is removed almost two thousand years from our view. Obscurity, perplexity, and confusion, run through every treatise on the subject, and nothing could be so hopeless as an attempt to explain it, did not a circumstance present itself, which at once accounts for the confusion, and affords a clew to lead us out of it.
487. Not one writer on accent has given us such, a definition of the voice as acquaints us with its essential properties: they speak of high and low, loud and soft, quick and slow; but they never once mention that striking property which distinguishes speaking from singing sounds, and which, from its sliding from high to low, and from low to high, may not improperly be called the inflection of the voice. No wonder, when writers left this out of the account, that they should blunder about the nature of accent: it was impossible they should do otherwise; so partial an idea of the speaking voice must necessarily lead them into error. But let us once divide the voice into its rising and falling inflections, the obscurity vanishes, and accent becomes as intelligible as any other part of language.
488. Keeping this distinction in view, let us compare the accented syllables with others, and we shall find this general conclusion may be drawn: "The accented syllable is always louder than the rest; but when it has the rising inflection, it is higher than the preceding, and lower than the succeeding syllable: and when it has the falling inflection, it is pronounced higher as well as louder than the other syllables, either preceding or succeeding." The only exception to this rule is, "when the accent is on the last syllable of a word which has no emphasis, and which is the concluding word of a discourse." Those who wish to see this clearly demonstrated may consult Elements of Elocution, second edition, page 181. On the present occasion it will be sufficient to observe, that the stress we call accent is as well understood as is necessary for the pronunciation of single words, which is the object of this treatise; and therefore, considering accent merely as stress, we shall proceed to make some remarks on its proper position in a word, and endeavour to detect some errors in the use and application of it.
The different Positions of the English Accent.
489. Accent, in its very nature, implies a comparison with other syllables less forcible; hence we may conclude that monosyllables, properly speaking, have no accent: when they are combined with other monosyllables and form a phrase, the stress which is laid upon one, in preference to others, is called emphasis. As emphasis evidently points out the most significant word in a sentence, so, where other reasons do not forbid, the accent always dwells with greatest force on that part of the word which, from its importance, the hearer has always the greatest occasion to observe; and this is necessarily the root, or body of the word. But as harmony of termination frequently attracts the accent from the root to the branches of words, so the first and most natural law of accentuation seems to operate less in fixing the stress than any of the other. Our own Saxon terminations, indeed, with perfect uniformity, leave the principal part of the word in quiet possession of what seems its lawful property; (501) but Latin and Greek terminations, of which our language is full, assume a right of preserving their original accent, and subjecting many of the words they bestow upon us, to their own classical laws.
490. Accent, therefore, seems to be regulated, in a great measure, by etymology. In words from the Saxon, the accent is generally on the root; in words from the learned languages, is is generally on the termination; and if to these we add the different accent we lay on some words, to distinguish them from others, we seem to have the three great principles of accentuation; namely, the radical, the terminational, and the distinctive.
Accent on Dissyllables.
491. Every word of two syllables has necessarily one of them accented, and but one. It is true, for the sake of emphasis, we sometimes lay an equal stress upon two successive syllables, as di-rect, some-times; but when these words are pronounced alone, they have never more than one accent. For want of attending to this distinction, some writers have roundly asserted, that many dissyllables have two accents, such as convoy, concourse, discord, shipwreck: in which, and similar instances, they confound the distinctness, with which the latter syllables are necessarily pronounced, with accentual force; though nothing can be more different. Let us pronounce the last syllable of the noun torment as distinctly as we please, it will still be very different with respect to force, from the same syllable in the verb to torment, where the accent is on it; and if we do but carefully watch our pronunciation, the same difference will appear in every word of two syllables throughout the language. The word Amen is the only word which is pronounced with two consecutive accents when alone.
492. There is a peculiarity of accentuation in certain words of two syllables, which are both nouns and verbs, that is not unworthy of notice; the nouns having the accent on the first syllable, and the verbs on the last. This seems an instinctive effort in the language (if the expression will be allowed me) to compensate in some measure for the want of different terminations for these different parts of speech.[1]
- ↑ It is not improbable that the verb, by receiving a participial termination, has inclined us to pronounce that part of speech with an accent nearer the end than we do the noun: for though we can without any difficulty pronounce the verb with the accent on the noun, we cannot so easily pronounce the participle and the adverb formed from it with that
