Читать книгу Introduction to the study of the history of language - Benjamin Ide Wheeler - Страница 6

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Language is in a constant state of change; and the changes to which it is subject fall under two very different heads. In the first place, new words find their way into a language, whilst existing words become obsolete and drop out of existence: and, secondly, existing words remain, but gradually alter their pronunciation. It is the second of these phenomena which we have to study in this chapter; and a clear idea of its nature, origin, and progress is indispensable to any real knowledge of philology.

To gain this idea we must carefully consider the processes which occur when we speak. We have to take note of no less than five elements, all of which are present each time that we utter a sound, and these should be carefully distinguished.

In the first place, whether we break silence and begin to speak, or proceed in the course of speaking to any particular sound, our vocal organs must move towards a certain position, in which they must remain during the time of the utterance of the sound. This is equally true whether they are set in motion after a period of rest, or after a position rendered necessary by their utterance of some other sound. Let us take, for instance, the sound which in the word father we represent by the letter a. In pronouncing this WORD we BEGIN by putting our lips, tongue, vocal chords, etc., all in such a position that, on the breath passing through them or coming into contact with them, the sound represented by f is produced; and as long as the vocal organs remain in that position, nothing but f can be pronounced. In order, then, to pronounce the a sound, we must alter the position of our vocal organs: our vocal chords must be approximated, our lips relaxed, our mouth opened wider, until the a position is attained. It is clear that the course which we take to reach our goal depends not merely upon the position of that goal, but likewise upon the point whence we start to reach it. Hence the course whereby we reach this a position will vary constantly and considerably, seeing that in our utterance of the a sound we can and do cause many other sounds to precede it. But all these movements agree in one respect, that they terminate in a certain position, which we maintain as long as the a sound lasts.

Secondly, we must notice that this position is maintained only by a certain balance of the tension in the various muscles of our tongue, throat, lips, etc.; and this tension, though we may not indeed be conscious of it, we feel.

Thirdly, we hear, more or less exactly, the sound which we produce.

Fourthly, this feeling and this sound, like every physical occurrence in which we actively or passively participate, leave behind them in our mind a certain impression. This impression, though it may indeed disappear and sink beneath the level of consciousness, remains nevertheless existent, is strengthened by repetition, and can, under certain conditions, be again recalled to consciousness. We consequently come gradually to acquire a permanent mental impression of both feeling and sound. There is formed in our mind what we may call the memory-picture of the position; and

Fifthly, there is likewise formed ‘a memory-picture’ of the sound.

It will be readily seen that of these five ‘elements’ only the last two are permanent, and that they, and they only, are psychical. In every individual case of sound-utterance, all that is physical is momentary and transitory. We abandon the position; the corresponding tensions make way for others; the sound dies away: but the memory-pictures alike of position and sound remain in our mind. There is no physical connection between our utterances of the ‘same’ sound, or word, or phrase; there is only a psychical connection: and this reposes upon the two elements which we have already called the memory-pictures of sound and position respectively.

A word must be added on the nature of the association existing between these two. This association, however intimate it may be, is external only; there is no necessary psychical connection between any sensation of vibration in our organs of hearing and any other sensation of tension in the muscles of our vocal organs. If we gained the first-named sensation again and again from hearing others speak, yet we should still be unable to imitate them at once, even though, for whatever reason, we had set our vocal organs repeatedly in the same position. But the fact that when we ourselves utter a sound we also hear it, associates the physical sensations of sound with those of position, and this invariably; and it thus happens that the respective memory-pictures of the two are left closely associated in our mind.

When we speak of these movement- and sound-pictures as lingering or as existing in our memories, it is not implied that we are necessarily conscious of their existence. On the contrary, the speaker, under ordinary circumstances, is wholly unconscious of them: nor has he anything like a clear notion of the various elements of sound which together make up the spoken word, or it may be the sentence, which he utters. It would seem as though the art of writing and spelling, which presupposes some analysis of the sound of words, proved that the speaker, if capable of spelling and writing, must have at least some notion of those elements. But very little consideration will suffice to prove the contrary. In the first place, strictly speaking, it is absolutely impossible to denote in writing all the various elements of sound which combine to form any word or sentence. A word, however correctly and grammatically spelt, does not consist merely of those sounds which we symbolise in our writing. In reality it consists—or at least the syllable consists—of an unbroken series of successive sounds or articulations, and of this series, even if we spell ‘phonetically,’ our letters represent at best no more than the most clearly distinguished points; whereas, between these sounds so symbolised by our letters, there lie an indefinite number of transition sounds, of which no writer or speller takes any notice.

