The Scottish vowel length rule describes how vowel length in Scots, Scottish English, and, to some extent, Ulster EnglishHarris J. (1985) Phonological Variation and Change: Studies in Hiberno English, Cambridge. p. 14 and Geordie is conditioned by the phonetic environment of the vowel. It is also known as Aitken's law in reference to the Scottish linguist A. J. Aitken, who formulated the generalization. Primarily, the rule is that certain vowels (described below) are phonetically long in the following environments: Before . Before a voiced fricative (). Before a morpheme boundary. In a word-final open syllable, save for the vowel (or, in some Borders accents and Geordie, ). 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:Aitken A.J. (1984) 'Scottish Accents and Dialects' in 'Language in the British Isles' Trudgill, P. (ed). pp. 94-98.
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★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ Scottish English phoneme ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ Wells' lexical sets , , (part) , , , , , , , , , (part) , , , , (part) 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.
Rule specifics and exceptions
The Scottish vowel length rule affects all vowels except the always-short vowels 15 and 19 ( and ) and, in many Modern Scots varieties, the always-long Scots-only vowels 8, 11, and 12 (here transcribed as , and ) that do not occur as phonemes separate from in Scottish Standard English.Aitken A.J. (1984) 'Scottish Accents and Dialects' in 'Language in the British Isles' Trudgill, P. (ed). p. 98. The further north a Scots dialect is from central Scotland, the more it will contain specific words that do not adhere to the rule.Coll Millar. 2007. Northern and Insular Scots. Edinburgh: University Press Ltd. p. 20
Vowel 8a, which only occurs stem-finally, and vowel 10 are always short; therefore, vowel 1 in its short form (according to the Rule), vowel 8a, and vowel 10 all merge as the diphthong . In its long form, the quality of vowel 1 changes, so it is here transcribed as to reflect that. and (vowels 15 and 19) are usually short in all environments. In some Modern Scots varieties may merge with in long environments. In Ulster Scots , and are usually always long and the realisation of is short before a voiceless consonant or before a sonorant followed by a voiceless consonant but long elsewhere.Harris J. (1984) English in the north of Ireland in Trudgill P., Language in the British Isles, Cambridge p. 120 , , , , , , and ,(vowels 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 13, and 14) are usually long in the following environments and short elsewhere:A.J. Aitken in The Oxford Companion to the English Language, Oxford University Press 1992. p. 894 In stressed syllables before voiced fricatives, namely , and also before . So in Scottish English, for example, save [seːv], doze [doːz], teethe [tiːð] and confusion [kənˈfjʉːʒən] have longer vowels than safe [sef], dose [dos], teeth [tiθ] and Confucian [kənˈfjʉʃən]. In some Modern Scots varieties, also before the monomorphemic end-stresses syllables , + any voiced consonant, and .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. In Shetland dialect the realisation of underlying , usual in other Scots varieties, remains a long environment.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. Before another vowelA.J. Aitken in The Oxford Companion to the English Language, Oxford University Press 1992. p. 910 Before a morpheme boundary, so for example feed (past tense of fee) is pronounced with a longer vowel than feed (verb or noun) . (vowel 12) usually occurs in all phonetic environments in final stressed syllables.
History
The Scottish vowel length rule is assumed to have come into being between the early Middle Scots and late Middle Scots periods.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.
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