The Essentials of Language and Grammar

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1900. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER LXXXV. DIACRITICAL MARKS: STEMS, PREFIXES, AND SUFFIXES. Diacritical Marks. The English alphabet consists of twenty-six letters. These letters, however, represent forty-three native or common sounds, and many others of foreign origin introduced into the English language with the foreign words in which they occur. A single letter, then, may represent several sounds: thus a represents a different sound in each of the following words, --ale, man, are, ash, air, all, courage. While in ordinary print nothing indicates which one of the several sounds that it may represent should be given to a letter, in dictionaries and other works of reference to which we turn for authority in pronunciation, certain marks, called diacritical (distinguishing) marks, are added or put adjacent to letters to indicate their exact sound. Thus a always denotes the long sound of a, as in mate; while a always denotes the short sound of a, as in mat. Diacritical Marks, or Diacritics, are marks added to, or put adjacent to, letters to denote the exact sound which such letters have in a particular syllable or word. The scheme of diacritical marks used by the several dictionaries is not entirely uniform, and the key to pronunciation given in the dictionary consulted should be studied. The following scheme of diacritics, however, is in wide and excellent use: w before an accented vowel sound has the sound of oo lightly pronounced--western, witchery, watchful. y before an accented vowel sound has the sound of e lightly pronounced--yarrow, yearning, youthful. c as in cell is marked g c as in castle is marked e Study carefully the vowel sounds in the following words, and place over each vowel its distinguishing diacritic: man, mane, talk, fare, branch, palace; bless, fern, seal, where, ..