> Date: Fri, 5 Oct 2001 09:35:20 +0200
> From: Christophe Grandsire <christophe.grandsire@...>
> Subject: Re: Silent E
[...]
> In my memory, broad consonnants are just pronounced normally, while
slender
> consonnants are palatalised (IIRC). But of course, palatalisation has
produced
> sound changes and some broad-slender couples are not completely
transparent
> (IIRC, the slender pronunciation of 's' is /h/, and broad 'l' is
velarized,
> while slender 'l' is just a plain /l/). Each consonnant can be broad (non-
> palatalized) or slender (palatalized). Now in Irish the orthography shows
it
> without ambiguity, but with a strange system, since it's vowels which mark
> broadness and slenderness for consonnants! In short, Irish orthography
states
> that the vowels a, o and u are broad, while i and e are slender. A broad
> consonnant must have only broad vowels touching it, while a slender
consonnant
> must have only slender vowels touching it. But in speech, any vowel can
occur
> with broad and slender consonnants. To reconcile those two facts, Irish is
> obliged to use di- or trigraphs to mark simple vowels, depending whether
the
> consonnants around it are broad or slender. So each vowel sound has up to
four
> ways to be written. For instance, IIRC, /a/ is simply written 'a' when
both
> consonnants around it are broad. But if the previous consonnant is broad
and
> the next one is slender, /a/ must be written 'ai' (since a slender
consonnant
> can only have a slender vowel touching it), and /a/ between two slender
> consonnants is written 'eai' (or 'iai', I don't remember exactly). Some
> digraphs are quite strange: /e/ between two broad consonnants is written
'ao'.
> You just have to learn the possible digraphs and trigraphs (put them in a
> table, it's easier), at least the system is unambiguous. For instance, in
the
> example you give, I can tell that in 'Leathan', 'l' is slender, 'th' and
'n'
> are broad. The second vowel is /a/, but I'm not sure whether the first
vowel
> is /a/ or /e/ because I don't remember this digraph. In the second word
'Caol',
> I know that 'c' and 'l' are both broad and the vowel is /e/. Just learn :)
.
I've been looking for pages about Gaelic for few times and I have even a
book dealing with it. However none of them said that there is just such a
strict correspondence like /a/ between broad and slender is ALWAYS (or at
least almost always) 'ai', /a/ between slender and broad is 'ea'. Can I find
the full set of such a pairs somewhere in the net? Or maybe you could recall
it and post? After all maybe I'll try again with Gaelic?
--
Lukasz K. (aka lucasso)
--
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