Identifier: elementsofeloc00walk (find matches)
Title: Elements of elocution:
Year: 1811 (1810s)
Authors: Walker, John, 1732-1807. (from old catalog)
Subjects: Elocution
Publisher: Philadelphia: Published by Bennett and Walton
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: The Library of Congress

View Book Page: Book Viewer
About This Book: Catalog Entry
View All Images: All Images From Book
Click here to view book online to see this illustration in context in a browseable online version of this book.

Text Appearing Before Image:
s is, the sentence, N° I.where the accent is on the last syllable of aword which has no emphasis, and is pronouncedas forming a cadence at the conclusion of a dis-course. Sooner or later virtue must meet with a rev.-^rd. Here the last syllable, though pronounced lou-der than the first, is evidently pronounced a de-gree lower. It may notr perhaps, be improper to take no-lice of a common usage of the word accent, which,though seemingly inaccurate, will be found, uponexamination, to be a just application of the word.It is the custom, not only of England, but of oth-er parts of the world which are seats of empire,to call those modes of pronunciation used in partsdistant from the capital, by the name of accents*Thus we say, a native of Ireland speaks Englishwith the Irish, and a native of Scotland with theScotish accent; though both these speakers pro-nounce every word with the accent on the verysame syllable as the English. Why then do wesay, they speak with a different accent ? One rca-
Text Appearing After Image:
ELOCUTION. 221 son is? that speaking sounds have never been suf-ficiently analysed to enable us to discover theircomponent parts, which makes us take up withindefinite and unspecific terms, instead of such asare precise and appropriated to their object. Thishas greatly obscured the notion of accent,and ledMr. Sheridan to suppose, that accent in our lan-guage is no more than a force upon a certain syl-lable of a word, which distinguishes it from therest; but that accent has no reference to inflec-tions of voice, and for that reason the word isused by us in the singular number. * Othershave imagined, that we have two accents, thegrave and acute ; but in the definition of these,they seem only to mean that the latter has a grea-ter degree of force than the former. Thus, forwant of the simple distinction of the rising andfalling slide of the voice, with which every ac-cented syllable must necessarily be pronounced,the nature of our own accent seems as obscure,and as little understood, as t

Note About Images