Scots Vowel Length Rule
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The Scottish Vowel Length Rule, also known as Aitken's Law after Professor A.J. Aitken who formulated it, describes how vowel length in Scots and Scottish English is conditioned by environment. (Phonetics in IPA.)
The rule affects all vowels in Central dialects, while in peripheral dialects some vowels remain unaffected.
- Template:IPA and Template:IPA are usually short.
- Template:IPA and Template:IPA are usually long:
- in stressed syllables before Template:IPA and Template:IPA.
- before another vowel and
- before a morpheme boundary.
- Template:IPA, Template:IPA and Template:IPA are usually long in most dialects.
- The diphthong Template:IPA usually occurs in short environments and Template:IPA in the long environments described above.
The Scottish Vowel Length Rule is assumed to have come into being between the early Middle Scots and late Middle Scots period.Template:Ling-stub Template:Ie-lang-stub Template:Scotland-stub