowels. In order to enlarge the record, and at the same time to obtain the curves in the plane of the record surface, Hermann devised an attachment to the phonograph (cf. Marage, loc. citat.) by which the movements of the stylus of the phonograph are magnified by a beam of light and recorded on photographic paper. The measurements of entire words by this method would be as tedious as by Boeke's.