Labhrás wrote:
There is a long i before -ns-, but always a short i before -n- + vowel (here: -ni-)
That is the rule.
He doesn’t say "d’inseamair" (which would have a long i) but "d’iniseamair" (which wouldn’t)
Syncopation is often made undone in Munster Irish by inserting a "helping vowel" again
inis -> d’inseamair -> d’iniseamair
Thank you thank you! This makes a lot of sense now, I never knew about the ins rule.
Labhrás wrote:
Short monosyllabic verbs in -igh or -idh differ from polysyllabic verbs in -igh (that is what I learned from the discussion above)
That's the discussion in the thread above, but the article itself (unless I'm reading it incorrectly) states that dropping the 'g' and keeping the short vowel as is is also an option. From the article on p143:
Quote:
The g- forms are very rarely used with personal pronouns except in the case of monosyllabic verbs. Naturally in such verbs the vowel being stressed cannot become irrational.
He then gives 'nigh' and 'luigh' as examples and implies their pronunciation as 'nǐ sé' and 'luǐ sé' is correct - assuming ǐ is a short i, I'm familiar with the Irish of West Muskerry's system but not this one.
But I think djwebb's comment below makes sense, and that it's best to keep the 'g' in. Tbh I don't think I've heard a Munster speaker use a short i in these instances, but it could exist.
djwebb2021 wrote:
He definitely says : do nig sé or do nic sé ( the /k/ would be unreleased, so not exactly what we normally would be talking about when referring to a k-sound)
Labhrás wrote:
I hear "nig sé" (or "nic sé" because of devoicing)
Thank you both, I think I was searching hard for a 'g' but yes I can hear an unreleased/devoiced g (=c) before the 'sé'. I also think the 'i' sound is pretty close so it's approaching an í. I'll keep tuning my ear in.
For any future readers of the thread, there are some other fun facts in here, like on p144:
Quote:
So raibh has sg1 raus, 3 roibh; the last might be also written reibh ; but raibh does not represent the pronunciation of any district.
I've definitely noticed this with Kerry speakers on the radio, ní rabhas [ni: raus], ní rabhais [ni: raus'] but then ní raibh [ní r'ev'].
Which probably points to another thing worth mentioning for other learners - many books mention that slender r's don't show up word initially and they're always broad, this is partially true, but slender r's are still retained between vowels when part of a sentence spoken in the same breath.
So in 'ní raibh' the r is not broad, even though it's at the start of the word.