ABSTRACT:The two contributions, vibrational and electronic, to the electrical properties polarizability and first hyperpolarizability of monosubstituted acetylene HC'COX (with X ϭ F, Cl, Br, OH, SH, BH 2 , NH 2 , CH 3 , and SiH 3 ) have been evaluated using the self-consistent field wave functions within the double-harmonic oscillator approximation. The results show that both contributions to the electrical properties are sensitive to the nature of the substituent: electronegativity, atomic volume, and X-weight. In some cases, X ϭ NH 2 , SiH 3 , and SH, the nonlinear optical response is essentially due to, and only to, the vibrational response  L of the molecule. A complete study is made upon two tracks, upon the intrinsic properties of X and upon the IR and Raman spectra as well as the sum-over-modes expression. We also calculated the electrical properties at the AUG-cc-pVDZ basis set and at geometric parameters optimized at different levels of theory (B3LYP and MP2).