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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. 1894 edition. Excerpt:...the peculiar form of the syllable shortened, as in Mesne me, shows some peculiar affection analogous to our clipped words, gon t' Boston, Int' town, six Aits ofu Carter. A fourth possibility is that the division of syllables, which, as we have seen above, made position, was neglected. Here again we have the difference between Italian and English pronunciation. In morto we notice the same pause between the syllables that we saw in the case of two like consonants; in mortar we do not pause. In the latter case there is a continuous flow of sound, and we cannot say whether we divide after the r or the /. We know there are two syllables, because there are two distinct expulsions or efforts, but which letter belongs to the first, and which to the second, it is impossible to tell, unless we purposely make the division in one place or the other. In order to make position, as we have seen, the Romans must have made the division perceptible. They must have said opor-tet, ferm-tcm, facul-tas. They could no doubt have spoken the words as we do,--we say important, preventing, insulted,--and if they did, then position would disappear. The only indication that they ever really did so is found in the instances above, where scr at the beginning of a word does not make position. I have thus tried to account for the different shortenings of position-affected syllables in early Latin. The points I wish to make are these: 1. It is not to be expected in a matter of phonetics that all details should be reducible to one principle. Each combination had its own accommodations, as in our own clipped and adjusted sequences of sounds. 2. That position is syllabic in its nature, depending on the pause between consonants which is connected with a new letting go of the breath....