Re: schoen

On Wed, 07 Dec 2005 10:25:13 GMT, John Atkinson
<johnacko@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in
<news:dMylf.13732$ea6.6215@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> in
sci.lang:

> "Joachim Pense" <spam-collector@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
> news:fsb4jozzbl53$.66zx5hn849q$.dlg@xxxxxxxxxxxxx

>> Am Tue, 06 Dec 2005 21:21:14 +0100 schrieb Ruud Harmsen:

>>> Tue, 06 Dec 2005 19:04:33 GMT: "Peter T. Daniels"
>>> <grammatim@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>: in sci.lang:

>>>>You know a variety of English that has a pure [e:]?? Where?

>>> Schotland.

>> Do they have long vowels there?

> Yes. Most words spelled with <-ai-> (pair, braid, hail,
> bait, ...) have /e:/, contrasting with /e/ in oak, boat,
> home, go, two, late, day, etc. Similarly there's /o:/
> (throat, rose, before) contrasting with /o/ (god, on,
> loch, horse), and /a.e/ (five, fry, aye (yes), fire)
> contrasting with /@i/ (way, ay (ever), join, bite).

> The above vary somewhat according to dialect (e.g., /e:/and /e/ merge in
> many central Scots varieties).

For what it's worth, in _Understanding Language Change_
April McMahon says that Scots and Scottish Standard English
have no length contrast. Where RP has /i: I/, /e: E/,
/A: æ/, /u: o/, /O: A./, and /oU V/, for Scots/SSE she gives
/i I/, /e E/, /a a/, /u u/, /O O/, and /o V/. The Concise
Scots Dictionary offers [bred] and [brEd] for <braid> (also
Aberdeen Coast [br@id]).

> Then there's Aitken's law, which affects most Scots vowels, making them long
> before "a following voiced fricative, /r/, or a morpheme boundary, all these
> being either final or followed by a consonant constituting a second
> morpheme".

The exceptions, according to McMahon, are /I V E/.

> But as Joachim says, answering his own question in another
> place, this is predictable, thus not contrastive.

> [Ref for all the above: Aitken's chapter in Trudgill (ed)
> Language in the British Isles. Wells, Accents of
> English, seems to more or less agree.]

Brian
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: schoen
    ... > April McMahon says that Scots and Scottish Standard English ... have instances of length contrasts in other environments [than those ... He doesn't attempt to locate these speakers in any particular ... >> Then there's Aitken's law, which affects most Scots vowels, making them ...
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  • Re: schoen
    ... > I dooont knooo, but I think sooo. ... I guess this is a misplaced answer to my question "do they have long vowels ... I find that vowel length is not contrastive in Scots ...
    (sci.lang)
  • Re: schoen
    ... >> I dooont knooo, but I think sooo. ... I find that vowel length is not contrastive in Scots ... but vowels become long in some phonetic ...
    (sci.lang)