Researches on the rhythm of speech. 
127 
while for the simple intervals, there are eight such records of poetry and 
one of prose. The pause constitutes the one rhythmical ; the other, in the 
main, non-rhythmical. It creates two alternating, though interpenetrat¬ 
ing, sequences within the unity of the discourse ; the one consisting of 
expiration intervals, being rhythmical, the one consisting of expiration 
and vacant intervals, being non-rhythmical. 
We saw that the terminal pauses, which were longer and more regular 
than the sectional, unified the verses. The tables for the sectional 
pauses and the simple and complex intervals show that when the number 
of sectional paus.es is large the coordination of the intervals is poor. 
When they occur quite regularly in long verses these are split up into 
two. Most of those reading the Browning verses written as prose who 
made regular sectional pauses, when asked to write the sentences as 
verses, doubled the number. Here the pauses segregated the verses into 
two parts. Both the terminal and sectional pauses may thus become 
rhythmically recurrent, provided they recur at fairly regular intervals and 
are of fairly regular length. 
Rhythmically, pauses check the continuity of the centroid rhythm of 
speech ; they limit the length of centroid sequences. This makes cen¬ 
troid rhythm essentially discontinuous, an alternately interrupted and 
recommencing flow, an inter-pause rhythm. Mechanical rhythm, e. g-. 
clock ticks, consists of continuous sequences of coordinated intervals. 
Pauses also assist in imparting a felt unity to sequences of several cen¬ 
troid intervals, provided they follow a certain law, whence arises a 
secondary rhythm, that of vacant and expiration intervals. Thus we get 
the verse interval rhythm. 
Psychologically, the pause serves to avert the monotony of long 
sequences of regularly recurrent stimuli. The length of these will affect 
the quality of the rhythm. Too long or too short series are objectionable. 
This may differ for different kinds of scansion and rhythmisation. In 
subjective rhythmisation a continuance of clicks for 45 seconds has been 
found favorable, for 70 seconds disgusting.1 The pause thus contributes 
change, variety, relaxation, and also a complex feeling of rhythm due to 
the involution or interpenetration of the two orders of rhythm. 
Bearing on some phases of speech rhythm. — (a) The elements of rhythm. 
—Speech rhythm has been defined as a “law of succession’’ (Guest); 
a “ principle of proportion introduced into language,” “ inferior meter ” 
(Seeley and Abbott); “ periodic stimulation of sounds or of a small 
group of sounds ” (Gurney); “ the succession and involution of unities, 
that is, unities within unities, applicable to feet, verses and stanzas ’ ’ 
1 Titchener, Experimental Psychology, I n 340, New York 1901.