alynnidalar wrote:I'm curious why you wouldn't expect <least>, particularly when it's stressed, to have a long vowel? I don't have a physical dictionary at hand, but I checked a couple of online ones that use the IPA and they both agreed it's a long vowel.
Dictionaries, when they do use IPA*, typically mark historical phonemic vowel length, by the way. And
least does historically have a long vowel. (Note that dictionaries practically never mark allophonic vowel length, for obvious reasons.)
Why I would expect
least to have a short vowel is that in English varieties with allophonic vowel length, e.g. most North American English varieties, coda /s/, being a fortis obstruent, normally conditions a short vowel. (Scottish English has allophonic vowel length, but has somewhat different rules from NAE, but that is irrelevant here.)
That is why it is interesting that you have a long vowel in
least, which indicates that you probably do have phonemic vowel length.
As for vowels being long versus short, being long versus short is independent of stress, even though stress affects length, in that a short vowel in a stressed syllable is longer than a short vowel in an unstressed syllable while stressed syllables can contain both short and long vowels.
* Many dictionaries do not use IPA, and mark pronunciation in ways that are ambiguous with regard to vowel length versus vowel quality.