marry’; krɔsə tuw, ‘you will forbid’. On this account a number of verb-stems ending in s prefer the ending of the second conjugation, e.g. dʹrʹαsαχə mʹə, ‘I shall drive away’, pres. dʹrʹαsəm. For the length of the sound see § 357.
§ 348. s represents O.Ir. initial s before other than palatal vowels, e.g. sα꞉l, ‘heel’, O.Ir. sál; siNʹtʹ, ‘covetousness’, O.Ir. sant; sɔləN, ‘salt’, O.Ir. saland; su꞉lʹ, ‘eye’, O.Ir. súil; su꞉ʃtʹə, ‘flail’, M.Ir. sust, suiste < Lat. fustis; s⅄꞉l, ‘life’, O.Ir. saigul. For s before L, N see §§ 208, 239. s further stands before O.Ir. m, p, c followed by the vowels a, o, u and in a few loan-words before t under the same conditions, e.g. smwi꞉tʹuw, ‘to think’, M.Ir. smuained; spɔχuw, ‘to geld’, M.Ir. spochad; skα̃uwænʹ, ‘lungs’, M.Ir. scaman; sky꞉lʹuw, ‘to let loose’, M.Ir. scáilim; stαd, ‘to stop’, formed on Lat. status; stɔ꞉l, ‘chair’, < O.E. stól.
§ 349. Before mʹ and pʹ s has taken the place of ʃ at the beginning of a word, e.g. smʹerʹ, ‘marrow’, M.Ir. smir; smʹɛ꞉r, ‘blackberry’, M.Ir. smér; spʹαl, ‘scythe’, M.Ir. spel; spʹïrəd, ‘spirit’, O.Ir. spirut. Note also (ə)smʹe꞉, ‘it is I’, by the side of ʃe꞉, ‘it is he’. For the hesitation between s and ʃ before certain consonants cp. Chr. Bros. Aids to the Pron. of Irish p. 17 and O’Donovan, Grammar p. 38. For s before r < rʹ see § 273.
§ 350. Medially and finally s corresponds to O.Ir. ss, s originally followed by a, o, u and which usually arose from the assimilation of two consonants, except in the group sk, where s = Idg. s. Examples – αs, ‘out of’, O.Ir. ass; bo̤s, ‘flat of the hand’, M.Ir. bass, boss; bʹɛəs, ‘custom’, O.Ir. bés; dʹẽvəs, ‘shears’, M.Ir. demess; fα꞉s, ‘growing’, O.Ir. ás; iəsk, ‘fish’, O.Ir. íasc; kɔs, ‘leg’, O.Ir. coss.
In other cases medial and final s appears in loan-words from Latin, e.g. αsəl, ‘donkey’, M.Ir. assal < Lat. asellus; kɔrəgəs, ‘Lent’, M.Ir. corgus < Lat. quadragesima.
8. ʃ.
§ 351. The position of the tongue for ʃ resembles that for s. The tip of the tongue seems to hang down behind the lower front teeth and may rest against them. The lips are neutral as in English but the middle part of the tongue is raised towards the hard palate, thus considerably lengthening the narrowing necessary for the production of ʃ. The acoustic effect of the Donegal sound is very different from that of English, French or German ʃ. It suggests to me s + j and it is interesting to note that Henderson
