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EMOTIONAL AND IMITATIVE LANGUAGE.

the voice, as we may notice by the way in which any one will speak of 'a short sharp answer,' 'a long weary year,' 'a loud burst of music,' 'a gentle gliding motion,' as compared with the like manner in which the gesture-language would adapt its force and speed to the kind of action to be represented. Written language can hardly convey but by the context the striking effects which our imitative faculty adds to spoken language, in our continual endeavour to make the sound of each word we speak a sort of echo to its sense. We see this in the difference between writing and telling the little story of the man who was worried by being talked to about 'good books.' 'Do you mean,' he asked, speaking shortly with a face of strong firm approval, 'good books?' 'or,' with a drawl and a fatuous-benevolent simper, 'goo-d books?' Musical accent (accentus,[1] musical tone) is turned to account as a means of emphasis, as when we give prominence to a particular syllable or word in a sentence by raising or depressing it a semi-tone or more. The reader has to divide his sentences with pauses, being guided in this to some extent by stops; the rhythmic measure in which he will utter prose as well as poetry is not without its effect; and he has again to introduce music by speaking each sentence to a kind of imperfect melody. Professor Helmholtz endeavours to write down in musical notes how a German with a bass voice, speaking on B flat, might say, 'Ich bin spatzieren gegangen. — Bist du spatzieren gegangen?' falling a fourth (to F) at the end of the affirmative sentence, and rising a fifth (to f) in asking the question, thus ranging through an octave.[2] When an English speaker tries to illustrate in his own language the rising and falling tones of Siamese vowels, he compares them with the English ones of question and answer, as in 'Will you go? Yes.'[3] The rules of this imperfect musical intonation in ordinary conversation have been as yet but little studied. But as a

  1. 'Accentus est etiam in dicendo cantus obscurior.' — Cic. de Orat.
  2. Helmholtz, p. 364.
  3. Caswell, in Bastian, 'Berlin. Akad.' l.c.