Unaccented ur, (obscure.) grammar robber nadir martyr author sulphur acre lustre, Concluding Exercise, exemplifying combinations of vowels and consonants, difficult to articulate and interjoin. the-ineligibility-of-the-preliminaries-is-unpa ralleled. such-individual-irregularities-are- generally irremediable. he-acted-contrarily-to-the-peremptory-injunc tions-that-were-given. we-alienate-many by-requiting-a-few with-supernumerary-gratuities. let-the-words-of-my-mouth and-the-meditations-of-my-heart be-always-acceptable -unto thee. discipline-your-temper not-submitting-to-it-as -a-master but-governing-it-as-a-servant. rising-simultaneously at-the-irreverential-mention-of-their-leader's-name they-swore-revenge. an-inalienable-eligibility-of-election whichwas-of-an-authority-that-could-not-be-disputed rendered-the-interposition-of-his-friends altoge ther-supererogatory. CHAPTER II. EXERCISES IN READING. FOR THE PURPOSE OF ACQUIRING A FULL UTTERANCE AND JUST USE OF THE ACCENTS OF THE VOICE, CONSTITUTING, IN UNISON WITH A JUST MANAGEMENT OF ITS PITCH, WHAT IS CALLED MODULATION. The melody of speech moves rapidly up and down by slides, wherein no graduated distinction of tones or semitones, can be measured by the ear; nor does the voice, in our language, ever dwell distinctly, for any perceptible space of time, on any certain level or uniform tone. STEELE'S PROSODIA RATIONALIS. Mira est natura vocis, cujus quidem è tribus omnino sonis, inflexo, acuto, gravi, tanta sit, et tam suavis varietas perfectaCICERO. The plan and intent of the following exercises, will be best understood, by considering the fault they are meant to remove. People who have been brought up where their language is well spoken, seldom fail to modulate the voice, in speaking, with exact propriety-that is to say, they vary the accents or slides of the voice in perfect unison with the structure and the meaning of their sentences:-but when they read, nothing is more common than to drop the variety of slide which they use in speaking, and to adopt a set of formal tones that reduce all sentences to the same level. This fault, without express instruction, it is almost impossible to avoid or correct; because the structure of written, is commonly more artificial than of oral discourse; and being made to read the former long before we are familiar with the forms of sentences it contains, we necessarily adopt a manner which equally serves for every form of sentence, and this, by hourly practice, grows into a habit, till we think it essential to the practice of reading, and never seek to correct it, unless reminded by others of its inanity and ab surdity; though even such warning may never occur, because the fault is either not bad enough in degree, or is too generally prevalent, to attract notice. However, though the common, or mechanical reader may escape censure, he can never attract attention and praise; and the power of modulating the voice in unison with the structure and meaning of sentences, in reading as well as in speaking, must be acquired, as an indispensable step toward proficiency in the art. Such is the purport of this chapter; in which the principles that instinctively guide the speaker, are laid open to the reader, in every variety of sentence requiring a difference of modulation; and gradational exercises hence arising are furnished, by means of which the pupil cannot fail, under proper guidance, to gain the object in view. He will recollect that the expresson of feeling or passion, is foreign to this object, and may be neglected till propriety of modulation is obtained:-the mere reader, though bound to convey the full meaning of the composition before him, stands in a very different situation from the speaker, and may be permitted to drop the warmth or earnestness which is natural to the latter. As, however, many of the sentences are of a highly poetical or oratorical character, the student who finds the proper accentuation an easy task, may aim at higher excellencies, particularly at the second time of going over. He will thus prepare himself for the exercises in the third chapter. That the pupil may set forward with some general notion of the theory of modulation, he is to be told that in natural speaking, and therefore in just reading, a tone never occurs that rests for a single instant at any note of the musical scale, but the voice is always sliding either upward or downward. The slide upward primarily signifies suspension or incompletion; the slide downward, completion. But as the voice,-except in a monotone, which is a singing or chanting, and not a speaking tone,- -can move in no way but upward or downward; these two accents must be frequently occurring without their primary force. How this may happen, will be easily understood by pronouncing the word indivisibility with three accents, either suspensively, as indivisibility, or conclusively, as indivisibility. In either case, only the last accent has the primary force that signifies suspension or completion:the other two accents are upward or downward not to signify suspension or completion, but only to prepare for the next accent. Now in a sentence which maintains a dependent construction to the end, and requires not the indication of any referential or oblique meaning, there are but two principal accents, the suspensive, which takes place just before the meaning is beginning to form, and the conclusive in completing it. As to the other accents, they are merely modulative, their purpose being to prepare for, and announce the following accents: These two sentences have the same number of syllables, the accents at the same places, and are modulated in the same way. The suspensive accent is at repeated, the conclusive at expectation. bòrn to. The other accents are merely modulative, preparing for the con destróys, clusive, by the upward at chéck, disappointment. the downward at marr'd. preparing for the suspensive by As to the unaccented syllables or words, they only prolong the slide of the previous accent: but should no accent precede, the voice, without accentual force, slides up or down to prepare for the coming accent. A pause being made at repeated in one sentence, or hopes in the other, cuts off the following unaccented syllables, which will otherwise prolong the previous slide, and not be pronounced with a new turn of voice. The reader at this stage of his progress, will probably find his ear incapable of distinguishing the accents according to the description; but if he knows their effect, it will be enough. It is not by theory, nor by any set of determinate rules, that the art of modulating the voice is to be acquired or improved, but by example and practice. By pronouncing after a correct reader the sentences in the first two exercises, a feeling will be obtained of the leading principles of modulative harmony; and this, without further assistance, will perhaps be sufficient to guide him in the subsequent exercises, where his attention will be called to the more significant accents, and where, in consequence, the merely modulative slides will not be marked, Modulative Accents. In every sentence there are accents prescribed by the construction, and which are therefore of a determinate character; as those at temperance and constitution in the example No. 1; at constitution and life in No. 2; at business and man in No. 10, &c. As to the remaining accents, they are merely modulative, their purpose being to prepare for each other, and for the principal. It is not pretended that every good reader will use precisely the same modulative accents, or even the same reader at different times; and those marked in the following sentences are therefore given not to prescribe rules, but to form the pupil's ear.-A pause not marked by the grammatical stops, is indicated by a short line; but this expedient is not used beyond the first three exercises: a dot marked in pencil may afterwards be employed instead. EXERCISE 1. Modulative Accents, arising from Enumeration. 1. Exercise and témperance, strengthen the constitution. 2. Exercise and tèmperance-strengthen the constitútion, and sweeten the enjoyments of lìfe. 3. The yoùng, the healthy, and the prósperous, should not presúme on their advantages. 4. 'Industry-is the demand of nature, of reáson, and of Gòd. 5. Humánity, justice, generòsity, and pùblic spírit, are the qualities-that chiefly recomménd—mán to màn. 6. Hé-who gives himself up to the pleasures of the world, is in cònstant séarch-of càre, solícitude, remorse, and confùsion. |