THE

BIBLIOTHECA SACRA.

ARTICLE I.

THE TWOFOLD FUNDAMENTAL LAW OF RHYTHM AND ACCENTUATION; OR, THE RELATION OF THE RHYTHMICAL TO THE LOGICAL PRINCIPLE OF THE MELODY OF HUMAN SPEECH.

TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN OF PROF. HUPFELD BY REV. CHARLES M. MEAD, PH.D., PROFESSOR IN ANDOVER THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY.

THE investigations hitherto made in regard to the principle of Hebrew accentuation — growing out of the conviction that the cantillation now practised in the Jewish synagogues does not correctly represent it, and that its real significance can not be chiefly musical - have established the fact that the main principle underlying this accentuation must be a logical one, a division according to the sense, but that in connection with this there is also a phonetic or musical element, belonging to the sphere of modulation, which is not to be overlooked. But the significance and extent of the latter element and its relation to the first were not clear, and continued to be a subject of controversy. Years ago I deduced this element from the nature of rhythm, and sought to find in it the higher principle in which logic and phonetics meet together.1 But in order to a clear understanding of the subject, and a

1 In the "Geschichte der Hcbr. Sinnabtheilung' (3d Part: Beleuchtung dunkler Stellen der alttestlamentlichen Text geschichte) in the "Theologische Studien und Kritiken" of 1837, No. 4; also in the first number of my Heb. Grammar, §§ 23, 24.

VOL. XXIV. No. 93.-JANUARY, 1867. 1

definitive settlement of the long-disputed question, relating, as it does, to so difficult and remote a department of philology and anthropology, great clearness and distinctness of ideas is necessary; and in order to gain this, a more minute, and exhaustive discussion is required than I was then able to give. First of all, we must find the law of nature out of which the phonetico-musical, or physical, element in human speech proceeds, in order to gain an understanding of its relation to the logical principle of speech, and of the co-operation of both elements in the rhythm and accent of melodious language. To this end we proceed first to examine more particularly accent, in which the phenomena in question most clearly come to view.

Accent or tone is, as all know, that emphasis or stress (TóvOS), i.e. that raising of the voice, by which one part of the discourse-one syllable or word- is raised above the others and distinguished as the chief syllable or chief word. It is the simple and wonderful means by which the mind (whose business it is in general to penetrate and illuminate the vast quantity and multitudinous forms of matter, and thus to simplify them and assimilate them to itself) points out and enforces that, in a series of words and sentences, which for its purpose is most essential; that in which the chief idea, and so the unity, of the whole series lies. It describes to the ear the course of the mind above the discourse, and its several strokes are, as it were, the audible footsteps of the mind's march. Without it language would form a crude, lifeless mass of sound. It is this which breathes life and soul into that mass of sound, by presenting to the ear smaller and larger members or parts of speech, of which each constitutes by itself a notion, and by constructing out of these members the meaning of the whole, forming them into a sort of organic body, proceeding in a regular gradation from the smaller to the greater members. At the lowest stage it constructs words, by reducing to one single notion an aggregate of sounds and syllables, together with the distinct elements of root and inflection involved in them, by means of emphasi

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laid on the principal syllable (verbal accent).1 Next, by emphasizing the principal one of a series of words (i.e. the principal syllable of this word, by means therefore of the verbal accent) it unites the series into a single sentence. In like manner several sentences, by the prominence given to the principal sentence, are made to form a period. And even beyond this limit, accent operates in still greater divisions, according as the mind by means of it is able to master the quantity. This depends, on the one hand, on the mental clearness and vivacity of the speaker or reader; on the other, on his power over his voice on his elocution. That which constitutes the principle of unity in these divisions of speech is also the principle of their separation; and it is accordingly accent which effects the division of the sense the separation of the words and the division into sentences and periods which is designated in writing partly by interspaces, partly by punctuation.2 But the influence of accent is by no means limited to giving prominence to those parts of spoken language which (in the way just described) receive the intonation, and form the exponents of the contents of a whole series, the illuminated peaks, as it were, which tower up out of the obscure mass of words. It embraces within its sphere the whole mass of words, its intonations being graduated and classified according to their logical relations. And only by this fact can be explained the secret of its power,

1 Cf. Wm. von Humboldt: Ueber Entstehung der grammatischen Formen, in den Abhandlungen der Berliner Akademie 1824, p. 423. According to its principle the accent ought strictly always to fall upon that syllable which is for the notion the chief syllable, which constitutes the logical centre and the kernel of the word, therefore the stem syllable. But this is the case actually only in the German language, where the terminations have been by degrees subdued and suppressed. In other languages, where this has not been accomplished, the accent must depend on the strength of the final syllables, according to a phonetic (rhythmical) law. See below.

