DIFFERENT SOUNDS OF THE LETTER A.

the accent a? naturally suffers the letters to slideinto a somewhat different sound, a little easier tothe organs of pronunciation. Thus the first a incabbage is pronounced distinctly with the truesound of that letter, while the second a goes intoan obscure sound bordering on the i short, theslenderest of all sounds; »o that cabbage and vil-lage have the a in the last syllable scarcely dis-tinguishable from the e and i in the last syllablesof college and vestige.

70. In the same manner the a, e, i, o, and y,coming before r in a final unaccented syllable, gointo an obscure sound so nearly approaching tothe short u, that if the accent were carefully keptupon the first syllables of liar , Her , elixir, mayor,martyr, &c. these words, without any perceptiblechange in the sound of their last syllables, mightall be written and pronounced liur> liur, clixur,mayur, martur, &c.

71. The consonants also are no less altered intheir sound by the position of the accent than thevowels. The A and $ in the composition of x,when the accent is on them, in exercise , execute,&c. preserve their strong pure sound; but whenthe accent is on the second syllable, in exact,exonerate, See. these letters slide into the dullerand weaker sounds of g and z, which are easierto the organs of pronunciation. Hence not onlythe soft c and the s go into sh, but even the t be-fore a diphthong slides into the same letters whenthe stress is on the preceding syllable. Thus insociety and satiety the c and t preserve their puresound, because the syllables ci and ti have theaccent on them ; but in social and satiate thesesyllables come after the stress, and, from thefeebleness of their situation, naturally fall into theshorter and easier sound, as if written soshial andsashiate. See the word Satietv.

72. A has three long sounds and two short ones.

73. The first sound of the first letter in our al-phabet is that which among the English is itsname. (See the letter A at the beginning of theDictionary .) This is what is called by most gram-marians its slender sound, 35, 05; we find it inthe words lade, spade, trade, See. In the diph-thong ai we have exactly the same sound of thisletter as in pain, gain, stain, &c. and sometimesin the diphthong ea, as bear, swear, pear, Sic. ;nay, twice we find it, contrary to every rule ofpronunciation, in the words where and there , andonce in the anomalous diphthong ao in gaol. Itexactly corresponds to the sound of the French ein the beginning of the words Stre ami tCtc.

74. The long slender a is generally produced bya silent e at the end of the syllable ; which e notonly keeps one single intervening consonant fromshortening the preceding vowel, but sometimestwo : thus we find the mute e makes of rag rage,and very improperly keeps the a open even inrange, change, Sec. (see Change)', hat, with themute e, becomes hate, and the a continues open,and, perhaps, somewhat longer in haste, waste,paste, &c. though it must be confessed this seemsthe privilege only of a; for the other vowels con-tract before the consonants ng in revenge, cringe,plunge; and the ste in our language is precededby no other vowel but this. Every consonant butn shortens every vowel but a, when soft g and esilent succeed ; as bilge, badge, hinge , sponge, &c.

75. Hence we may establish this general rule :A has the long, open, slender sound, when fol-lowed by a single consonant and e mute, as lade,made, fade, &c. The only exceptions seem to hehave, are , gape, and bade, the past time of to bid.

70. A has the same sound, when ending an ac-cented syllable, as pa-per, ta-per, spec-ta-tor. Theonly exceptions are father, mas-ter, wa-ter .

77. As the short sound of the long slender a isnot found under the same character, but in theshort e (as may be perceived by comparing mateand met), 67, we proceed to delineate the se-cond sound of this vowel, which is that heard infather, and is called by some the open sound 34;but this can never distinguish it from the deepersound of the a in all, ball, &c. which is still moreopen: by some it is styled the middle sound of a,as between the a i nvale, and that in wall: it an-swers nearly to the Italian a in Toscano , Romano,&c. or to the final a in the naturalized Greek

words papa and mamma ; and in baa, tne wordadopted in almost all languages to express the cryof sheep. VVe seldom find the long sound of thisletter in our language, except in monosyllablesending with r, as far, tar, mar, &c. and in theword father. There are certain words from theLatin , Italian , and Spanish languages, such aslumbago, bravado, tornado, cumisaito, fat rago, Sic.which are sometimes heard with this, sound of a;but except in bravo, heard chiefly at the theatres,the English sound of a is preferable in all thesewords.

78. The long sound of the middle or Italian a isalways found before r in monosyllables, as car,

far, mar, &c. before the liquids Im ; whether thelatter only be pronounced, as in psalm, or both,as in psalmist; sometimes before If, and tve, ascalf, half, calve, halve, salve, &c.; and, lastly,before the sharp aspirated dental th in bath, path,lath, &c. and in the word father: this sound ofthe a was formerly more than at present foundbefore the nasal liquid n, especially when suc-ceeded by c, t or d, as dance, glance, lance, France ,chance, prance, grant , plant, slant, slander, me.

79. The hissing consonant s was likewise a signof this sound of the a, whether doubled, as inglass, grass, lass, &e. or accompanied by t, as inlast, fast, vast, &c.; but this pronunciation of aseems to have been for some years advancing tothe short sound of this letter, as heard in nand,land, grand, See. ; and pronouncing the a in after,answer, basket, plant, mast, See. as long »s inhalf, calf, Sec. borders very closely on vulgarity .it must be observed, however, that the a beforen in monosyllables, and at the end of words, wasanciently written with n after it, and so probably

I trououneed as broad as the German a; for J)i.'ohn.son observes, “ Many words pronounced witha broad were anciently written with au, as fault ,mault ami we still write fault, vault. This wasprobably the Saxon sound, for it is yet retainedin the northern dialects, and in the rustic pro-nunciation, as maun for man, haund for hand.”But since the u has vanished the a lias been gra-dually pronounced slenderer and shorter, till nowalmost every vestige of the ancient orthographyseems lost; though the termination nutnd in com-mand, demand, &c. formerly written conunaund,demaund, still retains the long sound inviola-bly *.

80. As the mute l in calm, psalm, calf, half, &c.seems to lengthen the sound of this letter, so theabbreviation of sonic words by apostrophe seemsto have the same effect. Thus when, by Impa-tience, that grand corrupter of manners us wellas language, the no is cut out of the word cannot,and the two syllables reduced to mu*, we find thea lengthened to the Italian or middle a, as can-not, can't; have not, han’t ; shall not, sha’n’t &e.This is no more than what the Latin language issubject to ; it being a known rule in that longue,that when, by composition or otherwise, two shortsyllables become one, that syllable is almost al-ways long, as alius has the penultimate long be-

* Since the first publication of this Dictionarythe public have been favoured with some veryelaborate and judicious observations on English pronunciation by Mr Smith, in a Scheme of aFtench and English Dictionary. In this work hedeparts frequently from my judgment, and par-ticularly in the pronunciation of the letter a,when succeeded by ss, st, or n, and another con-sonant, as pass, last, chance, Ste. to which he an-nexes the long sound of a in father. That thiswas the sound formerly is highly probable fromits being still the sound given it by the vulgar,who are generally the last to alter the commonpronunciation ; but that the short a in these wordsis now the general pronunciation of the politeand learned world seems to be candidly acknow-ledged by Mr. Smith himself: and ns every cor-rect ear would be disgusted at giving the a inthese words the full long sound of the a \w father,any middle sound ought to be discountenanced,as tending to render the pronunciation of a lan-guage obscure and indefinite. 163.

Den Jonson in his Grammar classes salt, malt,balm, and calm, as having the same sound of a ;and aunt as having the same diphthongal soundas audience, author, law, saw, draw. See.