We have seen that the mere phonetic framework of speech does not

constitute the inner fact of language and that the single sound of

articulated speech is not, as such, a linguistic element at all. For all

that, speech is so inevitably bound up with sounds and its articulation 【M1】__________

that we can hardly avoid giving the subject of phonetics some general

consideration. Experience has shown that neither the purely formal

aspects of a language or the course of its history can be fully understood 【M2】__________

without reference with the sounds in which this form and this history are 【M3】__________

embodied. The feeling that the average speaker has of his language is

that it is built up, acoustically speaking, of a comparatively small

number of distinctive sounds, each of which is rather accurately provided 【M4】__________

for in the current alphabet by one letter or, in few cases, by two or 【M5】__________

more alternative letters. As for the languages of foreigners, he generally

feels that, aside from a few striking differences that cannot escape

even the critical ear, the sounds they use are the same as those he is 【M6】__________

familiar with but that there is a mysterious “accent” to these foreign

languages, certain unanalyzed phonetic character, apart from the sounds 【M7】__________

as such, that gives them their air of strangeness. This naive feeling is

largely illusory on all scores. Phonetic analysis convinces one that 【M8】__________

a number of clearly distinguishable sounds and nuances of sounds that are 【M9】__________

habitually employed by the speakers of a language is far greater than

they by themselves recognize. 【M10】_________

【M3】