Accent (phonetics)

“ Where the accent of a piece is strictly binary throughout, composers, even to this day, appear to be often in doubt about the rhythm, time, and barring of their music. The simple and unmistakable rule for the latter is this: the last strong accent will occur on the first of a bar, and you have only to reckon backwards. If the piece falls naturally into groups of four accents it is four in a bar, but if there is an odd two anywhere it should all be barred as two in a bar. ”

“ In a general way we may assume that the chief accent lies on either the penult or antepenult, the second syllable from the end, or the third, and we will naturally place it upon the one that appears to us most likely to be strong, while a slight secondary accent goes on every second syllable before or after. If the next to the last syllable is followed by a double consonant, we are sure it must be accented, and if the combination of consonants is such that we cannot easily accent the preceding syllable we need entertain no reasonable doubt. ”

“ We are so fond of throwing back the accent that we have comparatively few words sounding fully on the ultimate. The habit of slurring vowel-sound, though not so usual with well educated and well-bred people as phoneticians seem to think, does to too great an extent deprive us of the sharp, full ringing effect that assonance requires, and that Old French, and Spanish of all times, afford. Lastly, there is the multiplicity,—valuable in itself and not to be sacrificed to any simplifying simpleton,—of our sound-values for the same vowel. ”

“ The natural accent of all instruments is different, but may be varied by certain methods of playing. This is particularly the case with the violin, upon which, by means of the bow, every variety of accent may be produced. As no characters have been adopted that will sufficiently express these vane-tie ,, is evident that accent must depend principally upon the taste and fancy of the performer. Accent is a modulation of the voice to express a passion. Every bar or measure is divided into accented and unaccented parts. ”

“ Accents are always required to mark the entrance of a theme, a phrase or a melody. Where there are several voices, or parts, as in a fugue, each voice denotes its appearance with an accent. Every daring assertion hazarded in music, as in speech, demands special emphasis. ”

“ When the full accent falls on a vowel, that vowel has its long sound, as in vo′cal; but when it falls on a consonant, the preceding vowel is short, as in hab′it. This kind of accent alone regulates English verse, as contrasted with Latin or Greek verse, in which the metre depended on quantity or length of syllables. In books on elocution three marks or accents are generally made use of, the first or acute ( ́) showing when the voice is to be raised, the second or grave (`) , when it is to be depressed, and the third or circumflex (ˆ) when the vowel is to be uttered with an undulating sound. ”

“ Such a change of accent is justified only when the sense of the verse leads the reader to expect the changed accent, or when the emphasis thus given to the sense of the poem more than compensates for the break in the rhythm produced by the change of accent.
Another form of metrical variation is that in which there are too few or too many syllables in a foot. This generally occurs at the end of a line, but may occur at the beginning. If a syllable is added or omitted skillfully, the rhythm will be unbroken. ”

“ There is another circumstance which tends to make modern rules of prosody necessarily negative. Quantity, in English revivals of ancient metre, depends not only on position, but on accent. But accent varies greatly in different words; heavy level ever cometh any, have the same accent as empty evil either boometh penny; but the first syllable in the former set of words is lighter than in the latter. ”

“ Syllables containing long vowels are generally accented, so the full-face type is a mark of accent. Where this rule does not apply, a consonant is printed in full-face to mark the accent. All capitals are discarded; they are not needed at the beginning of sentences, and proper names are distinguished by the context, as in spoken language. One advantage claimed for this system is that type-writers can be easily modified to write it, the heavy letters being made by holding the space-bar and striking the key twice. An appendix in dialogue form answers objections to Sound-English. ”

“ In several non-Indogermanic linguistic stocks, as in Takelma of southwestern Oregon and in Fulbe of the Soudan, such grammatical consonant changes play a very important part. As the last formal grammatical process of importance may be mentioned accent, and here we have to distinguish between stress accent and musical or pitch accent. An excellent example of the grammatical use of stress accent is afforded in English by such pairs of words as cónflict and conflíct, óbject and objéct, the verb being accented on the second syllable, the noun on the first. ”

“ In prose the rhythmical stress is determined almost wholly by accent; in verse the two sometimes coincide and sometimes differ markedly.
In certain words whose accent is somewhat evenly divided between two syllables, and in certain combinations [35] of monosyllables, there is a tendency to subject even grammatical accent to rhythmical stress. Hence the common pronunciations Newfoundland, Hawthornden; the alternation of stress in poor old man, sad hurt heart; and the shift of accent in "In a Chinese restaurant the waiters are Chinese."
Pitch. Pitch is a very uncertain and variable phenomenon. ”

“ This many schoolmasters will not do, because it requires science, and will take a little trouble; but let such pass. Those who do so train the young classical ear, will find that in turning to poetry, and keeping time with their foot as they read any metre, the attentive scholar will not only readily follow the given rhythm, and appreciate the position of the musical accent, (very few human beings being altogether destitute of the rhythmical principle,) but will be able also to preserve the spoken accent in those places where the flow of the rhythm does not altogether overpower it. ”

“ One group of consonant-sounds, chiefly the non-aspirates and the aspirates, was actually provided with two letter symbols for each sound, the two letters indicating different tonal quality. The two parallel sets so formed were the so-called "high" and "low" letters. Each naturally gave its tone to the vowel which followed it. These two "inherent" tones were further susceptible of different modification by the use of two accent marks, the "ek" and the "tho," and also to some extent by final consonants ”

