Page:The grammar of English grammars.djvu/820



Emphatic or rhetorical pauses, the kind least frequently used, may be made immediately before, or immediately after, something which the speaker thinks particularly important, and on which he would fix the attention of his audience. Their effect is similar to that of a strong emphasis; and, like this, they must not be employed too often.

The harmonic pauses, or those which are peculiar to poetry, are of three kinds: the final pause, which marks the end of each line; the cæsural or divisional pause, which commonly divides the line near the middle; and the minor rests, or demi-cæsuras, which often divide it still further.

In the reading of poetry, these pauses ought to be observed, as well as those which have reference to the sense; for, to read verse exactly as if it were prose, will often rob it of what chiefly distinguishes it from prose. Yet, at the same time, all appearance of singsong, or affected tone, ought to be carefully guarded against.

ARTICLE III.&mdash;OF INFLECTIONS.
are those peculiar variations of the human voice, by which a continuous sound is made to pass from one note, key, or pitch, into an other. The passage of the voice from a lower to a higher or shriller note, is called the rising or upward inflection. The passage of the voice from a higher to a lower or graver note, is called the falling or downward inflection. These two opposite inflections may be heard in the following examples: 1. The rising, "Do you mean to gó?" 2. The falling, "When will you gò?"

In general, questions that may be answered by yes or no, require the rising inflection; while those which demand any other answer, must be uttered with the falling inflection. These slides of the voice are not commonly marked in writing, or in our printed books; but, when there is occasion to note them, we apply the acute accent to the former, and the grave accent to the latter. [475] Not only are these inflections denoted occasionally by the accentual marks, but they are sometimes expressly identified with accents, being called by that name. This practice, however, is plainly objectionable. It confounds things known to be different,&mdash;mere stress with elevation or depression,&mdash;and may lead to the supposition, that to accent a syllable, is to inflect the voice upon it. Such indeed has been the guess of many concerning the nature of Greek and Latin accents, but of the English accent, the common idea is, that it is only a greater force distinguishing some one syllable of a word from the rest. Walker, however, in the strange account he gives in his Key, of "what we mean by the accent and quantity of our own language," charges this current opinion with error, dissenting from Sheridan and Nares, who held it; and, having asserted, that, "in speaking, the voice is continually sliding upwards or downwards," proceeds to contradict himself thus: "As high and low, loud and soft, forcible and feeble, are comparative terms, words of one syllable pronounced alone, and without relation to other words or syllables, cannot be said to have any The only distinction to which such words are liable, is an elevation or depression of voice, when we compare the beginning with the end of the word or syllable. Thus a monosyllable, considered singly, rises from a lower to a higher tone in the question Nó? which may therefore be called the acute : and falls from a higher to a lower tone upon the same word in the answer Nò, which may therefore be called the grave []."&mdash;Walker's Key, p. 316. Thus he tells of different accents on "a monosyllable," which, by his own showing, "cannot be said to have any accent"! and others read and copy the text with as little suspicion of its inconsistency! See Worcester's Universal and Critical Dictionary, p. 934.

A union of these two inflections upon the same syllable, is called a circumflex, a wave, or a "circumflex inflection." When the slide is first downward and then upward, it is called the rising circumflex, or "the gravo-acute circumflex;" when first upward and then downward, it is denominated the falling circumflex, or "the acuto-grave circumflex." Of these complex inflections of the voice, the emphatic words in the following sentences may be uttered as examples: "And it shall go hărd but I will ûse the information."&mdash;"Ô! but he paŭsed upon the brink."

When a passage is read without any inflection, the words are uttered in what is called a monotone; the voice being commonly pitched at a grum note, and made to move for the time, slowly and gravely, on a perfect level.

"Rising inflections are far more numerous than falling inflections; the former constitute the main body of oral language, while the latter are employed for the purposes of emphasis, and in the formation of cadences. Rising inflections are often emphatic; but their emphasis is weaker than that of falling inflections."&mdash;Comstock's Elocution, p. 50.

"Writers on Elocution have given numerous rules for the regulation of inflections; but most of these rules are better calculated to make bad readers than good ones. Those founded on the construction of sentences might, perhaps, do credit to a mechanic, but they certainly do none to an elocutionist."&mdash;Ib., p. 51.