2 But only the Hebrew writings of the Old Test. in their present form designate the divisions of the sense within the period (the so-called verse) simply by its system of accents, and so by that which constitutes the principle of the division. Respecting the ancient designation of the larger sections and their historical development into the present accentuation, see the above-mentioned Essay in the Stud. und Krit. 1837, p. 836 sq., and Heb. Gram. §§ 18–22.

viz. that it is able to blend a plurality of sounds into unity, and to mark single sounds as exponents of the contents of the whole series. This is done simply by making prominent one of a series of sounds, and thus giving to the others a point around which they may group themselves (in ascending and descending gradation), forming, therefore, a centre and kernel, and thus producing a unity of sound, which represents to the ear the unity of idea. In the case of the verbal accent, as related to the other syllables of the word, this is at once obvious. Inasmuch, now, as the accent of the sentence is nothing else than the verbal accent of the principal word, and therefore, in order to be the accent of the sentence must make itself more prominent than the verbal accent of the other words of the sentence, and inasmuch as the same is true in a still higher degree of the accent of the leading sentence in a period, there results at once a gradation, a rank, among the accents, according to the logical importance of the sphere of each in relation to the whole. At the same time, however, it is, as a matter of course, to be inferred from this that the gradation is not confined to the tones of the principal words of the sentence, but extends to that of all the other words; in short, that the tone of every word accords with its logical relation to the whole. And this is fully confirmed by a closer consideration and comparison of the accents with which the separate words are spoken.1 Furthermore, a similar difference will show itself in respect to the duration of the tone, or of the rapidity of the movement of the voice among the different parts of the discourse. As in every word the unaccented (earlier) syllables hasten towards the accented syllable, so in every sentence the accent hastens from one word quickly to another more closely connected with it in sense, or dwells longer on another, and separates it from the rest, in accordance with the notion it is aiming to express; here pressing towards the chief word of the sentence as its highest point; there calmly passing it by, and gradually sinking down. Thus, out of the rough image

1 Of this more below, in treating of the rhythmical principle of speech.

of articulate sound there rises up a finer, more spiritual, as it were a rectified image, which, with its infinitely fine gradations and shades, presents exactly the order of the notions (the logical relations), as well as the relations of the feelings, involved in the discourse. These gradations of the accent are primarily gradations of the force or strength of the tone of the voice; but, since every increase of force is also connected with a slight raising of the scale, there results at the same time a certain melody in speech.

Thus far the principle of accent, and of the melody which it introduces into speech, seems to be a purely mental one, concerning merely the understanding and (in so far as the emotions participate in it) the feelings. Accordingly one might think that accent is something voluntary, arbitrary, which may be used or omitted at pleasure; an ornament, or an accomplishment, without which, indeed, speech does not fully express what is in the mind (therefore essential to the perfection of speech), but which one may in many cases fore

But this would be a complete error. Accent is rather a physical necessity, which in speaking we cannot avoid, even if we would. Even when one takes pains to speak without accent (e.g. for the sake of affecting gentility, or of concealing his feelings), he can do no more than to diminish the gradations of it as much as possible and make them. unnoticeable, but cannot entirely suppress them. Accent must therefore grow out of a law of nature, to which the voice in its progress is bound. And this law is in physics well known as the law of motion in all fluids. It is the law of undulation, of fluctuation. That the voice also moves according to this law, that its course is "undulatory," i.e.

1 This, by the way, is etymologically the fundamental notion of the words for motion: In German bewegen, related to wogen, wage, wiege, wagen, etc.; Latin, ago (properly vago, Aeol. Báyw, from which vagus, vacillo, wackeln, cognate veho, xos, wagon, vectis, scales); from it agina, scales, axis, axle, axilla, shoulder (contracted, ala), especially of things which move around a fixed centre; again, Bios (i.e. equiponderant); oculus, Sanser. akshas, eye (from its rolling, axle-like motion), etc. Cf. my Essay in A. Kuhn's Zeitschrift für vergleichende Sprachforschung, VIII. 370 sq.