The above is true in the case of languages like Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, and German, where the spelling is more or less consistent: much more is it true in the case of English or French, with their irrational and puzzling inconsistencies. A child which learns that it must represent the sound of the word but by letters to be called respectively bee-you-tea, or the word though by letters nick-named tea-aitch-o-you-gee-aitch, does not receive a lesson in separating the sound-group represented by the letters but into its three, or the sound-group represented by though into its two (or three) elements.

Even in the more correctly spelt languages, there are numerous discrepancies between the spoken and written word, which, until they are pointed out to him, escape the attention of the native speaker or writer. In English, some instances may be here considered. Not a few English people are quite surprised when they are informed that they have two distinct ways of pronouncing th, or of pronouncing x: the th ‘hard,’ as in thin, and ‘soft,’ as in then; the x like ks, as in execution (eksekyushion), and like gz, as in executive (egzekyutiv), exact (egzakt), example (egzampl). And there are fewer still who have ever noticed that in income many pronounce no n at all, but the same guttural and nasal sound as terminates king.

Can is frequently pronounced chan, with a distinct h sound after the c, without the speaker being aware of it; and the same holds good of similar words. Again, none but the trained observer knows that the k in keen is pronounced differently (more to the front of the mouth) from the k (represented by c) in cool; but the fact that perhaps more than all excites incredulous wonder is that the sound i is no vowel, but a diphthong, as may be proved by dwelling on it. The speakers to whom these facts are new may nevertheless all be perfectly correct speakers: no doubt they pronounce the elements of the word; but they have probably never paid any attention to the nature of these elements, or at least have not begun to do so till long after the utterance became habitual and natural.

If, then, we speak without consciousness of the separate sounds, much more are we completely unconscious of the movements of our vocal organs. It is only very recently that these movements have been carefully investigated, and the results of the science of phonetics are in very many respects as yet sub judice, while even the most superficial knowledge of the subject can only be attained by a conscious and careful effort of attention, and by the exercise of much patience in the observation of our precise actions when speaking. It is only the trained observer who can at all follow these movements as he makes them, and even he does not so follow them generally, but thinks of the sense of his words as he speaks, and not of the way in which they are produced.

Moreover, even assuming that the speaker enjoyed a far higher degree of consciousness, both of phonetic elements and of phonetic movement while he is acquiring the faculty of speech, it would none the less remain true that in the ordinary course of word-utterance these facts remain outside the speaker’s consciousness. A precisely parallel instance can be observed in the case of a pupil learning to play the piano or violin. At first every movement he makes is the result of a separate and conscious act of volition; but soon practice, the repetition of conscious action, so much facilitates the playing of scales, arpeggios, etc., that the rapidity of their execution quite precludes all possibility of the bestowal of separate thought, even of the shortest duration, upon each individual note in succession. It is necessary at the outset to insist on this fact of the speaker’s unconsciousness, both of the elements of sound which make up the word, and of the movements of his vocal organs; for, once fully grasped, it will guard against an error which is too prevalent, viz. that sound-change is the result of conscious volition in those who speak.

