Page:The Making of Latin.djvu/30

16 very much like a and e except that the lips are as the Voice passes through. This is of course only a very rough description. In nearly all languages there are a great many intermediate positions giving rise to special kinds of vowels.

§ . When the tongue is at rest and the lips are not moved during the passage of Voice through the mouth, the result is a colourless or “neutral” vowel, very common in unaccented syllables in English, e.g. in the second syllable of such words as suitable, different, memory. This vowel is conveniently denoted by ə, a symbol called ‘schwa,’ from the name of the sound in Hebrew.

§ . The vowels are the simplest kind of . By a Sonant we mean a sound which can by itself be pronounced as a syllable. By a we mean a sound which cannot be heard unless it is combined with a Sonant. Thus the sound p cannot be heard unless it is combined with a Sonant, as in pa, or in ep.

§ . All sounds except the vowels are produced by a movement of the organs of the mouth (lips, tongue, uvula), acting on a stream of either Breath or Voice. The movement interferes with the current in different ways.

Consonantal i and u (i̯, u̯)

§ . The simplest of all Consonants are those made by putting the tongue and lips into the position required for the vowel i, or the vowel u, and then abandoning the position at once while the current