RULE II. Whenever any two of the other vowels meet, they blend and coalesce into a kind of diphthongal or dissyllabic sound. EXAMPLE. J'ai été à Essex: j'y ai eu un plaisir ou un In this sentence, ennui aisé à oublier. n n 5 4 3 5 222 1 1 1 2 3 2 2 5 5 ai-é, é-a, à-E, y-ai, ai-eu, eu-un, ou-un, 53 2 2 1 1 4 are all real diphthongs, or dissyllabic sounds, according to the greater or less rapidity of the speaker's utterance. When words have a direct RULE III. CARRYING OVER A FINAL CONSONANT. object, (or any other complement which follows or precedes them immediately,) such as verbs, articles, pronouns, numerals, prepositions, adjectives, adverbs, etc., the two words are so naturally connected by their combined meaning, that, if the first ends with a consonant, and the second with a vowel, (or h mute,) both unite in sound as closely as in sense; that is to say, the final consonant is carried over to the following word. EXAMPLE. Il dit aux habitants, des amis, les hommes; huit arbres très élevés; sans accident; aller à T Paris; avis important; grand effet. In poetry there are very few exceptions to this rule; and in prose they are almost all to be found in the infinitive present of verbs in ER, which MAY NOT submit to the rule, and in the final consonants of NOUNS, which very often OUGHT NOT to follow it, especially in conversational style. In both cases, the carrying over of but never 0 aller à Paris, or aller à Paris, hazard heureux; tort imaginaire; on attribue sa mort à un suicide, mort horrible; j'ai vu beaucoup de mauvaises voitures en Suisse. We should pronounce and mark 0 hazard heureux; tort imaginaire; sa mort à 0 00 un suicide, mort horrible; voitures en Suisse. These examples are sufficient as a warning to the reader, who should bear in mind that, as to this rule extended (by him) to the final consonants of nouns, the danger really is in the using, not in the abstaining, till he has more practical experience. We have tried to give him the best current models on this special point. The rest offer no difficulty. And, (as the above marks will show,) when the last consonant must not be sounded, it is the penultimate one, or antepenultimate, that will articulate with the initial vowel of the following word. r We also use our word-tie, whenever two R's meet, in order that both should be pronounced with particular care. EXAMPLE. Je le tiens pour rusé, and not pour usé. All sounds are now given, with the possibility of increasing, subduing, and silencing any one of them when necessary. And by the simple means of these three additional marks, we can take to pieces, reunite, and the words of a sentence; strictly imitating the organs of speech themselves-our own muscles in the very act of articulation, and representing thus the spoken emission of the human voice, either as it slides through the simple and compound sounds of each word to its clear French ending, or flows from word to word, by contraction, like a light chain of mere phonic syllables on the moving lips of a man. But without the right sound, these useful little marks are but pencil strokes, for sketching the empty outline of words; and therefore we have not made a very frequent use of the whole set in the beginning of our parsed text, not wishing to divert the learner's attention from the real colors, the invariable figures those labelled sounds—which, alone, can give to the word both light and shade, and the striking likeness of life. - THE STUDENT'S PARSING. Supposing, first, that the meaning of the French text is understood by the student, or explained by the teacher, we have now to state what the former must do in this parsing of sounds. It is plainly this: the student (out of school hours or in class) will take any paragraph marked (parsed) by us in large type, and spell it, or, if he already can do better, read it slowly, merely for the sounds, which he will always find by only raising his eyes from the invariable figures in parsed text to the same ones in the key. This early extemporaneous exercise has this practical advantage, that it may be equally well performed with or without the assistance of a teacher, its object being a very easy but forced comparison of the two languages in sound; and its result-forced also immediate imitation in French pronunciation. But this imitation is so natural, so readily acquired, and so true, that any student will generally be able to read very correctly a short paragraph in one first lesson. Therefore, in large classes, the instructor can always use this instrument so as to exactly suit his own views and ways of teaching, either by reading himself, first, to his pupils, before they read to him, or by giving them the paragraph, as a lesson to prepare at home for next recitation. Both means, and we think all means, will succeed. The only important point we would earnestly urge is to begin, in every case, with very short paragraphs. We have made them so, and gradually increased them, but by very slow degrees, for this very purpose. Long ones could do no