Synopsis
Investigations Into The Laws Of English Orthography And Pronunciation by Rudolph Leonhard Tafel surveys the physiology and history of English pronunciation, arguing that a physiological basis is essential to understanding how vowels and consonants are formed and related. It surveys the development of phonology from ancient to modern times, cites Briicke, Kempelen, Wallis, Ponce, Bonet, and Raumer, and presents the author's own system for organizing vowels, semi-vowels, and consonants. The work divides articulate sounds into vowels, semi-vowels, and consonants, and posits three articulation stations (labial, dental, guttural) with hard, soft, and fluid categories. It outlines five general vowel-sounds (a in father, e in edge, a in machine, u in flute, o in note) and five particular vowels, discusses long and short vowels, the indistinct vowel-sound, and the role of vowel-consonants w and y. It then treats diphthongs, consonantal diphthongs, semi-vowel diphthongs, and consonantal triphthongs, and concludes with syllabification and orthographic considerations. A foundational late-19th-century contribution to phonology and English spelling.
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