Vowels before sonorants

Vowels before sonorants

There are a set of special sounds which derive from sonorants in Old Irish which were long, or at least strongly articulated. The Irish word to describe these is teann ‘tense, taut’ and such sounds form a distinct subset of sonorants. They are usually written as digraphs (two letters), i.e. -nn, -ll, -rr, -rd, along with some cases of -m (which is never doubled in Irish orthography).

The reflexes of these ‘tense’ sonorants from earlier Irish are always either strongly palatal or non-palatal sounds. What is important for learners to grasp is that the vowels before these sonorants vary greatly across the dialects. In the North the vowels tend to be short, in the West one finds many long monophthongs while in the South more diphthongs are found, e.g. ball ‘member’ [balˠ] (North), [bɑ:lˠ] (West), [baulˠ] (South).

Along with the realisation of the <AO> vowel and the placement of word stress, the vowels before ‘tense’ sonorants represent the main phonetic differences between the dialects of modern Irish.

FONN

Northern [fʌnˠ] Western [fʌnˠ, fu:nˠ] Southern [faunˠ]

GLEANN

Northern [gʲlʲanˠ] Western [gʲlʲɑ:nˠ] Southern [gʲlʲaunˠ]

BINN

Northern [bʲɪnʲ] Western [bʲi:nʲ] Southern [bʲi:nʲ]

LONG

Northern [lˠʌŋˠ] Western [lˠʌŋˠ] Southern [lˠʌŋˠ, lˠu:ŋˠ]

MOING

Northern [mi:ŋʲ] Western [mi:ŋʲ] Southern [mi:ŋʲ]

TROM

Northern [trʌm] Western [trʌm] Southern [traum]

Northern [am] Western [ɑ:m] Southern [aum]

Northern [ɪmʲ] Western [i:mʲ] Southern [i:mʲ]

CORR-

Northern [kɔr] Western [kaur] Southern [kʌr]

BORD

Northern [kɔ:rdə] Western [baurd] Southern [bo:rd]

Note

1) In Northern Irish the word tábla is used for ‘table’ (rather than bord). For that reason the word córda ‘rope’ (a chórda ‘his rope’ in the actual recording), spoken by a Northern speaker, has been used to illustrate the vowel before the <RD>sequence.

AIRDE

Northern [ə:rʲdʲə] Western [airʲdʲə] Southern [i:rʲdʲə]

MALL

Northern [malˠ, mɑ:lˠ] Western [mɑ:lˠ] Southern [maulˠ]

Note

1) In the Corca Dhuibhne area of North-West Kerry (Southern Irish) a velar [lˠ] may appear as [χ], i.e. mall = [mauχ].

POLL

Northern [pʌlˠ] Western [paulˠ] Southern [paulˠ]

MOILL

Northern [mɪlʲ] Western [mailʲ] Southern [mi:lʲ]

Note

1) For this lexical set the expression gan mhoill was used in the recordings, hence the initial /m/ was lenited to [w] in the West and North and to [v] in the South.