good; they would fatigue or disgust all beginners. But if real beginners can read, to-day, paragraph No. 1, with true French pronunciation, and without the least difficulty, to-morrow, most certainly, they will be able to read paragraph No. 2 still more easily and correctly; and so on, in the same student (no more a beginner after only half a dozen recitations) can work with perfect ease and pleasure on two or three long paragraphs in one good reading lesson. But what is a good reading lesson? This is a momentous question, and we will candidly answer it here, with a very necessary digression. In a good lesson on pronunciation, there should be nothing but pronunciation; therefore, no translation, no idiomatic, literary, grammatical explanation, etc, which, claiming the best part of the pupil's attention, should be first and separately disposed of. French reading is far from being generally well treated. It ought to be ONE SOLE STUDY; and, in order that it may be so, there should be also a special time devoted to it entirely, as an exclusive exercise on French words and sentences, not for the sense, but for the sound, and nothing else! Indeed, the class is, or ought to be, then, a spelling, pronouncing, reading class, and nothing else ; they must have this PRONOUNCING REHEARSAL two or three times, or once, a week, according to their standing, and some old known text to read, to rehearse, to repeat over and over again," LOUD, LOUDER, LOUDEST," until every student has acquired a faultless pronunciation of every sound, of every word, in all its most difficult passages. Exceptions are few, and no obstacles. Practice will soon discover them; and, with due attention to this sole study, a native-like pronunciation can be thoroughly taught and learned in three or four pages of any book, always in a few weeks, often in a few days, and with some ATTENTIVE ones, in a few hours! (We only speak of real beginners who have no prejudice, and nothing to unlearn.) Of course, with us, the old text will be all such numbered paragraphs as have been previously parsed, or otherwise studied, and practised, in the last or any preceding recitation. [For more particulars on French Reading, see pages xxxiv., and from xli. to xliii. of this Introduction.] We come back to the student's first trial. He will carefully spell, or read, his parsed paragraph several times, as stated above, with the aid of the key; then read it again unparsed, (with and without the key,) under its number of order in "Conversational Style;" and thence transcribe it, in large letters, on a loose sheet or a slate. Now, he will himself mark down every sound, there, with only the help of his memory and the key. This done, he will compare his own marks with our marks, and, after carefully correcting his copy, read it aloud two or three times, and destroy it. Next day he will read, write, and parse again the same paragraph, going exactly through the whole exercise just described, (with the greatest care not to fall back into the previous day's mistakes,) and, when all is right and easy in every particular, pass on to another number, which he must treat altogether in the same quiet way. And so on every day till he himself says, "I need no more student, or class, a thorough practical knowledge of French pronunciation, and if continued long enough with exclusive attention, will cure the most inveterate bad habits. ESSENTIAL REMARKS ON PARSING. Thus far we have been striving to introduce the least possible theory in the expounding of our system; but there are a few important sounds and phonic signs, upon which we deem six more remarks to be absolutely necessary here — both as a preface page, addressed to advanced students, and as future reference to beginners for lighting and smoothing their respective way throughout our common practical ground. I. We did not mark the half-audible sound, whenever it was unavoidably to be found right, in the usual English pronunciation of the French spelling. In such cases of rapid utterance, we have purposely given to the E mute the silencing sign, 0, instead of the subdued sound, e, for fear of too much sound- or rather of too much time in the sound of the preceding consonant. EXAMPLE. 0 0 une toute, dame, homme, grande, bonne, belle, sire, personne, tête, écoute, laisse, 0 vote, censure, mérite, etc. II. The phonic sign always represents both time and subdued sound, showing that the articulate vibration of air ought not abruptly to cease on the last consonant which precedes the final E mute, but slowly end by degrees there. It is then, very often, the real oratorical accent; for, according to the physical necessity of breathing, or the more or less of moral impulse and feeling in the speaker, there will be more or less of sound, and of time spent in the sound. As to the resting or emphatic particle of time itself, it is (all things being equal) half a pause after a colon, a semicolon, and some commas, and a full pause at the end of sentences, when the final sound must softly die from a low, |