Page:The grammar of English grammars.djvu/841

 his German Grammar for Englishmen, defines accent to be, as we see it is in English, "that stress which marks a particular syllable in speaking;" and recognizing, as we do, both a full accent and a partial one, or "demi-accent," presents the syllables of his language as being of three conditions: the "accented," which "cannot be used otherwise than as long;" the "half-accented" which "must be regarded as ambiguous, or common;" and the "accentless," which "are in their nature short."&mdash;See Noehden's Gram., p. 87. His middle class, however, our prosodists in general very properly dispense with. In Fiske's History of Greek Literature, which is among the additions to the Manual of Classical Literature from the German of Eschenburg, are the following passages: "The tone [i.e. accent] in Greek is placed upon short syllables as well as long; in German, it accompanies regularly only long syllables."&mdash;"In giving an accent to a syllable in an English word we thereby render it a long syllable, whatever may be the sound given to its vowel, and in whatever way the syllable may be composed; so that as above stated in relation to the German, an English accent, or stress in pronunciation, accompanies only a long syllable."&mdash;''Manual of Class. Lit.'', p. 437. With these extracts, accords the doctrine of some of the ablest of our English grammarians. "In the English Pronunciation," says William Ward, "there is a certain Stress of the Voice laid on some one syllable at least, of every Word of two or more Syllables; and that Syllable on which the Stress is laid may be considered long. Our Grammarians have agreed to consider this Stress of the Voice as the Accent in English; and therefore the Accent and long Quantity coincide in our Language."&mdash;Ward's Practical Gram., p. 155. As to the vowel sounds, with the quantity of which many prosodists have greatly puzzled both themselves and their readers, this writer says, "they may be made as long, or as short, as the Speaker pleases."&mdash;Ib., p. 4. From the absurd and contradictory nature of many of the principles usually laid down by our grammarians, for the discrimination of long quantity and short, it is quite apparent, that but very few of them have well understood either the distinction itself or their own rules concerning it. Take Fisher for an example. In Fisher's Practical Grammar, first published in London in 1753,&mdash;a work not unsuccessful, since Wells quotes the "28th edition" as appearing in 1795, and this was not the last&mdash;we find, in the first place, the vowel sounds distinguished as long or short thus: "Q. How many Sounds has a Vowel? A. Two in general, viz. 1. A, When the Syllable ends with a Vowel, either in Monosyllables, or in Words of more syllables; as, tāke, wē, I, gō, nū; or, as, Nāture, Nēro, Nītre, Nōvice, Nūisance. 2. A , When the Syllable ends with a Consonant, either in Monosyllables, or others; as Hăt, hĕr, bĭt, rŏb, Tŭn; or, as Bărber, bĭtten, Bŭtton."&mdash;See p. 5. To this rule, the author makes needless exceptions of all such words as balance and banish, wherein a single consonant between two vowels goes to the former; because, like Johnson, Murray, and most of our old grammarians, he divides on the vowel; falsely calls the accented syllable short; and imagines the consonant to be heard twice, or to have "a double Accent." On page 35th, he tells us that, "Long and short Vowels, and long and short Syllables, are synonimous [&mdash;synonymous, from [Greek: synonymos]&mdash;] Terms;" and so indeed have they been most erroneously considered by sundry subsequent writers; and the consequence is, that all who judge by their criteria, mistake the poetic quantity, or prosodical value, of perhaps one half the syllables in the language. Let each syllable be reckoned long that "ends with a Vowel," and each short that "ends with a Consonant," and the decision will probably be oftener wrong than right; for more syllables end with consonants than with vowels, and of the latter class a majority are without stress and therefore short. Thus the foregoing principle, contrary to the universal practice of the poets, determines many accented syllables to be "short;" as the first in "barber, bitten, button, balance, banish;&mdash;" and many unaccented ones to be "long;" as the last in sofa, specie, noble, metre, sorrow, daisy, valley, nature, native; or the first in around, before, delay, divide, remove, seclude, obey, cocoon, presume, propose, and other words innumerable. Fisher's conceptions of accent and quantity, as constituting prosody, were much truer to the original and etymological sense of the words, than to any just or useful view of English versification: in short, this latter subject was not even mentioned by him; for prosody, in his scheme, was nothing but the right pronunciation of words, or what we now call orthoëpy. This part of his Grammar commences with the following questions and answers: "Q. What is the Meaning of the Word ? A. It is a Word borrowed from the Greek; which, in Latin, is rendered Accentus, and in English Accent. "Q. What do you mean by Accent ? A. Accent originally signified a Modulation of the Voice, or chanting to a musical Instrument; but is now generally used to signify Due Pronunciatian, i.e. the pronouncing [of] a syllable according to its Quantity, (whether it be long or short,) with a stronger Force or Stress of Voice than the other Syllables in the same Word; as, a in able, o in above, &c. "Q. What is Quantity ? A. Quantity is the different Measure of Time in pronouncing Syllables, from whence they are called long or short. "Q. What is the Proportion between a long and a short Syllable ? A. Two to one; that is, a