Scottish vowel length rule explained

pronounced as /notice/

The Scottish vowel length rule (also known as Aitken's law after A. J. Aitken, the Scottish linguist who formulated it) describes how vowel length in Scots, Scottish English, and, to some extent, Ulster English^[1] and Geordie is conditioned by the phonetic environment of the target vowel. Primarily, the rule is that certain vowels (described below) are phonetically long in the following environments:

• Before pronounced as //r//.
• Before a voiced fricative (pronounced as //v, z, ð, ʒ//).
• Before a morpheme boundary.
• In a word-final open syllable, save for the vowel pronounced as //e// (or, in Geordie, pronounced as //iː//).

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:^[2]

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	pronounced as //ai~əi//★	pronounced as //i//★	pronounced as //ei//		pronounced as //ɛ//★	pronounced as //e//★	pronounced as //eː~eːə//	pronounced as //əi//		pronounced as //oi//	pronounced as //o//	pronounced as //ʉ//★	pronounced as //ø//★	pronounced as //jʉ//	pronounced as //iː//★	pronounced as //ɔː//	pronounced as //ɔ//★	pronounced as //ʌʉ//★		pronounced as //ɪ//	pronounced as //a//★	pronounced as //ʌ//
Scottish English phoneme	pronounced as //ai~əi//★	pronounced as //i//★		pronounced as //ɛ//★		pronounced as //e//★			pronounced as //ɔi//		pronounced as //o//		pronounced as //ʉ//★	pronounced as //jʉ//		pronounced as //ɔ//			pronounced as //ʌʉ//★	pronounced as //ɪ//	pronounced as //a//★	pronounced as //ʌ//
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 (pronounced as //ɪ// and pronounced as //ʌ//) and, in many Modern Scots varieties, the always-long Scots-only vowels 8, 11, and 12 (here transcribed as pronounced as //eː//, pronounced as //iː// and pronounced as //ɔː//) that do not occur as phonemes separate from pronounced as //e, i, ɔ// in Scottish Standard English.^[3] The further north a Scots dialect is from central Scotland, the more it will contain specific words that do not adhere to the rule.^[4]

• 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 pronounced as //əi//. In its long form, the quality of vowel 1 changes, so it is here transcribed as pronounced as //ai// to reflect that.
• pronounced as //ɪ// and pronounced as //ʌ// (vowels 15 and 19) are usually short in all environments.
• In some Modern Scots varieties pronounced as //a// may merge with pronounced as //ɔː// in long environments. In Ulster Scots pronounced as //ɛ//, pronounced as //a// and pronounced as //ɔ// are usually always long and the pronounced as /[əʉ]/ realisation of pronounced as //ʌʉ// is short before a voiceless consonant or before a sonorant followed by a voiceless consonant but long elsewhere.^[5]
• pronounced as //i//, pronounced as //e//, pronounced as //o//, pronounced as //ʉ//, pronounced as //ø//, pronounced as //ʌʉ//, and pronounced as //jʉ//,(vowels 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 13, and 14) are usually long in the following environments and short elsewhere:^[6]
  • In stressed syllables before voiced fricatives, namely pronounced as //v, ð, z, ʒ//, and also before pronounced as //r//.^[3] 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 pronounced as //rd//, pronounced as //r// + any voiced consonant, pronounced as //ɡ// and pronounced as //dʒ//.^[7]
    • In Shetland dialect the pronounced as /[d]/ realisation of underlying pronounced as //ð//, usual in other Scots varieties, remains a long environment.^[8]
  • Before another vowel^[9] and
  • Before a morpheme boundary^[3] so, for example, "stayed" pronounced as /[steːd]/ is pronounced with a longer vowel than "staid" pronounced as /[sted]/.
• pronounced as //ɔː// (vowel 12) usually occurs in all environments in final stressed syllables.

History

See main article: Phonological history of Scots.

The Scottish Vowel Length Rule is assumed to have come into being between the early Middle Scots and late Middle Scots periods.^[10]

Notes and References

1. Harris J. (1985) Phonological Variation and Change: Studies in Hiberno English, Cambridge. p. 14
2. Aitken A.J. (1984) 'Scottish Accents and Dialects' in 'Language in the British Isles' Trudgill, P. (ed). pp. 94-98.
3. Aitken A.J. (1984) 'Scottish Accents and Dialects' in 'Language in the British Isles' Trudgill, P. (ed). p. 98.
4. Coll Millar. 2007. Northern and Insular Scots. Edinburgh: University Press Ltd. p. 20
5. Harris J. (1984) English in the north of Ireland in Trudgill P., Language in the British Isles, Cambridge p. 120
6. [A.J. Aitken]
7. 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.
8. 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.
9. [A.J. Aitken]
10. 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.