Leechdoms, wortcunning, and starcraft of early England. Being a ...

PREFACE.
XXXV
iElfric and Alfred is dead could encourage a foreigner
to such experiments.
It is said by those who had opportunities of know- Accents,
ing, that the painful accentual system devised by the
late J. M. Kemble was abandoned by him before his
death.
It was, indeed, opposed to the elementary laws
of vocalization ; for it is known to all, who have gone
fully into the subject, that a prefix, if accented itself,
affects the accentuation and the vocalization of any
word with which it is compounded. The subject might
be largely illustrated and its essential laws developed
from the Oriental languages ; but I will confine myself
to that which is now before us. There can be no
reasonable doubt but that 'pilbe,
wild, and Deep, deer,
were pronounced with the vowels long, and the ridiculous
theory that a vowel before two consonants is short
by nature, can mislead but few ;
it amounts to this,
that we never could say Beast, Least, but must pronounce
those words, Best, Lest.
Deop, being compounded and formed into
These two words pdbe,
one, retained
the accent and full sound on the syllable most important
to the sense, and may be found in the genitive
singular under the form pilbpey.^ Thus the aflix Deoji
lost its proper accent because a more powerful claimant
had become it close neighbour. Another example
is found in pitan, to vepvoacli, which, as appears from
Layamon," had its vowel by nature long. This word
is often compounded with the preposition Mc, which
by defect of grammatical knowledge among the old
penmen commonly appears as eb- ; Layamon ^ exhibits
the compound still retaining the long vowel ; but the
Paris Psalter ^ spells ebpitt:, where, according to the
CE, 258, line 10.
Layamon, 21311.
* Ofte heo heom on smiten,
Ofte heo heom atwiten.
Layamon, 2G584.
'
Psalm cxviii. 39.