Evolution of phonetic system

IN MIDDLE ENGLISH

DEVELOPMENT OF VOWEL SYSTEM IN MIDDLE ENGLISH

Word Stress/Accent.

In ME and NE word stress acquired greater positions freedom and greater role in word derivation.

Recessive tendency – stress in loan-words moved closer to the beginning of the word (e.g. in French words the stress is usually placed on the ultimate or pen-ultimate syllable, but the stress in the words of the French origin that penetrated into English has moved to the beginning of the word).

E.g. ME vertu [ver’tju:] – NE virtue [‘vз:t∫ə]

Rhythmic tendency – regular alternation of stressed and unstressed syllables (3 or more) that creates rhythm and has led to the appearance of the secondary stress.

E.g. ME diso’beien – NE ,diso’bei

System of Monophthongs

In the Middle English language the following changes in the system of vowel monophthongs took place:

1)  shortening of vowels in the closed syllable;

2)  lengthening of vowels in the open syllable;

3)  further development, or transformation, of the short a and long a;

4)  further development of the short æ and long æ;

5)  further development of short y and long y;

6)  reduction of the unstressed vowels.

1) Shortening of vowels in the closed syllable is connected with a new phonetic regularity that begins to develop in the Middle English language: the length or shortness of the vowel becomes dependent on the type of the syllable in which that sound was used. In the Old English language there was no dependence of that kind, i.e. both in the open and the closed syllable there might be either a long or a short vowel:

 

Short vowel ----------------- closed syllable

Long vowel ----------------- open syllable

In the Middle English language between the parameter of length/shortness of the vowel and the type of the syllable there appear the relation of the complementary distribution, i.e. a short vowel is used only in the closed syllable while a long one only in the open syllable:

 

Short vowel ------------------- closed syllable

Long vowel ------------------- open syllable

As a result of this dependence all the vowels which were followed by two consonants shortened, e.g.: OE wīsdōm > ME wisdom.

The shortening of vowels had an impact for the grammatical structure of the words. For example, in the infinitive form of the verb kēpen ‘to keep’ the long vowel remained while in the form of the past tense the shortening took place: OE cepte > ME kepte.

The long vowels did not change if they stood before the homorganic clusters ld, nd, mb (before these clusters there was lengthening of vowels in the 9th century): OE bīndan > ME bīnden.

In some words the vowels were not shortened before the cluster st, e.g.: masta ‘biggest’.

In some cases the vowels were shortened in trisyllabic words before one consonant, e.g.: laferce ‘lark’ > laverke > larke.

2) Lengthening of vowels in the open syllable is the other side of the phenomenon described above. The lengthening of vowels in the open syllable is dated by the 13th century.

In this change the vowels a, e, o were involved, e.g.:

OE hōpa ‘hope’ > ME hōpe

OE talu ‘tale’ > ME tale

OE macian ‘to make’ > ME maken

OE nama ‘name’ > ME nāme

OE sprecan ‘to speak’> ME spēken

The short vowels I and u were not legnthened as a rule, e.g.:

OE risan ‘to rise’ > ME risen

OE cuman ‘to come’ > ME cumen

 

3) Development of the short a and the long ā was different in different dialects.

The Old English a (before nasal consonants) changed into the common a in the Northern, East-Central and Southern dialects, e.g.:

OE man ‘man’ > ME man

OE land ‘land’ > ME land

OE can ‘can’ > ME can

In the West-Central dialects a changed into o: man > mon, land > lond, can > con.

The common Old English short a remained unchanged in all the dialects.

The long ā in the Central and Southern dialects changed into the long open o, e.g.:

OE hām ‘home’ > ME hom

OE stān ‘stone’ > ME ston

OE hāt ‘hot’ > ME hot

In the Northern dialects the long a remained unchanged

The development of the short æ and the long æ also had different ways. In most dialects the short æ changed into a, e.g.:

OE æppel ‘apple’ > ME appel

OE glæd ‘glad’ > ME glad

OE wæs ‘was’ > ME was

But in the Kentish and West-Central dialects the short æ developed in the direction of narrowing and changed into e: æppel > eppel, wæs > wes.

The Old English long æ which appeared as a result of the break of ā in all the dialects except Kentish also changed into the long open e, e.g.:

OE dæ:l ‘part’ > ME de:l

OE sæ: ‘sea’ > ME se:

4) Development of the short y and long y finally resulted in the fact that these vowels completely disappeared from the English language. The history of the short y was different in different dialects. In the Northern and East-Central dialects y changed into i. In the Kentish dialect y changed into e. In the West-Central and South-Western dialects y remained unchanged for a long time and finally changed into u. Thus, the Old English word hyll ‘hill’ acquires the following dialectal variants in the Middle English language:

 

                                         hill (Northern, East-Central)

Old English hyll ------------- hell (Kentish)

                                        hyll > hull (West-Central, South-Western)

 

 

The development of the Old English long y: was similar. Cf.:

                                            fīr (Northern, East-Central)

Old English fy:r ‘fire’--------- fēr (Kentish)

                                            fui:r (West-Central, South-Western)

Important: The letter combination ui denoted the long vowel /y:/.

