Apologetic apostrophe

Early Scots had undergone a process of L-vocalisation where /l/ was preceded by the vowels and in closed syllables, which was completed by the end of the 14th century. The cluster vocalised to and to hence spellings such as a (all), ba (ball), ca (call), ''sa't (salt) and ha'd (hold), and fu and pu with the doublets full and pull . The standard literary apostrophe-less spellings for (also ) were and with generally occurring word initially or medially, and occurring word final thus aw (all), baw (ball), caw (call), saut (salt) and haud'' (hold). The standard literary spelling of was , generally preferred in the Scottish National Dictionary, although the use of , borrowed from Standard English, became popular by the 19th century. Thus fou and pou, but the form fu functioning as the cognate of the suffix 'ful'. L also vocalised after in closed syllables == Inflectional endings ==

The consonant clusters in the inflectional endings and , cognate with Standard English , changed to in Early Scots: the modern realisations generally being and hence the spelling in. == Consonant clusters ==

The cluster had been reduced to in Early Scots The cluster is reduced to in some Scots dialects hence spellings such as ''caun'le (candle), haun (hand) and staun (stand) though the is generally written in the literary standard, thus caundle, haund and staund''. The cluster is also reduced to in some Scots dialects, hence spellings such as aul (old), caul (cold) and faul (fold) though the is generally written in the literary standard, thus auld, cauld and fauld. == Loss of consonants ==

By the Middle Scots period, and deletion had occurred intervocalically and between a nasal/liquid consonant and a vowel. Also by that period, word-final had been lost in a number of words. Hence spellings such as fro' (froth), quo' (quoth), wi' (with) and mou' (mouth), the standard literary apostrophe-less spellings being fro, quo, wi and mou, the latter having the doublet mooth. == Change of vowel ==

In some Scots words the realisation differs from that of the Standard English cognate; hence spellings such as bak (bake), mak (make) and tak (take), the standard literary apostrophe-less spellings being bak, mak and tak. == Legitimate use of the apostrophe in Scots ==

Many words in Scots have both a full form and a contracted form. In contracted forms, an apostrophe is generally used in place of the elided graphemes, for example, ''e'en and even, e'er and iver (ever), eneu and eneuch (enough), lea and leave, ne'er and niver (never), ne'er's day and new year's day, nor'land and northland''. In the construction of the past tense or past participle, Scots often appends the apostrophe to verbs ending with ee to prevent three es from occurring in a single word: • dee (die) > ''dee'd'' • gree (agree) > ''gree'd'' Scots also uses, as does English, the apostrophe to indicate contractions of multiple words: ''A'm'' (I'm), ''wi't (with it), ye're'' (you're), ''o't'' (of it). == Notes ==