This letter of ours corresponds to the first symbol in the Phoenician alphabet and in almost all its descendants. In Phoenician, a, like the symbols for e and for o, did not represent a vowel, but a breathing; the vowels originally were not represented by any symbol. When the alphabet was adopted by the Greeks it was not very well fitted to represent the sounds of their language. The breathings which were not required in Greek were accordingly employed to represent some of the vowel sounds, other vowels, like i and u, being represented by an adaptation of the symbols for the semi-vowels y and w . The Phoenician name, which must have corresponded closely to the Hebrew Aleph, was taken over by the Greeks in the form Alpha . The earliest authority for this, as for the names of the other Greek letters, is the grammatical drama of Callias, an earlier contemporary of Euripides, from whose works four trimeters, containing the names of all the Greek letters, are preserved in Athanaeus x. 453 d.

The form of the letter has varied considerably. In the earliest of the Phoenician, Aramaic and Greek inscriptions (the oldest Phoenician dating about 1000 B.C., the oldest Aramaic from the 8th, and the oldest Greek from the 8th or 7th century B.C.) A rests upon its side thus--. In the Greek alphabet of later times it generally resembles the modern capital letter, but many local varieties can be distinguished by the shortening of one leg, or by the angle at which the cross line is set--, &c. From the Greeks of the west the alphabet was borrowed by the Romans and from them has passed to the other nations of western Europe. In the earliest Latin inscriptions, such as the inscription found in the excavation of the Roman Forum in 1899, or that on a golden fibula found at Praeneste in 1886, the letters are still identical in form with those of the western Greeks. Latin develops early various forms, which are comparatively rare in Greek, as , or unknown, as . Except possibly Faliscan, the other dialects of Italy did not borrow their alphabet directly from the western Greeks as the Romans did, but received it at second hand through the Etruscans. In Oscan, where the writing of early inscriptions is no less careful than in Latin, the A takes the form , to which the nearest parallels are found in north Greece (Boeotia, Locris and Thessaly, and there only sporadically).

In Greek, the symbol was used for both the long and the short sound, as in English father and German Ratte ; English, except in dialects, has no sound corresponding precisely to the Greek short a, which, so far as can be ascertained, was a mid-back-wide sound, according to the terminology of H. Sweet (Primer of Phonetics, p. 107). Throughout the history of Greek the short sound remained practically unchanged. On the other hand, the long sound of a in the Attic and Ionic dialects passed into an open -sound, which in the Ionic alphabet was represented by the same symbol as the original -sound (see ALPHABET: Greek). The vowel sounds vary from language to language, and the a symbol has, in consequence, to represent in many cases sounds which are not identical with the Greek a whether long or short, and also to represent several different vowel sounds in the same language. Thus the New English Dictionary distinguishes about twelve separate vowel sounds, which are represented by a in English. In general it may be said that the chief changes which affect the a-sound in different languages arise from (1) rounding, (2) fronting, i.e. changing from a sound produced far back in the mouth to a sound produced farther forward. The rounding is often produced by combination with rounded consonants (as in English was, wall, &c.), the rounding of the preceding consonant being continued into the formation of the vowel sound. Rounding has also been produced by a following-l-sound, as in the English fall, small, bald, &c. (See Sweet's History of English Sounds, 2nd ed., §§ 906, 784). The effect of fronting is seen in the Ionic and Attic dialects of Greek, where the original name of the Medes, , with in the first syllable (which survives in Cyprian Greek as ), is changed into , with an open -sound instead of the earlier . In the later history of Greek this sound is steadily narrowed till it becomes identical with (as in English seed). The first part of the process has been almost repeated by literary English, (ah) passing into , though in present-day pronunciation the sound has developed further into a diphthongal ei except before r, as in hare (Sweet, op. cit. § 783).

In English a represents unaccented forms of several words, e.g. (one), of, have, he, and of various prefixes the history of which is given in detail in the New English Dictionary (Oxford, 1888), vol. i. p. 4.

As a symbol the letter is used in various connexions and for various technical purposes, e.g. for a note in music, for the first of the seven dominical letters (this use is derived from its being the first of the litterae nundinales at Rome), and generally as a sign of priority.

