The semivowels, although flat, admit of being followed by a sharp consonant. The law exhibited above may be called the law of accommodation. {153} Combinations like _gt_, _kd_, &c., may be called incompatible combinations. s. 216. _Unstable combinations._--That certain sounds in combination with others have a tendency to undergo changes, may be collected from the observation of our own language, as we find it spoken by those around us, or by ourselves. The _ew_ in _new_ is a sample of what may be called an unsteady or unstable combination. There is a natural tendency to change it either into _oo_ (_noo_) or _yoo_ (_nyoo_); perhaps also into _yew_ (_nyew_). s. 217. _Effect of the semivowel _y_ on certain letters when they precede it._--Taken by itself the semivowel _y_, followed by a vowel (_ya_, _yee_, _yo_, _you_, &c.), forms a stable combination. Not so, however, if it be preceded by a consonant, of the series _t_, _k_, or _s_, as _tya_, _tyo_; _dya_, _dyo_; _kya_, _kyo_; _sya_, _syo_. There then arises an unstable combination. _Sya_ and _syo_ we pronounce as _sha_ and _sho_; _tya_ and _tyo_ we pronounce as _cha_ and _ja_ (_i.e._ _tsh_, _dzh_.). This we may verify from our pronunciation of words like _sure_, _picture_, _verdure_ (_shoor_, _pictshoor_, _verdzhoor_), having previously remarked that the _u_ in those words is not sounded as _oo_ but as _yoo_. The effect of the semivowel _y_, taken with instability of the combination _ew_, accounts for the tendency to pronounce _dew_ as if written _jew_. s. 218. _The evolution of new sounds._--To an English ear the sound of the German _ch_ falls strange. To an English organ it is at first difficult to pronounce. The same is the case with the German vowels _oe_ and _ue_ and with the French sounds _u_, _eu_, &c. To a German, however, and a Frenchman, the sound of the English _th_ (either in _thin_ or _thine_) is equally a matter of difficulty. The reason of this lies in the fact of the respective sounds being absent in the German, French, and English languages; since sounds are easy or hard to pronounce just in proportion as we have been familiarised with them. There is no instance of a new sound being introduced at once into a language. Where they originate at all, they are _evolved_, not imported. {154}