Accent

“ Far from admitting that the American accent, as the pressure of their climate and of their average man has made it, is a thing to be striven against, they assure one another that it is the right accent, the standard English speech of the future. ”

“ I very seldom during my whole stay in the country heard a sentence elegantly turned, and correctly pronounced from the lips of an American. There is always something either in the expression or the accent that jars the feelings and shocks the taste. ”

“ Our pronunciation and accent, peculiar in themselves, varying, moreover, to distraction over the English-speaking world, are just as serious stumbling-blocks to others, as, say, French and German accent and pronunciation are to us. ”

“ If perchance you happen to misplace an accent, you shall see their eyebrows curl up like an interrogation mark, and they will ask you what authority you have for that pronunciation. As if, forsooth, a man could not talk without book-license! ”

“ The accent represents that element which distinguishes between the character and meaning of words, and has no reference to parts thereof or their relation to other words; the same word being pronounced in as many different ways and with as many different accents as it denotes different senses or meanings; while different words, embodying the same idea, are uttered with precisely the same accent.
The accent or intonation is an outcome of the soul; an influence which dominates over our spiritual nature and over spiritual issues. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Stone on the nature of English accent and quantity are perhaps unique among modern writers on the subject. "The ordinary unemphatic English accent is exactly a raising of pitch, and nothing more," as in Greek. "The accent of emphasis is something quite different in character from the ordinary accent." ”

“ As no utterance can be agreeable to the ear, which is void of proportion; and as all quantity, or proportion of time in utterance, depends upon a due observation of the accent; it is a matter of absolute necessity to all, who would arrive at a good and graceful delivery, to be master of that point. Nor is the use of accent in our language confined to quantity alone; but it is also the chief mark by which words are distinguished from mere syllables. ”

“ Not one writer on accent has given such a definition of the voice as acquaints us with its essential properties. * * * 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. * * * 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."—Walker's Dict., p. ”

“ Look, manner, each delicate accent in a voice wonderfully distinct in its unrivalled melody, all so aided the sense of mere words, that it is scarcely extravagant to say he might have talked an unknown language, and a listener would have understood. ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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 ”

“ The musical accent, or rhythmical beat, will, of course, in such a method of recitation, receive a marked prominence; the long quantity will never be slurred; and with regard to the spoken accent, what I say is this, the ear of the student must first be trained in reading prose never to omit the accent, and accustomed to feel, by the living iteration of the ear, that both accent and quantity are an essential part of the word. ”

“ A moment’s listening to the English accent will soon teach us to pronounce with a more melodious finish. We need not hug ourselves with any vainglorious national conceit. We do not speak as well as our English cousins. ”

“ Walker and Webster say, it is emphasis, and not accent. Again, in an other definition, which was written before he adopted the notion of accent on consonants, of accent on monosyllables, or of accent for quantity in the formation of verse, he used these words: "Accent is the laying of a peculiar stress of the voice on a certain vowel or syllable in a word, that it may be better heard than the rest, or distinguished from them; as, in the word presúme, the stress of the voice must be on the second syllable, súme, which takes the accent."—Murray's Gram., Second Edition, 12mo, p. ”

“ Accent, in its primitive sense, is an affection of the voice, which gives each syllable of a word its due pitch, in respect to height or lowness. By accent we learn the manner in which sounds are uttered, without reference to their loudness or softness. ”

“ In English, accent plays a very important part; and for this reason, we may consider English speech as consisting of a succession of utterances which form, as it were, speech-waves, in which each wave or jet of breath contains a strong syllable ”

“ 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. ”

“ The impropriety of affirming quantity to be the same as accent, when its most frequent species occurs only in the absence of accent, must be obvious to every body; and those writers who anywhere suggest this identity, must either have written absurdly, or have taken accent in some sense which includes the sounds of our unaccented syllables. The word sometimes means, "The modulation of the voice in speaking."—Worcester's Dict., w. ”

“ The English place the accent oftener on the adjectives than they do on the substantive, which, though undoubtedly the most significant word in any sentence, has frequently less stress laid on it than you hear laid on mere epithets. On the stage they pronounce the syllables and words extremely distinct, so that at the theatres you may always gain most instruction in English elocution and pronunciation.
This kingdom is remarkable for running into dialect: even in London they are said to have one. ”

“ A stranger, quite new and unversed in their language, whose accent is uncouth and ridiculous in the ears of the French, and who can scarcely open his mouth without making a blunder in grammar or idiom, is heard with the most serious attention, and never laughed at, even when he utters the oddest solecism or equivocal expression. ”

“ In truth the accent is always a difficult and obscure matter, and it is the more so in the modern languages, because they have passed through a period, a very long period, of their existence without a literature. ”