But though the movements necessary for production of sounds are performed unconsciously, they are by no means beyond control; to illustrate which fact we may once more recur to the parallel instance of the piano-player. Like him, the speaker controls his work by listening to its result: but the player strikes either the right note or the wrong, and, unlike him, the speaker may vary his utterance in one direction or another without serious error; he is not considered to make a MISTAKE unless the difference between his present utterance and that which is usual exceeds a certain limit. In this respect, the violin-player resembles the speaker more closely. They both appeal to their sense of hearing in order to decide on the correctness or otherwise of the sound produced, and the control they can exercise over that sound is exactly proportional to their delicacy of ear. Up to certain limits, the variations are too small to be perceived by the ear, but beyond these, control becomes possible. The slight differences in pronunciation or sound do not yet, however, necessarily expose the speaker (or player) to the charge of incorrect utterance (or performance), and consequently, though he perceives the change, he pays little or no attention to it. He only then corrects himself or guards against repeating the ‘mistake,’ when the change in sound passes those limits which cannot be transgressed without detriment to what in music we term ‘harmony,’ or what in language we term ‘correctness of utterance.’ It commonly happens that these limits are wider than the limits of perception referred to above, more especially in the case of the speaker. A wider licence is accorded to the term ‘correctness’ in speech than is accorded to it in harmony.

While, then, control is theoretically and practically limited, the possibility of variation is unlimited. Take, for instance, the case of the vowels. All the possible sounds and variations from u (pronounced as oo in cool) to i (= ee in feel) may be said to form one uninterrupted series. In this series we distinguish only some of the most important varieties. When we pronounce u, the lips are rounded, and the tongue is drawn back and raised at the back of the mouth: if we pass from u to i, the lips are unrounded, and assume the shape of a narrow and much elongated ellipse, while the tongue is pushed forward with its back depressed and the fore-part (the blade) raised. While this change is going on, the mouth never assumes a position with which we could not produce some vowel or other, but the difference in acoustic quality between any two ‘neighbouring’ vowels would not always be such that we should regard them as distinct or different sounds. On our way from u to i, we pass through the positions for the o (oa) in coal, the ŏ in god, the a in father, the ĕ in net, the e (a) in hare, the ĭ in pit; but between these there lie an indefinite number of possible shades of sound, and every one knows how differently various speakers of the same community pronounce what we call the same vowel. So, too, we need but little attention to notice distinct occasional variations, at different moments, in the same speaker. If, then, one and the same speaker often perceptibly (though unintentionally) varies his pronunciation, we may be perfectly sure that his mode of utterance will vary at different times within those limits where the divergence—though existing—is not noticed. As with the vowels, so it is, though not so completely, with many consonants and series of consonants. The student who is unacquainted with phonetics should pronounce cool and keen one after the other, or better still coo and kee, getting rid of the final consonants. He will have no difficulty in noticing the difference between the two k sounds, the first of which requires a much more backward position than the second for its pronunciation. After a little practice, he will be able to pronounce the first (back) k with the ee vowel, and the second (forward, palatal) k with oo. Now, between these two sounds of k there is a whole series of intermediate ones, and, if this series be followed in the direction of the palatal k and then continued beyond it, we soon reach the articulation of the palatals proper, and pass, without any appreciable gap, to the linguo-dentals: first to the t which, in words like the French métier, sounds so much like q in the form méquier (as the French Canadians actually pronounce it); and next to our own t, and to the usual French t, which is pronounced more to the front with the tip of the tongue against the roots of the teeth.

Similarly, because perfect though slight closure is not remote from extreme narrowing, we can pass in a practically unbroken series from energetic p to laxly uttered f, from k to the guttural fricative of German ach—a sound which English, in its modern form, no longer possesses,—etc.

As we noticed in the instance of k, and as every one more easily perceives in the case of the vowels, two sounds essentially different in articulation and in acoustic character are often, in daily speech, accepted as identical, more especially where the difference is not great enough, or is not of a nature to cause ambiguity of meaning. If, for instance, there existed words in the English language alike in all respects but that the one began with the k of cool and the other with the k of keen, and if these words had different meanings, every Englishman would be aware of the existence of two sounds, which he would most likely indicate by two different letter-signs. As it is, the difference between the two remains unnoticed, and the choice between them depends upon the vowel which follows. If, then, in the ordinary course of speaking, a ‘back’ k is pronounced a little more forward, or a palatal k more to the back, no notice will be taken of it, unless the variation oversteps a certain limit and, as a consequence, the unusual articulation sounds strange. Similarly, for the formation of t, the position of the tongue may be varied to a very great extent, and yet, though something unusual in the sound MAY be apprehended, the result will always be perceived as a t.