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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 06 July 2012
It may well be thought that, in a field that has been so carefully reaped and garnered and gleaned by so many learned workers as have the works of the great Scottish poet, William Dunbar, there remained nothing still to be accomplished. Where such erudite students of Scottish literature as Laing, Small, Gregor, and Æneas Mackay, and such an illustrious scholar as Professor Schipper have laboured, and where even the poet's metrical forms have been the subject of careful investigation by Mr M'Neill, it might be thought alike vain and presumptuous to attempt to follow. Yet it so happens, nevertheless, that there has never been a thorough investigation made of Dunbar's rimes with a view of throwing light on the phonology or, in more popular phrase, the pronunciation of his day. And yet, perhaps, no more suitable, interesting, and instructive subject could be found for such treatment than just this same William Dunbar.
page 635 note * I am inclined to maintain this position in the face of Dr Gerken's remark which seems to bear on it [§ 6. 3], to the effect that one must not ascribe any influence to r in preserving the quantity of the ā. It is quite possible that Dr Gerken has ample materials to prove his point, but he does not produce them in his thesis.
page 636 note * When I say Dunbar I mean, of course, his scribe or printer, and so in the case of the others.
page 636 note † This word dram (cf. Curtis, § 16) seems also connected with drumlie (NSc. = turbid, dark) and very possibly with doldrums through Icel. draums, Gen. from draumr = melancholy, a dream (OE. dream) with which dram may be directly connected. The connection is not difficult to trace, as a person in a dreamy mood or deeply sunk in thought has usually a serious, even melancholy, expression.
page 640 note * leik, eik from late Anglian lēc, ēc (Sievers, § 163).
page 640 note † Angl. er, for WS. er.
page 646 note * I follow Professor Schipper in taking breid to mean bread, but it may mean breadth (OE. brædu).
page 649 note * When one forms the lips into the position for pronouncing w (or wh), and then blows or whistles, one produces either an u-sound, as in the exclamation “Whew!” or an i-sound, as in whistling a high note, and this may be the difference between the English w, which gives from a, au, and the Scotch, which gives from e an i-sound.