The Rhetorical Reader - 1833 Author:Ebenezer Porter Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: " Though he will not rise and give him, because he is his friend, yet because of his importunity he will rise and give him as many as he needeth." This circum... more »flex, wheji indistinct, coincides nearly with the rising slide ; when distinct, it denotes qualified affirmation instead of that which is positive as marked by the falling slide. CHAPTER IV. ACCENT. Accent is a stress laid on particular syllables, to promote harmony and distinctness of articulation. The syllable on which accent shall be placed, is determined by custom; and that without any regard to the meaning of words, except in these few cases. Where the same word in form, has a different sense, according to the seat of the accent; as, des'ert, (a wilderness) desert', (merit).—Or the accent may distinguish between the same word used as a noun or an adjective; as com'pact, (an agreement) compact, (close). Or it may distinguish the noun from the verb, thus: Ai'straot to abstract' ei'port to export' The seat of accent may be transposed by emphasis; as, He must increase, but I must decrease. This corruptible must put on Jncorruption. What fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness ? The accented syllable of a word is always uttered with a Louder note than the rest. When the syllable has the rising inflection, the slide continues upward till the word is finished ; so that when several syllables of a word follow the accent, they rise to a higher note than that which is accented; and when the accented syllable is the last in a word, it is also the highest. But when the accented syllable has the falling slide, it is always struck with a higher note than any other syllable in that word. Thus;—rising slide. Did he dare to propose such in Here the slide which begins on r6g, continues t...« less