Researches on the rhythm of speech. 
5 
The author makes the following general deductions : (i) the point of 
energy occurs in the initial consonant or consonants somewhere shortly 
before the beginning of the vowel, varying somewhat according to the 
difficulty of articulating the consonants’ ; (2) the moment of the least, 
and not the moment of the highest, energy of speech determines the 
boundaries of the foot* 2; (3) whenever the beginning of the arsis (part 
of syllable preceding point of highest energy) coincides with the begin¬ 
ning of a syllable, and the end of the thesis (part following the point of 
highest energy) coincides with the end of the syllable, the boundaries of 
the foot coincide with the boundaries of the syllables2 ; and (4) when¬ 
ever unemphatic syllables uniformly coincide with the arsis or the thesis 
of an accented syllable, the boundaries of the foot of verse and prose 
(“Sprechtakt”) become identical.2 
Meyer states3 that the investigation was subject to the following 
sources of error, which were incapable of elimination : ( 1 ) latent time 
of the apparatus ( “ Registrirverzögerung ” ), some loss in the time of 
transmission, and in the quantity of the energy to be recorded in the 
passage from the receiving to the recording points being inevitable ; 
(2) errors of measurement (“ Wahrnehmungsverzögerung”) owing to 
the limited capacity of the visual organ to discriminate small differ¬ 
ences. 
The following considerations, as affecting Meyer’s experiments, may 
be noted: (1) The measurements are essentially measurements of 
breathing. The air waves may or may not precisely coincide with the 
sounds. (2) An exact simultaneity in the occurrences within the central 
organs of the highest points of energy for the innervations of the vocal 
muscles and the muscles of the hand may perhaps be assumed. The ad¬ 
ditional assumption is made that the registering of the impressions are 
also synchronous. Since, however, the media for transmitting the im¬ 
pressions are not the same (the air and the hand), this may be unjustified. 
Moreover, it has been proved that no muscular movements are capable 
of exact coordination. Contrary to the supposition (although the move¬ 
ments of the hand are not reactions to the movements of the organs of 
speech) that the movements of the hand and vocal organs are not sub¬ 
ordinate but coordinate, the movements of the hand may serve as a 
regulative concomitant of the movements of the vocal organs. For this 
reason the results may not apply to the rhythm of free declamation. 
'Meyer, Beiträge zur deutschen Metrik, Neuere Sprachen, 1898 VI 134. 
2 Meyer, as before, 138. 
3 Meyer, as before, 26-30.