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Anglo-Saxon Grammar and Exercise Book

Note 1 — Chapter II · Sounds.

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Vowels are said to be round, or rounded, when the lip-opening is rounded; that is, when the lips are thrust out and puckered as if preparing to pronounce w. Thus o and u are round vowels: add -ing to each, and phonetically you have added -wing. E.g. gowing, suwing.

2. A little practice will enable the student to see the appropriateness of calling these consonants voiced and voiceless. Try to pronounce a voiced consonant,—d in den, for example, but without the assistance of en,—and there will be heard a gurgle, or vocal murmur. But in t, of ten, there is no sound at all, but only a feeling of tension in the organs.

3. Taken separately, every syllable ending in a single consonant is long. It may be said, therefore, that all closed syllables are long; but in the natural flow of language, the single final consonant of a syllable so often blends with a following initial vowel, the syllable thus becoming open and short, that such syllables are not recognized as prevailingly long. Cf. Modern English at all (= a-tall).

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