5) Reduction of the unstressed vowels was the most important phonetic phenomenon which had an impact on the grammatical structure of the English language as the whole system of grammatical inflections was changed under the influence of this phenomenon.

The reduction of the unstressed vowels, as some scholars believe, took place during the transitional period comprising the end of Old English and the beginning of the Middle English.

In the Old English language the unstressed vowels were pronounced with the same articulation as the stressed ones. In the Middle English language the articulation of the unstressed vowels became weakened which resulted in a situation when all the multitude of vowels that stood in the unstressed position were reduced to the one weak vowel /∂/ which was expressed in writing by the letter e.

As a result of the reduction of the unstressed vowels many grammatical inflections lost their distinctions. Thus, for example, while in the Old English language the verb in the infinitive form had the ending -an, in the form of the past tense plural the ending -on and in the form of Participle II the ending -en, in the Middle English language these forms lost their distinctions. Cf.:

OE writan ‘to write’ > ME writen

OE writon ‘(they) wrote’ > ME writen

OE writen ‘written’ > ME writen

Similar processes took place in the system of the noun. The number of cases reduced and the Old English system of cases began to die out as this process resulted in the impossibility to tell the cases.

 

System of Diphthongs

In the Old English language there were four pairs of diphthongs:

  ea eo ie  io

 ea: eo: ie: io:

A characteristic feature of the Old English diphthongs was that their second element was more open than the first. In the Middle English language all the Old English diphthongs changed into monophthongs.

1. The diphthong ea changed into the monophthong a through the intermediate stage æ, e.g.:

eald ‘old’ > æld > ald

earm ‘poor’ > ærm > arm

healf ‘half’ > hælf > half

In the Southern dialects ea changed into the long open e: eald > eld, earm > erm, healf > helf.

The long diphthong ea: changed into the long open monophthong e:

OE bea:m ‘tree’ > ME bę:m

OE brea:d ‘bread’ > ME brę:d

OE dea:d ‘dead’ > ME dę:d

Only in the Kentish dialect the long ea: changes into ya or ye (their phonetic value remains somewhat obscure): bea:m > bya:m or byem, bread > bryad or bryed, dead > dyad or dyed.

 

2.The diphthong eo changed into the monophthong e through the intermediate stage o, e.g.:

heorte ‘heart’ > horte > herte

steorra ‘ star’ > storre > sterre

steorfan ‘to die’ > storven > sterven

The long diphthong eo: changed into the long closed monophthong e:, e.g. OE ceosan ‘to choose’ > ME chesen

OE deop ‘deep’ > ME dep or deep

OE deor ‘deer’ > ME der or deer

3.The diphthong ie, both short and long, had changed into the monophthong i in the end of the Old English period:

OE ʒietan ‘to get’ > ME yiten

OE ʒieldan ‘to pay’ > ME yilden

OE ʒiefan ‘to give’ > ME yiven

OE cie:se ‘cheese’ > ME chese [i:]

OE hie:ran ‘hear’ > ME heren [i:]

4.The diphthongs io and io: had changed into eo in the Old English language and the words with this diphthong developed along the usual line, e.g.: siolfor ‘silver’ > seolfor > solver > selver; drio:riʒ ‘cruel’ > droriʒ > drery.

 

Alongside with the monophthongization of the Old English diphthongs another process took place – the appearance of new diphthongs. The diphthongs in Middle English were different from their OE counterparts, in that the second element in them was narrower than the first: [ai], [ei], [au], [ou].

The new diphthongs in the Middle English language appeared from three sources:

1) as a result of connection of the vowels [æ], [e] and [e:] with the vocalized central-lingual fricative consonant [j] (in spelling g);

2) as a result of connection of the vowels a and a: with the vocalized back-lingual fricative consonant [ γ ] (in spelling g);

3) as a result of the appearance of a glide after the vowels [a], [a:], [o] and [o:] in the position before the back-lingual fricative [h].

First: the short vowel [æ], as it has been mentioned above, changed into [a]. Short [e] and long [e:] remained unchanged. The consonant [j] underwent vocalization, i.e. changed into the vowel [i]. As a result there appeared the following diphthongs:

  æʒ > ai or ay; e.g.: dæʒ ‘day’ > dai or day

 eʒ > ei or ey; e.g.: weʒ ‘way’ > wei or wey

 e:ʒ > ei or ey; e.g.: he:ʒ ‘hay’ > hei or hey

It should be noticed that in the last instance the long [e:] after becoming an element of the diphthong lost its length.

Second: the short vowel [a] remains unchanged, while the long [a:] changes into the long open [o:]. The consonant [ γ ] changes into the semivowel [w] which undergoes further vocalization and changes into the vowel [u]. As a result the following diphthongs are produced:

aʒ > au or aw; e.g.: draʒan ‘to draw’ > drawen

a:ʒ > o:u or o:w; e.g.: a:ʒen ‘own’ > owen

Later the diphthong [ou] lost its length.

Third:ah, a:h > au, aw; e.g. da:ʒ, da:h ‘dough’ > dough [dou]. But: oxt > out; e.g. thought, bought, sought, wrought, nought. But: ox > of; e.g. trough, cough.