Theme 10. Phonetic, morphological and syntax features of Middle English

The match between sound and spelling worsened; there was confusion in spelling system influenced by French scribes and former dialectal variety.

Middle English Consonants

· consonants of Middle English were very similar to those of Present Day English but lacking [η] as in hu ng (velar nasal) and [ 3 ] as in mea s ure (alveo-palatal voiced fricatives)

· addition of phonemic voiced fricatives: [v], [z] as an effect of French loanwords: vetch/fetch, view/few, vile/file

· loss of long consonants (OE mann →ME man)

· h got lost in clusters (OE hlæfdige →ME ladi ("lady")

· g became w after l and r (OE swelgan →ME swolwen ("swallow"), OE morgen →ME morwen ("morning")

· OE prefix ge- lost its initial consonant and was reduced to y or i (OE genog →ME inough ("enough")

· unstressed final consonants tended to be lost after a vowel: OE ic →ME i, OE - lic →ME - ly (e.g. OE rihtlice →ME rihtly ("rightly")

· final -n in many verbal forms (infinitive, plural subjunctive, plural preterit) was lost, e.g. OE cuman →Modern English come (the n remains in some past participles of strong verbs: seen, gone, taken); final -n got also lost in possessive adjectives "my" (OE min → ME mi) and "thy" (OE þin → ME þi) and indefinite article "an" before words beginning with consonant (-n remained in the possessive pronouns, e.g. mine)

· w generally dropped after s or t: OE sweostor → sister (sometimes retained in spelling: sword, two; sometimes still pronounced: swallow, twin, swim)

· l was lost in the vicinity of palatal c in adjectival pronouns OE ælc, swilc, hwilc, micel → each, such, which, much (sometimes remained: filch)

· fricative f/v tended to drop out before consonant +consonant or vowel+consonant: OE hlaford, hlæfdige, heafod, hæfde →ME lord, ladi, hed, hadde ("lord," "lady," "head," "had") (sometimes retained: OE heofon, hræfn, dreflian →"heaven," "raven," "driven")

· final b got lost after m but retained in spelling: lamb, comb, climb (remained in medial position: timber, amble); intrusive b after m: OE bremel, næmel, æmerge →ME bremble, nimble, ember (also OE þuma →ME thombe, "thumb")

· initial stops in clusters gn- and kn- were still pronounced (ME gnat, gnawen, knowen, knave, cniht ("gnat," "gnaw," "know," "knave," "knight")

· h was often lost in unstressed positions (OE hit →ME it)

· If a word contains the Germanic "gh," the latter sounded a soft, nearly guttural sound, between a modern "g" and a modern "k," e.g., kni gh t, ri gh t, bri gh t

Vowels

· Vowels in Middle English were similar to those of Old English, except for the loss of OE y and æ so that y was unrounded to i and æ raised toward [^] or lowered toward [a:].

· addition of a new phonemic sound (mid central vowel), represented in linguistics by the symbol called schwa: Ə, the schwa sound occurred in unstressed syllables and its appearance is related to the ultimate loss of most inflections

· loss of unstressed vowels: unstressed final -e was gradually dropped, though it was probably often pronounced. (The final "e" in many words may be sounded if it helps the meter of an individual line, e.g., When that Aprille with his shoures sot e

The droughte of Marche hath perced to

the rot e ( G, Chaucer)

-e of inflectional endings was also lost, even when followed by a consonant (as in -es, eth, ed) (e.g. breathe/breathed) except for wishes, judges, wanted, raided; final -e in French loanwords was not lost because of French final stress, hence cité →"city," pureté →"purity"

· French loanwords added new diphthongs, e.g. OF point, noyse →ME point, noise

· short vowels tended to lengthen before certain consonant clusters (OE climban, feld → ME climbe, feld ("climb," "field")

· lengthening of short vowels in open syllables (OE gatu, hopa → ME gate, hope)

· shortening of long vowels in stressed closed syllables (OE sōfte, gōdsibb, scēaphirde →ME softe, godsib, scepherde ("soft," "gossip," "shepherd"); exceptions (before -st): OE gast, crist →ME gost, Christ ("ghost," "Christ")

· in a long word (if two or more unstressed syllables followed the stressed one), the vowel of the stressed syllable was shortened (Christ/Christmas [ME Christesmesse], break/breakfast [ME brekefast])

 

Middle English Graphics and Writing

 

It is marked by influence of French scribes and new spelling conventions.

