CERTAIN of the semantic devices of intonation are a good deal more constant and specific than others. One of the most constant and specific is that of the wide downskip used for minimization. It is also one of the easiest to treat because of the fact that it is frequently encountered alone and on short phrases which leave no doubt as to exactly what shade of meaning the intonation contributes. By 'downskip' in contrast to 'downglide' is meant a downward movement of pitch in which the glide, if any is present, is incidental and non-distinctive. The upper tone and the lower tone (themselves pure or slightly moving) are what the speaker intends to be heard side by side, and the extremely rapid motion between these two foci of sound is, if present at all, only the accident of getting from one point to the other.' As with other tonal devices, the meaning of this one is extremely broad; it does not refer particularly to contemptuous minimization, to selfdeprecating minimization, or to reassuring minimization, but may suggest any of these, and more, depending on the locution that it colors and in part on accessory tonal elements. It enables us to fill in the empty spaces between our words, and make one synonym shade continuously into the next-this is, in fact, one of the principal uses of symbolic intonation: to make our language a continuum, and prevent the merely verbal combinations from being too discrete. A good non-emotional locution with which to test the downskip is a few. This divides the range of 'a small quantity' with some, and, since the range is fairly wide, we often need to fill it with other than verbal devices. Observe the shadings that may be got with a few by intoning it in three different ways: first, with narrow upmotion on few beginning in the middle of the syllable: a fe/w; second, with a slight rise, followed by a fall and a rise, the curve resembling that of the sign for similarity, or tilde; third, with a wide downskip, beginning with a in falsetto and dropping immediately to few at least an octave lower, and-giving few either a steady tone or a slight rise. By contrast with the other contours, the downskip unmistakably reduces the quantity symbolized by a few. Intoning some in the same three ways gives similar results; the effect of dividing the syllable into two halves by a downskip (and this time the slight rise at the end of the syllable is necessary) is to make the word