weeks from July 15 to August 15’, = mí na súil síar because the last year’s crop has come to an end (also called m′i: Nə su:l′ bwiə)[A 1].
§ 470. In the case of bh + bh the result in a few cases is b, e.g. dïb′iN′, ‘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:p′iər, ‘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(′) ʃə, ‘he stole’; ꬶrït(′) ʃə, ‘he closed’; də χyt(′) ʃə ‘your share’; iətsən, ‘they’, = iadsan; dα:k tuw, ‘you left’; ho̤k ʃə, ‘he took’. Compare ɛəksα̃uwil′, ‘wonderful’, Di. éagsamhail.
v.
§ 472. Proclitics ending in a non-palatal consonant are frequently affected by an initial palatal vowel, e.g. d′αr, ‘your husband’, < do + fhear[A 2]; m′αr, ‘my husband’, < mo + fhear; m′ïp′, ‘my whip’ (§ 452); d′æL′ ʃə < do + fheall; N′i: b′α:r, ‘better’, = ní ba fhearr; b′o̤mwi: tαχ Nə mɔχt ə ro tα:rLαχ əN, ‘Charles was in many a poor-house’, = bu + iomaidh but N′i: bɔ:li: = ní b’eólaighe; αχ mər b′e:, ‘had it not been for him’; se:, ʃi:, ‘it is he, she’, but əs m′e:, ‘it is I’. Here the case of the article may also be mentioned, də N′αr, ‘to the man’; ə N′i:r′iN′ə, ‘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
- ↑ 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’”.
- ↑ The d of də never loses its voice in Donegal.