· ash (æ), eth (ð), thorn (þ) and yogh (3) are dropped, substituted for a ([a:] or [^]), th [ð] or [θ]), g correspondingly

· French loans "j", "v", “q”, “g”, “z”, “k”

· "q" and "z" more widely were used under French influence, "qu" substituted for “kw” (OE cwic, cwen →ME quicke, queen)

· use of o instead of u (come, love) as a way to avoid confusion caused by use of minims (vertical strokes) (OE cumin, lufu)

· c substituted for s as an influence of French loans like cellar, place, whichaffected the spelling of native words like lice, mice

· k got used before i/e, n (OE cene, cyssan, cneow → keen, kiss, kne e), cf. cat, cool, cut, clean

· increased use of digraphs: th for thorn/eth sounds, ou/ow for long u (hour, round); doubling of vowels to indicate length (beet, boot); sh for palatal fricative [∫] (OE scamu → shame); ch for palatal affricate [t∫] (OE ceap, cinn →ME cheap, chin); dg for palatal affricate [d 3 ] (OE bricg → ME bridge) (but j in initial position according to French convention, ME just); gh for velar fricative [h] (OE þoht, riht →ME thought, right; wh for hw (voiceless aspirated bilabial fricative) (OE hwæt, hwil →ME what, while); gu for g, in French loans (guard, guile, guide, OE gylt →guilt).

Middle English Morphology

-loss of inflections

-loss of grammatical gender

-two noun cases: possessive and non-possessive

-all adjective inflections are lost, loss of weak/strong distinction

-introduction of Continuous and Perfect aspect; use of analytical way of rendering modality; use of auxiliary verb to form future tense

-relative rigidity of word order, increasing use of prepositions and particles

 

Middle English Nouns are characterized by the following features:

-Use of suffix -es for genitive singular and all plurals, e.g.

Singular plural

Nominative, Accusative, Dative stōn stōnes

Genitive stōnes stōnes

 

Nouns ending with –f and –th retained exchanging voiceless for voiced

Sg pl

N līf, path līves, pathes

G līves, pathes līves, pathes

 

Some nouns having umlaut in N, A, D (pl) were declined due to this scheme:

Sg pl sg pl

N, D, A man men fōt fēt

Gen mannes mennes fōtes fētes

 

Some neuter nouns retained the form of plurality without any suffixes: thing (things), yēr (years), hors (horses), shēp (sheep), swīn (swine) dēr (deer), as well as some masculine and feminine: winter (winters), mōneth (months), night (nights), though suffix -es gradually passes through this group of words making such forms appear as thinges, yēres, mōnethes.

Some nouns that referred to weak declension group in OE retained –en in plural: oxe –oxen, eye – eyen, brōther – brēthren, doghter – doghtren.

Loss of case inflexion reflected important shifts in language thinking, but the mechanisms of that as well as their connection with social life of the country can’t be described clearly. But it’s obvious that this process was enhanced by the influence of French as already in OF there was a tendency of introducing prepositional constructions instead of case inflexions. O. Jespersen believes that the cause of it lies in the Scandinavian dialects bordering on English in the 9-11 centuries. He is right to have pointed out nouns that sounded similar to those in English:

sunu (E) – sunr (Sc)

wind (E) – windr (Sc)

O. Jespersen supposes that in the process of communication the common root which was clear for both peoples was pronounced the most clearly whereas the flexion hindering mutual understanding was articulated unclearly, which led to reduction. This theory was very popular but seems unconvincing. If the phenomena of this kind had really taken place, they would have remained no less than the feature of the dialects of the frontier district. It is difficult to believe that such border dialectal phenomena could have changed grammatical structure of a certain language.

-Instead of disappeared flective forms there appeared prepositional constructions:

to – OE Ēode tō his hūse (went to his house): to loses the meaning of “towards” and renders indirect object relations.

of – OE He dyde helm of hafelan (He took the helmet off his head): of loses the meaning of “from, off” acquiring the meaning of the genitive case: ME: the droghte of Marche (the drought of March)

with - OE Gefeaht wi ð ðone (fought with the army): with loses the meaning of “against” and acquires the one of instrument of activity: ME speken with tonge (speak a language)

Adjectives

- greatest inflectional losses: loss of case, gender, and number distinctions.

In weak declension there was lost a typical suffix of the plural –en. Thus the only adjective case inflexion was a weak –e, and a complicated OE paradigm came to such scheme:

Sg