“ This is called a secondary accent. In some cases there may even be a third accent if the word is very long; In'-come, val-e-tu'-di-na'-ri-an. This fact arises from the tendency natural to all human speech to take more or less musical forms. The monotony of a series of stressed or of unstressed sounds would be unbearable. The pronunciation of such a series would be a highly artificial and very difficult performance. Correct pronunciation is very greatly concerned with the proper placing of the accent. Indeed the meaning of a familiar word may be quite obscured by a misplaced accent. ”

“ Every circumstance is different where the pause is separated from the accent by a short syllable. The impression made by the accent is more slight when there is no stop; and the elevation of the accent is gone in a moment by the falling of the voice in pronouncing the short syllable that follows. The pause also is sensibly affected by the position of the accent. In lines of the first and third order, the close conjunction of the accent and pause, occasions a sudden stop without preparation, which rouses the mind, and bestows on the melody a spirited air. ”

“ Accent is an element of so comparatively slight importance in the French language and French rhythm, that its place seems partly to be filled by regularity of cesural pause and regularity in the counting of syllables. The French alexandrine, therefore, may often be described as a verse of twelve syllables, divided into two equal parts by a pause, with marked accents on the sixth and twelfth syllables, but with the other accents irregularly disposed. Often it seems to an English reader to have an anapestic effect, and to be best described as anapestic tetrameter. ”

“ The greater force or loudness which causes the accented syllable to occupy more time than any other, is in itself something different from time. Besides, quantity is divisible,—being either long or short: these two species of it are acknowledged on all sides, and some few prosodists will have a third, which they call "common." [490] But, of our English accent, the word being taken in its usual acceptation, no such division is ever, with any propriety, made; for even the stress which we call secondary accent, pertains to long syllables rather than to short ones ”

“ It would seem that the time required for producing a perceptible increase in the loudness or sharpness of a tone is greater than that of pronouncing some of our shorter syllables. If we attempt, for instance, to throw the accent on the first syllable of the word become, we must either lengthen the vowel, and pronounce the word bee-come, or add the adjoining consonant to the first syllable, and so pronounce the word bec-ome. We often find it convenient to lengthen the quantity even of the longer syllables, when we wish to give them a very strong and marked accent. ”

“ The Germans divide accent into two principal species—grammatical and rhetorical; and the first of these we term here accent, and the last emphasis. The Italian words Rinforzando, Sforzato, or their contractions, Rinf, Rf., Sforz., Sf., are often used to mark the emphasis, and sometimes are placed over accented notes. As every species of measure may be subdivided by accents, according to the degree of quickness in which it is performed, so also the weak parts of every measure may be occasionally made emphatic at the pleasure of the composer. ”

“ In music, as in speech, we may designate several distinct kinds of accent. The grammatical or measure accent, the rhythmical accent, and the descriptive, or accent of feeling, are perhaps the most important of all the various kinds. Accent is a peculiar tone, or natural expression, given to certain parts of each measure in every species of time; and without accent there is no more melody in song than in the humming of a bee ”

“ There is no way of giving expression to words but with accent, and without accent we cannot make music. All monotonous sounds are very disagreeable to the ear, and it is certain that the different degrees of loud and soft give the greatest pleasure to the ear. ”

“ It is denied by some critics that there are more accents than one, in any word. But the composition of words, and the ease of speaking, both require a plurality of accent in a very great number of instances; and our ears inform us that such a plurality actually exists in practice. If a man will assert that in such words as designation, exaltation, there is but one syllable distinguished from the others by a superior stress of voice, he must deny the evidence of sense, and would not listen to argument. ”

“ With those who adopt this system, and its terminology, the substitution of a trochee for an iamb in the heroic line is "inversion of accent," the raising or lowering of the usual pronounced value of a syllable, "wrenching of accent," and so on. And the principal argument which they advance in favour of their system against the foot-and-quantity scheme is the very large prevalence of "common" syllables in English—an undoubted fact; though the inference does not seem to follow. ”

“ Another powerful means of lengthening a vowel is accent. When a vowel receives the full force of the accent by coming at the end of an accented syllable it is almost invariably made long. We see this in monosyllables such as he, no, etc. It is often necessary to strengthen by an additional silent vowel, however, as in tie, sue, view, etc., and a has a peculiarity in that when it comes at the end of a syllable alone it has the sound of ah, or a Italian, rather than that of a long, and we have pa, ma, etc., and for the long sound y is added, as in say, day, ray. ”

“ How the organs of any man can be brought to articulate so many consonants in the weak syllables, or how the ear can relish such an unnatural pronunciation, is almost inconceiveable. In spite of the pedantry of scholars, the ease and melody of speaking, have almost wholly banished the absurd practice, by restoring the accent to the second syllable. ”

“ The ancient Roman ballads were in what is called Saturnian meter, which depends on stress and accent; it is not unlike the meter of the Scotch and English ballads. That means that old Latin was spoken like English is, with syllabic accent. But Greek was not. In that, what counted, what made the meters, was tone and quantity. Now we have that in English too; but it is a subtler and more occult influence in poetry than accent is. In English, the rhythm of a line of verse depends on the stresses; but where there is more than rhythm,—where there is music,—quantity is a very important factor. ”