Scottish vowel length rule
The Scottish Vowel Length Rule (also known as Aitken's law after
- Before /r/.
- Before a voiced fricative(/v, z, ð, ʒ/).
- Before a morpheme boundary.
- In a word-final open syllable, save for the HAPPY vowel /e/ (or, in Geordie, /iː/).
Exceptions can also exist for particular vowel phonemes, dialects, words, etc., some of which are discussed in greater detail below.
Phonemes
The underlying phonemes of the Scottish vowel system (that is, in both Scottish Standard English dialects and Scots dialects) are as follows:[3]
Aitken's Scots vowel number |
1 | 2 | 3 | 16 | 4 | 8 | 8a | 10 | 9 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 14 | 11 | 12 | 18 | 13 | 15 | 17 | 19 | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Scots phoneme | /ai~əi/★ | /i/★ | /ei/[a] | /ɛ/★ | /e/★ | /eː~eːə/[b] | /əi/ | /oi/ | /o/ | /ʉ/★[c] | /ø/★[d] | /jʉ/ | /iː/★[e] | /ɔː/ | /ɔ/★[f] | /ʌʉ/★[g] | — | /ɪ/[h] | /a/★[i] | /ʌ/ | ||
Scottish English phoneme | /ai~əi/★ | /i/★ | /ɛ/★ | /e/★[j] | /ɔi/ | /o/ | — | /ʉ/★[k] | /jʉ/[l][m] | — | /ɔ/[n] | — | /ʌʉ/★ | /ɪ/ | /a/★ | /ʌ/[k] | ||||||
lexical
sets |
PRICE | FLEECE, NEAR | DRESS, NURSE (part)[o] |
FACE, happY, SQUARE | CHOICE | GOAT, FORCE | — | FOOT, GOOSE, CURE | — | THOUGHT, LOT, CLOTH, NORTH | — | MOUTH | KIT, NURSE (part)[o] |
TRAP, PALM, BATH, START | STRUT, NURSE (part)[o] | |||||||
Example words | bite, shire | beet, sheer | beat, shear | breath, head | bet, fern | bate, race | bait, raise | bay, ray | boil, join | boy, joy | boat, four | (aboot, mooth) | bush, boot, poor | beauty, pure | (dee, lee) | bought, flaw | bot, for | (nout, owre) | about, mouth | bit, fir | bat, farm | butt, fur |
★ = Vowels that definitively follow the Scottish Vowel Length Rule.
- ^ Vowel 3 remains a distinct phoneme /ei/ only in some North Northern Scots varieties,[4][5] generally merging with /i/ or /e/ in other Modern Scots varieties.[5]
- The vowels are not phonemically distinct in Scottish English, which is a rhotic variety.
- ^ Stem-final /ʉ/, is diphthongised to /ʌʉ/ in Southern Scots.[8]
- ^ Stem-final /iː/ is diphthongised to [əi] or [ei] in Southern Scots.[8]
- ^ /ɔ/ (vowel 18) may merge with /o/ (vowel 5) in Central and Southern Scots varieties.[12]
- ^ /ʌʉ/ may be merged with /o/ before /k/ in many Modern Scots varieties.
- ^ In some eastern and Southern Scots varieties /ɪ/ approaches /ɛ/ in quality. Whether this results in a phonemic merger needs to be further researched.[13]
- ^ In some Modern Scots varieties /a/ may merge with /ɔː/ in long environments.[14] (see below)
- ^ The final vowel in happY is best identified as an unstressed allophone of FACE for most speakers of Scottish English and Ulster English: /ˈhape/. In Geordie, it is best identified as an unstressed allophone of FLEECE: /ˈhapiː/.[15]
- ^ historically split in Geordie. In other words, the two relevant phonemes in all Scottish and Ulster varieties are FOOT/GOOSE versus STRUT, whereas in Geordie the two are FOOT/STRUT versus +GOOSE.[2]
- ^ The sequence corresponding to the CURE set is /ʉr/ (regardless of the preceding /j/, so including /jʉr/), not /jʉ/, as CURE stems from historical /uːr/. Both /ʉr/ and /jʉr/ function as vowel+consonant sequences in the phonologies of Scots and Scottish English. In English, /jʉ/ is normally regarded as a consonant+vowel sequence as well, rather than a diphthong. In this article, it is analyzed as a diphthong, following Aitken.
- yod-coalescence. Tune is best analysed as /tʃʉn/ for many speakers of Scottish English.
- cot-caught merger. Furthermore, this merged vowel may be invariably long in all environments, for some dialects. In Geordie, the vowels are distinct as /ɔː/ for THOUGHT/NORTH and /ɒ/ for LOT/CLOTH.[2]They are normally distinct in Ulster English as well, where CLOTH has a long vowel /ɔː/.
