1
Diction as a wholeA translator is bound to render this chapter, since the balance of evidence is in favour of its inclusion. But the readaer is advised to skip it, since it is written from the point of view of grammar and philology, and does not, like the succeeding chapter, deal with the literary use of words. It is also very obscure. Students should refer to Bywater’s edition. is made up of these parts: letter, syllable, conjunction, joint,A joint, as defined below, appears to be a word which indicates the beginning or end of a clause. noun, verb, case, phrase.
2
A letter is an indivisible sound, not every such sound but one of which an intelligible sound can be formed. Animals utter indivisible sounds but none that I should call a letter.
3
Such sounds may be subdivided into vowel, semi-vowel, and mute. A vowel is that which without any addition has an audible sound; a semivowel needs the addition of another letter to give it audible sound, for instance S and R; a mute is that which with addition has no sound of its own but becomes audible when combined with some of the letters which have a sound. Examples of mutes are G and D.
4
Letters differ according to the shape of the mouth and the place at which they are sounded; in being with or without aspiration; in being long and short; and lastly in having an acute, grave, or intermediate accent. But the detailed study of these matters properly concerns students of metre.
