Page:Quiggin Dialect of Donegal 0145.png

§ 451. Apart from the reduction of vowels in proclitics every long vowel in a syllable immediate­ly preceding the stress tends to become short. Finck states that the short vowel under these circum­stances retains its quality. This is not the case in Donegal. Examples – trα·nõ꞉nə, ‘afternoon’, Di. tráthnóna; αr̥uw ·Nʹe꞉, ‘the day before yesterday’, < α꞉r̥uw, Di. ath­rughadh; gə dʹαr sə kʹlʹiuw, ‘that he made a basket’; dʹαnuw gʹrʹiNʹ, ‘to make fun’; dʹαN skαrtʹ erʹ, ‘call him’; rɔʃə ·wα꞉n = Róise bhán; kɔtə mo꞉r, ‘great coat’ (kɔ꞉tə); gɔl çɔ꞉lʹ, ‘singing &c.’, = gabháil cheóil; ə hɔrt lʹïm, ‘to take with me’; tɔrt suəs, ‘giving up’; tər dũw ə, ‘give it me’ (to꞉rʹ); Nʹi꞉ vɛ Lɔχ pʹi꞉Nʹə də rïNʹ əgəm lʹαt, ‘I won’t have anything to do with you’, Lɔχ < Luəχ, cp. § 27; təg ɔrt, ‘get up, on with you’ said to a cow = tóg ort; ꬶɔ Nɔ tʹrʹi꞉ ə χuərtə, ‘two or three visits’, = dhó no^{[A 1]} trí de chuarta; Nʹi꞉ vɛ ʃɛ, ‘he will not be’, pausa form bʹe(꞉)i, bʹəi; ə mʹɛdʹ ïmʹə, ‘the amount of butter’ (mʹeidʹ); ʃɛ də ·vαhə = sé do bheatha; α·heinʹ, ‘himself’; kʹibʹ ꬶUw̥, ‘sedge’ (kʹi꞉bʹ).

We have already seen that long vowels in stressed syllables are commonly shortened before h < th (§ 7). This also seems to have taken place in dʹiçəL, ‘strenuous effort’, Di. díchioll, Wi. díchill. In other cases we get double forms due to varying stress, e.g. α꞉tʹ, ‘place’ but ə Nætʹ i꞉nʹαχ, ‘in some place or other’; mo꞉rαn, ‘much, many’, but əNə mɔrαn ɔkuw.

§ 452. As words beginning in O.Ir. with e followed by a non-palatal consonant or with u (o) followed by a palatal consonant now begin with α and ï re­spective­ly there is consider­able hesita­tion as to whether the final of the article should be palatal or non-palatal before such forms. Some instances have already been given in § 4. Further examples – ə tʹi꞉vəL = an t‑aoibheall; ə tαbər, ‘the mud’, M.Ir. ebor, beside sə Nʹαbər, ‘in the mud’; lʹeʃ ə NαLαχ, ‘with the cattle’, O.Ir. ellach; bαnəN sə kα꞉s, ‘it was just the same’, for αnəN see § 4; ə Nʹiʃɔilʹ, ‘the game’, = an uis-fheóil; ə Nʹiʃαg, ‘the lark’, = an uiseag but always ə tiʃkʹə, ‘the water’; ə tʹedʹə, ‘the teacher’, M.Ir. aite; ə tʹeirʹə,