- ^ a b c Wells' lexical set NURSE corresponds to three separate Scottish phoneme sequences: /ɛr/, /ɪr/ and /ʌr/ (as in fern, fir and fur respectively), as Scots and Scottish English have not undergone the NURSE mergers found most other dialects of English.[16]
Rule specifics and exceptions
The Scottish Vowel Length Rule affects all vowels except the always-short vowels 15 and 19 (/ɪ/ and /ʌ/) and, in many Modern Scots varieties, the always-long Scots-only vowels 8, 11, and 12 (here transcribed as /eː/, /iː/ and /ɔː/) that do not occur as phonemes separate from /e, i, ɔ/ in Scottish Standard English.[17] The further north a Scots dialect is from central Scotland, the more it will contain specific words that do not adhere to the rule.[18]
- /ɪ/ and /ʌ/ (vowels 15 and 19) are usually short in all environments.
- In some Modern Scots varieties /a/ may merge with /ɔː/ in long environments.
- /i/, /e/, /o/, /ʉ/, /ø/, /ʌʉ/, and /jʉ/,(vowels 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 13, and 14) are usually long in the following environments and short elsewhere:[20]
- In stressed syllables before voiced fricatives, namely /v, ð, z, ʒ/, and also before /r/.[17] In some Modern Scots varieties, before the monomorphemic end-stresses syllables /rd/, /r/ + any voiced consonant, /ɡ/ and /dʒ/.[21] In Shetland dialect the [d] realisation of underlying /ð/, usual in other Scots varieties, remains a long environment.[22]
- Before another vowel[23] and
- Before a morpheme boundary[17] so, for example, "stayed" [steːd] is pronounced with a longer vowel than "staid" [sted].
- In stressed syllables before
- /ɔː/ (vowel 12) usually occurs in all environments in final stressed syllables.[14][clarification needed]
- Vowel 8a, which only occurs stem-finally, and vowel 10 are always short;[5] therefore, vowel 1 in its short form (according to the Rule), vowel 8a, and vowel 10 all merge as the diphthong /əi/. In its long form, vowel 1 is here transcribed as /ai/.[20]
History
The Scottish Vowel Length Rule is assumed to have come into being between the early Middle Scots and late Middle Scots periods.[24]
References
- ^ Harris J. (1985) Phonological Variation and Change: Studies in Hiberno English, Cambridge. p. 14
- ^
- ^ Aitken A.J. (1984) 'Scottish Accents and Dialects' in 'Language in the British Isles' Trudgill, P. (ed). pp. 94-98.
- ^ Scottish National Dictionary, Introduction p. xxxvi Archived 17 May 2013 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ a b c A History of Scots to 1700, pp. xcviii
- ^ Aitken A.J. (1981) 'The Scottish Vowel-Length Rule' in 'So meny People Longages and Tonges' Benskin, M. and Samuels M.S. (eds). p. 151.
- ^ Johnston P. Regional Variation in Jones C. (1997) The Edinburgh History of the Scots Language, Edinburg University Press, p. 465.
- ^ a b Introduction. p. xxx. Archived from the original on 19 August 2014.
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ignored (help) - ^ Aitken A.J. (1984) 'Scottish Accents and Dialects' in 'Language in the British Isles' Trudgill, P. (ed). p. 99.
- ^ Aitken A.J. (1981) 'The Scottish Vowel-Length Rule' in 'So meny People Longages and Tonges' Benskin, M. and Samuels M.S. (eds). p. 144-145.
- ^ Scottish National Dictionary, Introduction p. xix
- ^ Aitken A.J. (1981) 'The Scottish Vowel-Length Rule' in 'So meny People Longages and Tonges' Benskin, M. and Samuels M.S. (eds). p. 152.
- ^ Aitken A.J. (1984) 'Scottish Accents and Dialects' in 'Language in the British Isles' Trudgill, P. (ed). p. 101.
- ^ a b c Aitken A.J. (1981) 'The Scottish Vowel-Length Rule' in 'So meny People Longages and Tonges' Benskin, M. and Samuels M.S. (eds). p. 150.
- ISBN 0-521-22919-7, (vol. 1)
- ISBN 0-521-22919-7, (vol. 1)
- ^ a b c Aitken A.J. (1984) 'Scottish Accents and Dialects' in 'Language in the British Isles' Trudgill, P. (ed). p. 98.
- ^ Coll Millar. 2007. Northern and Insular Scots. Edinburgh: University Press Ltd. p. 20
- ^ Harris J. (1984) English in the north of Ireland in Trudgill P., Language in the British Isles, Cambridge p. 120
- ^ A.J. Aitkenin The Oxford Companion to the English Language, Oxford University Press 1992. p. 894
- ^ Aitken A.J. (1981) 'The Scottish Vowel-Length Rule' in 'So meny People Longages and Tonges' Benskin, M. and Samuels M.S. (eds). p. 147.
- ^ Aitken A.J. (1981) 'The Scottish Vowel-Length Rule' in 'So meny People Longages and Tonges' Benskin, M. and Samuels M.S. (eds). p. 141.
- A.J. Aitkenin The Oxford Companion to the English Language, Oxford University Press 1992. p. 910
- ^ Aitken A.J. (1981) 'The Scottish Vowel-Length Rule' in 'So meny People Longages and Tonges' Benskin, M. and Samuels M.S. (eds). p. 137.