In Logic, the letter A is used as a symbol for the universal affirmative proposition in the general form "all x is y." The letters I, E and O are used respectively for the particular affirmative "some x is y," the universal negative "no x is y," and the particular negative "some x is not y." The use of these letters is generally derived from the vowels of the two Latin verbs AffIrmo (or AIo), "I assert," and nEgO, "I deny." The use of the symbols dates from the 13th century, though some authorities trace their origin to the Greek logicians. A is also used largely in abbreviations (q.v.).

A (in logic). Symbol for the universal affirmative judgment--All men are mortal.

Literature: notes on the origin of this and the other symbols of formal logic are to be found (sub verbis) in EISLER, Wörterb. d. philos. Begriffe. See also PRANTL, Gesch. d. Logik.

--(Professor James Mark Baldwin, Princeton University, Editor)

A, prefixed to words of Greek origin often signifies absence, as apetalous, without petals. Before a vowel it is changed to AN, as anantherous, without anthers.

a¹ for 'ha'=he, in modern editions usually a', or replaced by he Hamlet II. i. 58 There was a' gaming.

a² for 'ha' (quod vide, which see) = have Love's Labour's Lost v. ii. 17, Hamlet IV. v. 65.

a³ (worn-down form of 'of' and 'on', frequently in all the Folio editions and all the Quarto editions of a particular play or poem and retained in a few places in modern editions, but usually altered to o', of, or on).

1 = of Much Ado about Nothing III. ii. 42 a mornings. (Confer and compare A-DAYS, A-NIGHT, O'CLOCK.)

2 = on The Life of King Henry V IV. iii. 42 a tip-toe. (Confer and compare A-HEIGHT, A-HIGH.)

3 = in All's Well that Ends Well II. i. 27 kept a coil. (Confer and compare A-PIECES..)

a used, without affecting the meaning, to provide an extra syllable in burlesque verse The Winter's Tale IV. ii. 134, 136 [iii. 133, 135], IV. iii. 326 [iv. 324] My dainty duck, my dear-a, Hamlet IV. v. 170 &c.

A.

-- (a) "A goodly portly man, and a corpulent," First Part of Henry the Fourth.

-- (b) This particle[*] omitted in exclamatory passages, e.g., "What dish o' poison," Twelfth Night; "What fool is she," Two Gentlemen of Verona; "What night is this," Julius Cæsar, &c., but note on in Two Gentlemen of Verona.

-- (c) "Poor a thousand;" a poor thousand. As You Like It.

-- (d) Understood. "I am dog," Twelfth Night.

-- (e) He. Much Ado about Nothing.

-- (f) "Such a worthy a mistress," Two Gentlemen of Verona.

[*] i.e. article; e.g. a, an, the. [F. L. R.]

A. The name of the sixth degree of the natural scale of C. The reason of its being applied to the sixth instead of the first degree will be found explained in the article ALPHABET. It represents the same note in English and German, and in French and Italian is called La.

A is the note given (usually by the oboe, or by the organ if there is one) for the orchestra to tune to; in chamber music it is usual for the pianist to play the triad of D minor, so that A is the highest note. A is also the note to which French and German tuning forks are set, the English being usually tuned to C.

In all the stringed instruments one of the strings is tuned to A; in the violin it is the second string, in the viola and violoncello the first and in the contrabasso generally the third. A is also the key in which one of the clarinets in the orchestra is set. In German the keys of A major and A minor are occasionally expressed by A sharp and A flat.

Franklin Taylor

A. This letter has been used as a tone name since 340 B.C.; it has been known as La, the sixth in the ascending scale of C, since Guido Aretina (1022) invented his mode of notation.

A.
1. (German A; French and Italian la). The sixth tone in the typical diatonic scale of C-major. The tone a¹ (see Pitch, absolute) is that sounded by the oboe or other fixed-tone instrument (pianoforte, organ) to give the pitch for the other instruments of the orchestra or military band.
2. In music theory, capital A often designates the A-major triad, small a the a-minor triad.
3. In scores, the capitals, or double letters (A a--Z z), are often set at the head of main divisions or at any critical point to facilitate repetition at rehearsal.
4. As an Italian (or French) preposition, a (or à) signifies to, at, for, by in, etc.
5. A sharp, A flat, A natural, see Sharp, Flat, Natural.
6. At the head of Gregorian antiphones, etc., A means that the first mode is to be employed.
7. In this Dictionary, an -a appended to an Italian word signifies, that in the feminine form a is substituted for the masculine termination o.