Poetics. Aristotle. Theodore Alois Buckley (Translator). London. 1857.
The Poetic of Aristotle (Theodore Alois Buckley) (OCR draft) (English) (Theodore Alois Buckley's English translation, first published in 1850 and represented from the Henry G. Bohn 1857 printing; corrected against a second OCR and aligned to the Kassel reference passage sequence.)
Provisional text from uncorrected OCR; expect errors.
Poetics
2.
mvp-aristotle-comment-714
συνετή.
The alternative reading συνθετὴ has been accepted by several editors, as also by
Steinthal (
Gesch. d. Sprachwissenschaft 1 p. 253) and
Diels (
Elementum p. 33).
The main argument in favour of συνθετὴ is that, as defined in b 34, the syllable is a
φωνὴ συνθετή, and that the syllable is viewed in sundry Aristotelian passages (
Bon. Ind. 702 b 39) as a synthesis of
στοιχεῖα.
This is true enough. But it has to be remembered on the other side that
Aristotle often speaks of the
στοιχεῖα ας
στοιχεῖα φωνῆς (
Bon. Ind. 702 b 35)-where
φωνή means the same thing as the
συνετὴ φωνή of the present passage.
And if we assume συνθετὴ to be the original reading, the excepting clause (οὐ πᾶσα δὲ κτέ.), which puts the 'indivisible sounds' of the brutes into a different category, is irrelevant.
Aristotle's argument here seems to be something like this: In the utterances of the brutes there are indivisible sounds, but these 'noises' of theirs are directly significant in themselves (
De interpr.2, 16229
);
they are not
στοιχεῖα φωνῆς, because they do not combine as elements to form a
φωνὴ συνετή.
The indivisible sounds, on the other hand, in human speech exist as elements in speech, and they have no meaning in themselves;
the meaning in human speech is in the words and propositions -not in the 'elements' which analysis reveals in them (comp.
Vahlen,
Beitr. 3 p. 220).
φωνὴ συνετή is perhaps the nearest Aristotelian equivalent for our term 'word'.
It may be taken as including not only the
φωνὴ σημαντική, the word that stands for something, but also the
φωνὴ ἄσημος-words like
ἀμφί,
περί,
μέν,
δέ, etc. (
Aristotle's
ἄρθρα and
σύνδεσμοι), which stand for nothing by themselves, though they have a certain significance in their place in intelligible human speech.
2.
mvp-aristotle-comment-467
20.2
2. La lettre est un ſon indiviſible, non pas quelque ſon que ce foit, mais celuy qui est articulé & intelligible.]
1
20.1.
mvp-aristotle-comment-81
20.2
A VOWEL.
IT seems very extraordinary, that while every art is in a progressive state of improvement, and that our mode of expreffing clearly the meaning of language to the eye, both in writing and printing, is so much fuperior to that of the ancients from the use of stops, capital-letters, &c. that the means of painting found to the eye should continue to be so very deficient and inaccurate. If the fame character always expressed the fame vowel found, the true pronunciation of language would be as easily conveyed by writing as by speaking. But this is so far from being the cafe, that the vowel sounds marked by letters, are not only confounded with each other, but the fame vowel found when long and short, is hardly ever expreffed by the fame letter, though we have only five [A] charac- [A] I confider Y (when a vowel) and I as the fame, fince they always have the fame found in the same fituation; their diftinct use relates solely to orthography, and has no relation with orthoepy. ters
POETIC OF ARISTOTLE. ters to express all our vowel founds. For example, the short found of A, which when long is pronounced, as in BACON, MAJOR, is marked by e as in BEND, MEN. The short A as in MAN, has feldom I believe [B] a congenial long found in our language but when it is followed by two confonants, as in MASTER, TASK, BARGE. However A, as in the first instance, may be confidered beyond comparison as the most ufual long found of the vowel, either when lengthened by an E mute, as in BANE and DARE, or when independent of a succeeding confonant, (which case always makes the vowel long in English) as in BASON and MASON. Our long vowel found of 1 has no correspondent short found; but we use I to reprefent the short found of E, as DEAN, DIN. Even if we should wish to express the short colloquial found of BEEN to the eye, we must not write BEN, but BIN [C]. That our characters paint words and not founds is obvious from the directions for pronouncing the vowels prefixed to the vocabulary printed at the end of Cook's Second Voyage to the South Seas. Or if that is not at hand, the hearing a child taught to spell, (the word DIVINATION for inftance,) will be equally conclusive. The Greek diftinguished two of their long and short vowel founds E and o by different characters, while the orientals contented themselves with only three characters, A, O, and 1, to exprefs all their vowel sounds; the two last of which were also used to express one an afpiration, and [B] There are however exceptions, as FATHER, where the TH can be confidered only as one confonant. [c] This subject is treated more at large in Mitford's Essay on the Harmony of Language, Sect. III. page 32. 3 E the
the other a confonant. The different found of these vowels, and sometimes their total omiffion, when [D] very short are left to be supplied by the memory and judgment. When the Arabians under the Caliphs became a polite and learned people, they invented other marks to shew the nicer distinction of the vowel sounds where they were noticed, and to fupply them where they were not. This invention, adopted by the Jews, and afterwards sanctified by a little rabbinical mystery, and then strengthened by monkish superftition and papal authority, is the true history of those wonderful Hebrew vowel points, which have made so much noise, and created so many violent schisms in the learned world. Perhaps some contrivance of this fort would be the best mode of giving our written language the most perfect precision as to its pronunciation, without any confufion as to the etymology of words, from which our irregular orthography in a great measure arises, and which is of the utmost consequence in a language like ours, whose words are drawn from so many different fources. [D] We are not very accurate in this cafe. I think there is not a very diftinguishable difference between the first syllables of MYRTLE, HURTLE, CERTAIN.. NOTE
2.
mvp-aristotle-comment-136
Ritter, cap. 20 § 2
στοιχεῖον μὲν οὖν ἐστὶ φωνὴ ἀδιαίρε τος: recte ponit
στοιχεῖον, non
γράμμα. elementa enim sive
στοιχεῖα sunt unde voces quae audiri possunt tamquam ex principiis conflantur; litterae sive
γράμματα (radix verbi est
γρ) sunt quatenus scalpuntur vel scribuntur.
ἀδιαίρετος et Latinum indivisus non solum de iis dici quae divisa non sunt sed etiam quae dividi non possunt, verbo monere sufficit.
ἐξ ἧς πέφυκε συνετή γίνεσθαι φωνή: ea est vocis illius indivisae sive individuae natura, ut vox quae intelligi possit fieri inde possit.