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- 3. Broad weak—e.g., caraid.
- 4. Slender weak—e.g., fir.
In Munster, aspirations of initial broad r often produces (4). This is false reconstruction owing to the similarity or identity of (1) and (2).
- 5. Prolonged r broad—
- (a) Before d—e.g., ceard.
- (b) Before l or n—e.g., urlár, cárnán.
- (c) In rr final—e.g., barr (a = á).
- (d) Before s sometimes in Munster—e.g., ársaiḋ.
- 6. Prolonged r slender. The same positions as for 5—(a), ceird; (b), uirlis; áirneán; (c), bairr (a = á).
27. The sound of m has been described in § 19.
C, G.
28. The Irish sounds of c and g (slender) are formed a little farther back in the mouth, and with slightly greater tension in the tongue than the slender palatals in English—e.g., the “c,” “k,” and “g” in the words “cave,” “king,” “give,” &c. The English palatals are formed by bringing the centre of the tongue into contact with the palate just in front of the boundary between the hard and the soft palate. For the Irish palatals the point of the tongue is pressed pretty firmly against the inside of the lower teeth, the sides of the tongue are pressed against the upper back teeth, thus forming a hollow in the front portion of the tongue. The sounds of c and g (broad) are formed in the same position as the English gutturals “c” and “g” in “coal,” “cool,” “call,” “go,” “cog,” &c. The Irish sounds are more forcible than the English ones (§ 18). e.g.—gual, gad, gort, cad, cor, gá, gó, cá, cú
