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weeks from July 15 to August 15’, = mí na súil síar because the last year’s crop has come to an end (also called mʹi꞉ Nə su꞉lʹ bwiə)[A 1].

§ 470. In the case of bh + bh the result in a few cases is b, e.g. dïbʹiNʹ, ‘Dibbin’ (place name), < dubh-bhinn; ti꞉bo̤s, ‘on this side’, = taobh ’bhus. The latter form leads to ti꞉b hαL, ‘on the further side’, also ti꞉pαL, ti꞉bαL; ti꞉puəs, ‘on the upper side’; ti꞉pʹiər, ‘on the west side’. Cp. Pedersen p. 161.

iv.

§ 471. A. voiced final loses its voice before the pronouns ʃə, ʃi꞉, ʃiəd &c, e.g. ꬶyt(ʹ) ʃə, ‘he stole’; ꬶrït(ʹ) ʃə, ‘he closed’; də χyt(ʹ) ʃə ‘your share’; iətsən, ‘they’, = iadsan; dα꞉k tuw, ‘you left’; ho̤k ʃə, ‘he took’. Compare ɛəksα̃uwilʹ, ‘wonderful’, Di. éag­samhail.

v.

§ 472. Proclitics ending in a non-palatal consonant are frequent­ly affected by an initial palatal vowel, e.g. dʹαr, ‘your husband’, < do + fhear[A 2]; mʹαr, ‘my husband’, < mo + fhear; ï, ‘my whip’ (§ 452); dʹæLʹ ʃə < do + fheall; Nʹi꞉ bʹα꞉r, ‘better’, = ní ba fhearr; bʹo̤mwi꞉ tαχ Nə mɔχt ə ro tα꞉rLαχ əN, ‘Charles was in many a poor-house’, = bu + iomaidh but Nʹi꞉ bɔ꞉li꞉ = ní b’eólaighe; αχ mər bʹe꞉, ‘had it not been for him’; se꞉, ʃi꞉, ‘it is he, she’, but əs mʹe꞉, ‘it is I’. Here the case of the article may also be mentioned, də Nʹαr, ‘to the man’; ə Nʹi꞉rʹiNʹə, ‘the truth’.

9. Vowel-length.

§ 473. In Donegal there seem to be four degrees of length in vowels, viz. short, half-long, long and overlong. Long vowels occur mostly in syllables with strong stress. When they occur in other syllables they are very frequent­ly due to contrac­tion. For the appear­ance of half-long vowels I can un­fortunate­ly give

  1. Cp. Lecky, History of Ireland in the Eigh­teenth Century vol. i p. 228: “There has always been in Ireland a great increase of real distress during the summer. Sir C. Lewis thus describes the state of things in the early years of the present century: ‘In the summer, when the stock of old potatoes is not yet fit for food, the country is covered with swarms of occa­sional mendi­cants’”.
  2. The d of never loses its voice in Donegal.