CHAPTER III

PITCH, INTENSITY AND DURATION

PHYSICALLY considered speech sounds are characterized by intensity, duration and pitch or quality. But not all of these are of equal importance for verse. The present enquiry is concerned with one of these factors only, that of duration. The others can not be left out of account for they enter intimately into the time relations of every rhythm; but the method as well as the purposes which I have outlined prevents a complete consideration of anything but the time relations. Graphic experimentation yields but poor results for instance, in the case of pitch. The pitch of clear vowels when sung can be measured,' but the vowels of ordinary speech are so complex that no system of analysis into simple components is adequate. In fact the work of Scripture seems to prove beyond question that vowel sounds do not consist of a fundamental combined with resonating partials but that they are unstable compounds constantly changing in wave form. If this is so the task of measuring them is rendered doubly difficult. Despite Scripture's3 elaborate arguments I do not believe that we can trust the gramophone curve as being more accurate than the reproduced sound. Just the opposite may be true. But the phonograph or the gramophone record is the most refined graphic record we have at the present time. In view of all this we are compelled to neglect for the present the pitch and quality aspects of speech sounds. Any complete account of speech rhythm must take them into account. They are perhaps more important for prose rhythm (if there is such a thing) than for

verse.

The connection between intensity and duration is almost as hard to discover experimentally but it occupies such a large place in the historical theories of verse rhythm that it must be examined more closely. We are confronted here with exceptional difficulties, such that present day physics, phonetics and psychology are helpless before them. Linguistic sounds are myriad, each differing from 1 Cameron, Psychol. Rev. Mon. Sup., No. 34, 1907.

2" Researches in Experimental Phonetics," p. 146.

Lipsky, "Rhythm as a Distinguishing Characteristic of Prose Style," these Archives, No. 4, 1907.

every other in loudness and quality. If we limit ourselves to the English language alone we find that every individual who uses it has his own private way of modulating, accentuating, and toning it, and so characteristically that we are less likely to confuse two human voices than we are two human faces.

Now it is possible to compare the physical intensities of two sounds of the same wave-length (pitch) provided they have the same quality (overtones or partials), but we have no physical measurement of the intensities of sound differing in pitch and quality. This being the situation, how hopeless is the task of determining the relative intensity of sounds which differ so widely in quality as, for instance, the sounds of the words it and aim. Moreover in speech we have practically a continuous flow of sound, and the determination of points of maximum intensity must be made with respect to a very small element of the total series, not with respect to large masses of continuous uniform sound. Even if we had a means of comparing "it" and "aim" taken separately and as units little advance would have been made toward the determination of the points of greatest intensity and the comparison of such intensities when found in a sentence like "it is my aim." And even supposing that some way were found of comparing these intensities for a given speaker at a given time there is no way of applying an absolute standard by which these accents could be compared with others. There is no such thing as a standard of intensity of sound.

If on the other hand we abandon the attempt to obtain objective spatial measurements of the accents in speech and fall back upon our psychological perception of their presence and relative magnitude new difficulties arise to confront us. Let any one say to himself the two words booty and hoot and try to discover the location with any exactness of the greatest stress within either word. Does it lie just as the b bursts into the vowel in booty, or in the long oo sound in either case? If the observation is made while some one else pronounces the words the results will probably be different. This is a hard thing to do. It is still harder to draw a curve representing the rise and fall of the stress up to and down from the point of greatest intensity.

All this is supposing that the stress is one of loudness only. But there is small probability that it is so. More likely the accented syllable is also prolonged in time and altered in pitch. In that case we are still quite well able to tell on what "syllable" the accent falls but further than that our ear does not tell much."

The application of the tapping method (McDougall) offers a possible solution. If a pneumatic system is used for recording the taps it is possible to

As has been frequently insisted upon, speech, and particularly rhythmical speech flows almost continuously. Its rhythm is, therefore, more like that of a singing tea-kettle or humming electric. motor, than it is like the rhythm of a metronome. This distinction can not be too much emphasized. The investigation of rhythm has been confined almost exclusively to the latter type-the type made. up of discrete elements. Perhaps more headway would have been made in the general theory if the type which arises in a continuum had received more attention. A word of caution is needed against inferring very much about verse rhythm, which is of this continuous type, from experiments in tapping and listening to series of discrete sounds. The two things are far from alike.

The reaction method of study is found in its least objectionable form when the reaction is made to a qualitatively distinct member of a rhythmic series of discrete stimuli. It does not follow, however, that it is equally applicable in the case of a continuous flow of sound. Miyake' found that the stress is often marked by a tap before the beginning of a sound. I have found the same. Brücke,8 however, found that the taps fell within or near the end of an initial vowel. Meyer" concludes that the maximum stress falls, with the tap, just within the initial consonant sound before it passes into the following vowel. He assumes perfect coordination of tap with vocal stress. These contradictory results are easily understood from the point of view of the difficulty we feel in locating our own stress, but that the stress should precede the sound is absurd from the point of view of one who listens to the sounds.

The graphic method can give little help on this point. A glance at one of the accompanying records will serve to indicate its shortcomings. The vowel sounds are indicated by a low, generally flat, serrated stretch; certain of the more explosive consonants by a sharp rise and a more or less gradual fall of the curve; the nasals by nearly flat stretches; sibilants and aspirates by a comparatively slow upward movement. It may be possible to measure roughly the intensity of vowel sounds by the amplitude of the vibrations as recorded. Some consonants would be measured by the amount of breath expelled; this would not apply to all of the consonants however. In any event no comparison is possible between vowels and consonants as regards record their intensity as well as the interval of time between them. Nevertheless it is a long jump to the intensity of a sound or speech movement from the intensity of a tap coordinated with it.

'Studies from the Yale Psychol. Laboratory, 10, 45, 1902.

8.66 Die physiol. Grundlage der neuhochdeutschen Verskunst," p. 24. 'Die neueren Sprachen, 6, 122, 1899.