ELEMENTS OF SPEECH IN RELATION TO POETRY
47
equally long, but Nerol was the first of this series to be given,
and perhaps the subjects took longer to say it because it was
something new in the way of utterance.
The next group of graphs showed among other things, the
various effects of final “1.” It is not surprising that Idrel took
a longer time to repeat twenty-five times than did Tirel; even the
manipulation of the organs of articulation is a more difficult
matter for the former combination; time is about the only
noticeable difference between the two graphs, their height being
about equal. Undol and Unral were also close quantitative
equals, but the slightly greater effect of Unral at the beginning
of each group, as was seen from a combination graph, allies this
effect of “r” with those noted above. It would seem then, that
sometimes articulation force (e.g. the explosive character of
some consonants) is represented in the tapping in an inverse
proportional.
Tirel proceeded more evenly across the page than did any other
of this group of graphs, but in the final summation graph, Rinel
showed that the average stress on each of the twenty-five iam¬
bics was exactly the same. Unfortunately such summation
graphs were not duplicated to any but the slightest degree in
the longer ones and so their significance is doubtful ; one point
is to be made, however, and that is that where lack of uniformity
between the separate groups of the larger graphs is manifest,
all that can be stated about the summation graphs as regards one
another is just as significant as that which can be stated about
the longer graphs.
In regard to the general effect of final “1” in these combina¬
tions, one thing is quite remarkable; and that is the frequency
with which the fifth iambic of a group ends with a descent in
the curve. It is exactly fifty per cent : about ten per cent of the
time, also, there is no change from the fourth to the fifth foot.
The conclusion seems to be that the tendency of final “1” is to
produce its greatest motor effect in some other foot than the
fifth, when repeated in the manner employed in the above
experiments.