“ Accent is the arithmetical order by which the contents of a bar are divided and arranged. Although the principles of the accent belong chiefly to the composer, yet the performer ought not to be unacquainted with them. To accent is to utter a note or syllable with a particular stress or modulation of voice ”

“ The child’s mother and nurse would be helped to acquire almost insensibly a sound and confident pronunciation. No observant man who has lived at all broadly, meeting and talking with people of diverse culture and tradition, but knows how much our intercourse is cumbered by hesitations about quantity and accent, and petty differences of phrase and idiom, and how greatly intonation and accent may warp and limit our sympathy. ”

“ In the eastern states, there is a practice prevailing among the body of the people, of prolonging the sound of i in the termination ive. In such words as motive, relative, &c. the people, excepting the more polished part, give i its first sound. This is a local practice, opposed to the general [Pg 104] pronunciation of the English on both sides of the Atlantic, sometimes to the rules of accent, and always to derivation. In dissyllables, as motive, active, the genius of our language requires that the accent should be laid on one syllable, and that the other should be short. ”

“ To assert as a universal rule that the accent is always on the root, and never on the subordinate part of a word, is too much. Although in the English language such an assertion (with one exception) is found true ”

“ Insomuch as the intense expressiveness of a dialect—of a small vocabulary in the mouth of a dramatic people—lies in the various accent wherewith a southern citizen knows how to enrich his talk, it remains for the actor to restore its life to the written phrase. In dialect the author is forbidden to search for the word, for there is none lurking for his choice ”

“ The first class of exceptions consists {363}of those words where the natural tendency to disparity of accent is traversed by some rule of euphony. For example, let two words be put together, which at their point of contact form a combination of sounds foreign to our habits of pronunciation. The rarity of the combination will cause an effort in utterance. The effort in utterance will cause an accent to be laid on the latter half of the compound. ”

“ For accent, in a Latin word, Should ne'er go higher than the third. This rule, or the substance of it, has become very important by long and extensive use; but it should be observed, that stress on monosyllables is more properly emphasis than accent; and that, in English, the accent governs quantity, rather than quantity the accent.
SECTION III.—OF ELOCUTION. Elocution is the graceful utterance of words that are arranged into sentences, and that form discourse.
Elocution requires a knowledge, and right application, of emphasis, pauses, inflections, and tones. ”

“ 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 may be first observed, that the exertion of the organs of speech necessary to produce the accent or stress, has an obvious tendency to preserve the letters in their pure and uniform sound, while the relaxation or feebleness which succeeds the accent as naturally surfers the letters to slide into a somewhat different sound a little easier to the organs of pronunciation. ”

“ That the ease or harmony of pronunciation, is the cause of this change of accent, will be evident to any person who shall attempt to pronounce words of this class, with the accent on any other syllable than the antepenult.
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Most of these rules admit a few exceptions, which are to be learnt by practice. Custom has made some inroads upon the rules of uniformity, and caprice is ever busy in multiplying anomalies. Still, rules will be of great service in ascertaining and fixing our language; for tho they may not root out old errors, they may prevent the introduction of others. ”

“ The nature of our accent, the accentual basis of our metrical system, and the fact that our accent has been retaining its peculiar character since long, are factors which should principally engage our attention. That in respect of our accent, a long continuous current may be observed to have flown through ages, will be clearer when we consider other facts, and the readers will have to form their opinion, by considering the effects of what may be called cumulative evidence. ”

“ On each of the syllables rest, friend, spare, prec-, breath, there is an accent. Each of these syllables must be compared with the one that precedes it; rest with then, friend with my, and so on throughout the line. Compared with the word and, the word spare is not only accented, but the accent is conspicuous and prominent. There is so little on and, and so much on spare, that the disparity of accent is very manifest. ”

“ The loss of the accent of pitch in modern English and the consequent extension of the accent of stress have made us less observant of quantity than the grammarians of India or the poets of ancient Greece. ”

“ Thus the strong stress accent existing in the transition period between Latin and French led to the curtailing of long Latin words like latrocínium or hospitále into the words which we have borrowed from French into English as larceny and hotel. It will be observed that the first syllable and that which bears the accent are the two which best withstand change, though the strong tendency in English to stress heavily the first syllable bids fair ultimately to oust the e in the pronunciation of larceny. ”

“ As accent enforces a syllable, and gives character to a word; so emphasis distinguishes a word, and often determines the import of a sentence. The right placing of accent, in the utterance of words, is therefore not more important, than the right placing of emphasis, in the utterance of sentences. If no emphasis be used, discourse becomes vapid and inane; if no accent, words can hardly be recognized as English.
"Emphasis, besides its other offices, is the great regulator of quantity. ”