the same syllable, as wal-low, swal-low, etc. or by two consonants in the same syllable, as want, wast, wasp, etc. but when l or r is one of the sonsonants, the a becomes long, as walk, swarm, etc.
Irregular and unaccented Sounds.
88. But besides the long and short sounds common to all the vowels, there is a certain transient indistinct pronunciation of some of them, when they are not accented, that cannot be so easily settled: when the accent is not upon it, no vowel is more apt to run into this imperfect sound than the a; thus the particle a before participles, in the phrases a-going, a-walking, a-shooting, etc. seems, says Dr. Lowth, to be the true and genuine preposition on, a little disguised by familiar use and quick pronunciation: the same indistinctness, from rapidity and coincidence of sound, has confounded the pronunciation of this mutilated preposition to the ear, in the different questions what's o'clock, when we would know the hour, and what's a clock, when we would have the description of that horary machine; and if the accent be kept strongly on the first syllable of the word tolerable, as it always ought to be, we find scarcely any distinguishable difference to the ear, if we substitute u or o instead of a in the penultimate syllable. Thus tolerable, toleroble, toleruble, are exactly the same word to the ear, if pronounced without premeditation or transposing the accent, for the real purpose of distinction; and inwards, outwards, etc. might, with respect to sound, be spelt inwurds, outwurds, etc. Thus the word man, when not under the accent, might be written mun in nobleman, husbandman, woman; and tertian and quartan, tertiun and quartun, etc. The same observation will hold good in almost every final syllable where a is not accented, as medal, dial, giant, bias, etc. defiance, temperance, etc. but when the final syllable ends in age, ate, or ace, the a goes into a somewhat different sound. See 90 and 91.
89. There is a corrupt, but a received pronunciation of this letter in the words any, many, Thames, where the a sounds like short e, as if written enny, menny, Tems. Catch, among Londoners, seems to have degenerated into Ketch; and says, the third person of the verb to say, has, among all ranks of people, and in every part of the united kingdoms, degenerated into sez, rhyming with Fez.
90. The a goes into a sound approaching the short i, in the numerous termination in age, when the accent is not on it, as cabbage, village, courage, etc. and are pronounced nearly as if written cabbige, village, courige, etc. The exceptions to this rule are chiefly among words of three syllables, with the accent on the first; these seem to be the following: Adage, presage, scutage, hemorhage, vassalage, carcilage, guidage, pucilage, mucilage, cartilage, pupilage, orphanage, villanage, appanage, concubinage, baronage, patronage, parsonage, personage, equipage, ossifrage, saxifrage, umpirage, embassage, hermitage, heritage, parentage, messuage.
91. The a in the numerous termination ate, when the accent is on it, is pronounced somewhat differently in different words. If the word be a substantive, or an adjective, the a seems to be shorter than when it is a verb: thus a good ear will discover a difference in the quantity of this letter, in delicate, and dedicate; in climate, primate, and ultimate; and the vowels to calculate, to regulate, and to speculate, where we find the nouns and adjectives have the a considerably shorter than the verbs. Innate, however, preserves the a as long as if the accent were on it: but the unaccented terminations in ace, whether nouns or verbs, have the a so short and obscure as to be nearly similar to the u in us; thus palace, solace, menace, pinnace, p pulace, might, without any great departure from their common sound, be written pallus, sollus, etc. while furnace almost changes the a into i, and might be written furniss.
92. When the a is preceded by the gutturals, hard g or c, it is, in polite pronunciation, softened by the intervention of a sound like e, so that card, cart, guard, regard, are pronounced like ke-ard, ghe-ard, re-ghe-ard. When the a is pronounced like ke-ard, ghe-ard, re-ghe-ard. When the a is pronounced short, as in the first syllable of candle, gander, etc. the interposition of the e is very perceptible, and indeed unavoidable: for though we can pronounce guard and cart without interposing the e, it is impossible to pronounce garrison and carriage in the same manner. This sound of the a is taken notice of in Steele's Grammar, page 49. Nay, Ben Jonson remarks the same sound of this letter; which proves that it is not the offspring of the present day; (160) and I have the satisfaction to find Mr. Smith, a very accurate inquirer into the subject, entirely of my opinion. But the sound of the a, which I have found the most difficult to appreciate, is that where it ends the syllable, either immediately before or after the accent. We cannot give it any of its three open sounds without hurting the ear: thus in pronouncing the words abound and diadem, ay-bound, ab-bound, and aw-bound; di-ay-dem, di-ah-dem, and di-aw-dem, are all improper; but giving the a the second or Italian sound, as ah-bound and di-ah-dem, seems the least so. For which reason I have, like Mr. Sheridan, adopted the short sound of this letter to mark this unaccented a: but if the unaccented a be final, which is not the case in any word purely English, it then seems to approach still nearer to the Italian a in the last syllable of papa, and to the a in father; as may be heard in the deliberate pronuncication of the words idea, Africa, Delta, etc. (88) See the letter A at the beginning of the Dictionary.
E.
93. The first sound of e is that which it has when lengthened by the mute e final as in glebe, theme, etc. or when it ends a syllable with the accent upon it, as se-cre-tion, ad-he-sion, etc. (36)
94. The exceptions to this rule are, the words where and there; in which the first e is pronounced like a, as if
