PHONETIC DESCRIPTION OF SCOTTISH LANGUAGE AND DIALECTS § 28. Stress — i.e. the relative force of the breath current — plays an important part in the modification of sounds. Assimilation, shortening, dropping of sounds, smoothing of diphthongs all begin in syllables that are losing stress. The following are examples of the play of stress in a sound, a word and a sentence. § 28.1. O.E. ā a nd open ă became [i′a] or [′i&schwa;] in s.Sc. — i.e. the single sound is broken up into two. When the stress fell on the first element the second vowel became more feeble = [&schwa;] as in [sti&schwa;n] (sto n e). When it fell on the second vowel the first became weak and eventually became consonantal = y [j]. O.E. ān = one bccame ien, then yen or yin [j&scirtail;n]. So yae = one (adj.), yill = ale, yits = oats, etc. See §§ 97.1, 97.4. O.E. céosan gives rise to Sc. chese (to choose) and ceósan to Eng. choose. § 28.2. Sometimes the stress shifts in a word, leading to a change in vowel or consonant — e.g. ′un′cūð became ′uncŭð and then ′unco or ′unca = [′&turnv;ŋk&schwa;]; Eng.po′lice, Sc. ′pollis [p&schwa;′lis, ′pol&sci;s]. So also gutcher (grandfather) for gude′sire, ′cummer (gossip) for com′mère. § 28.21. In unaccented position the mid flat vowel [&schwa;] is most commonly used in the body of a word and in prefixes and suffixes. The verbal suffix ing and the participial suffix and have been levelled in most dialects into [&schwa;n] or [In]. The ending ow tends to have a short ay [e] sound in most of the central dialects and in othe r districts an [&schwa;] vowel as in barrow, marrow, etc., [′bare] as against [′bar&schwa;]. So with the enclitic na, as in canna, mauna. Final ie or y has in most parts of m.Sc. [e], elsewhere some variation of i [&sci;, &scirtail; or i]. In n.Sc. and e.Per. final ie or y varies (1) according to the character of the preceding vowel, (2) according to the preceding consonant. In the first case if the stem vowel is ee [i] or ey [&schwa;i, ei] final ie or y tends to become ee [i] — e.g. wheelie, weety (wet), wily.1 Secondly if the preceding consonant is a voiced plosive or fricative — e.g. d or z — the suffix is [i] as body, bosie (bosom).2 The suffixes -like and -rife may have [&schwa;i, ei] or [&sci;], daft-like, waukrife3; -ual becomes [w&schwa;l], as in annual, actual 4; -ful is reduced to fa [f&schwa;] — e.g. waeful5; -ward (direction) appears as wart, art, ert, it, as doonwart, ackart, afiedlert, forrit.6 § 28.3. Words of small importance in a sentence are slightly stresseed and their elements change in quality — e.g. O.E. ān = one becomes ăn and ă = indef. art., then [&schwa;n and &schwa;]. So his becomes is [&sci;z], then z and s. “That is him” becomes “that's him”, where that and him are both stressed, and “that's im,” where ony that is stressed = [ðats m]. So O.E. on bæc = on back becomes a back = [&schwa;′bak]. § 29. Quantity is influenced by stress especially in the shortening of vowels in weakly stressed syllables. See § 28.2. Vowel quantity is often dependent on the character of the following consonant(s). In Scots the vowel tends to maximum length in stressed syllables ending in voiced fricatives [v, ð, z] and [r]. At one stage in the history of the language vowels were lengthened before certain voiced consonant combinations — e.g. mb, ld, as in waim, caim (womb, comb), field, chield, and shortened before certain breathed combinations — e.g. sk, st, as in ask, blast, dust. At another stage O.E. ă, &ebreve;, &obreve;, were lengthened in open 7 position irrespective of adjacent sounds, and subsequently developed in a different direction from the same short vowels in close position. For examples see articles on dialects, §§ 81-166. § 29.1. When a word is used in composition its vowel is frequently shortened. O.E. hlāf gives rise to Sc. laif. In its compound hlāfmæsse the a is shortened and we get Lammas, hūswīf becomes Eng. hussif and Sc. hizzy; lickly in n.Sc. for likely results from an early shortening of the original long i [i] sound. In Cai. this shortened vowel is transferred to the original word by a process of analogy — leck for like. Lallan(d)s = Lowlands is another example of this shortening. Inorganic Change. § 30. Organic change is mechanical in character, and if left to itself would produce an embarrassing variety of forms. Reason, playing on these diverse forms, associates words similar in sound, in meaning, and in function, or related in some inflexional system. Remembering the conjugation sing, sang, sung, and arguing from analogy, a child might say bring, brang, brung, or on the analogy love, loved, it might infer brin, bringed. Brang, brung actually occur in the dialects, but such formations have not been ratified by general use. Others, however, have been received — e.g. wear originally formed its pa.t. and pa.p. in ed, but the analogy of tear, tore, torn, bear, bore, born(e) has given us wear, wore, worn. Shae for shoe and shin for shoes may be the regular phonetic forms in a Sc. dialect, but the desire for uniformity of sound in words of the same meaning may give a second plural form, shaen, which ultimately supplants the regular form. Need and necessity are associated in meaning, hence we find such a form as needcessity. A more plausible result of analogical reasoning is the form delicht, which has found some currency in literary Scots on the ground, apparently, that as light gives licht so delight 1 ′&turnw;ili, ′witi, ′w&schwa;ili. 2 ′b&openo;di, ′bo:zi. 3 ′daftl&schwa;ik or -l&scirtail;k, ′w&oh.kr&schwa;if or -r&scirtail;f. 4 ′anw&schwa;l, ′ak(t)w&schwa;l. 5 ′we:f&schwa;. 6 ′dunw&schwa;rt, ′ak&schwa;rt, &schwa;′fidl&schwa;rt, ′f&openo;r&sci;t. 7 A syllable is said to be closed or close when it ends with a consonant, as fat, harvest. It is open when it ends with a vowel, as la = dy, low. b