The common features of Germanic languages

THE COMMON FEATURES OF GERMANIC LANGUAGES

Old German languages show differences in comparison with other European Lang on 3 main linguistic levels: grammatical, phonetic and lexical.

IN PHONETICS:

v accent (word stress) in IE was characterized by free and musical accent (fixed & unfixed); in PG accent became fixed on the root syllable and dynamic, strong (силовое); characteristics of musical accent disappeared in Gmc languages

Indo-European (Non-Germanic)	Proto-Germanic
1. free stress (movable, i.e. can appear in any part of a word (root, prefix, suffix));	1. fixed stress (can’t move either in form- or word-building and is usually placed on root or prefix);
2. pitch stress (musical)	2. dynamic stress (force, breath stress)
E.g.: русский	E.g.: German	English
б`елый	`Liebe	`white
белизн`а	`lieben	`whiteness
белов`атый	`lieberhaft	`whitish
бел`ить	ge`liebt	`whitewash

 

The Proto-Germanic type of stress led to the formation of the following peculiarities of the Germanic languages as compared to non-Germanic Indo-European languages:

a. phonetic – as a result of the fixed position of the stress the unstressed syllables were becoming weaker and weaker, they got less distinct and neutral sounds (such as “schwa”) appeared;

b. morphological – as a result of the fact that the stress was fixed on the root and the syllables following the root were always unstressed and weak, many Germanic languages began to lose suffixes and grammatical endings (all the vocalic endings) and became ANALYTICAL LANGUAGES.

v Grimm’s and Verner’s laws.

Grimm’s law: The first Germanic consonant shifts took place in the V-II cent. BC. Jacobs Grimm’s Law in 1822. According to Grimm, he classified consonant correspondences between indoeuropean and germanic stops (plosives).

There are 3 acts of this law:

1. IE voiceless plosives p, t, k correspond to Gmc voiceless fricatives f, Ө, h. Eg: пламя – flame, три – three, кардио – heart.

2. IE voiced plosives b, d, g, →Gmc voiceless fricatives p, t, k. Eg: болото - pool, kar d ia – hear t, e g o – i c (ik).

3. IE aspirated voiced plosives bh, dh, gh →to voiced plosives without aspiration b d g. Eg: bhrāta – brother, rudhira – red, ghostis – guest.

The second consonant shift was Carl Verner’s law (only in Old High German). According C.Verner all the common Gmc consonants became voiced in intervocalic position if the preceding vowel was unstressed (a change takes place in the course of time).

p-f > v septem

t-Ө > đ, d сто – hund (OE)

k-x > j, g

s-s > z/r auris – ēare

Consonant Correspondences	Latin	OE	ModE
1. [p, t, k] à voiceless stops/plosives	[f, q, h] à voiceless fricatives	[v, ð/d, g] voiced fricatives	se p tem	seo f en	se v en
pa t er	f æ đ er	fa th er
so c rus	swai h o (Gothic)	Schwa g er (Germ)
2. Rhotacism	au s is (Lithuanian)	Au s o (Gothic)	ea r, Oh r (Germ)
[s] à	[z] à	[r]

Devoicing took place in early common Gmc when the stress was not yet fixed on the root.

A variety of Verner’s law is rhotacism (greek letter rho). [s] →[z]→[r] we find traces of this phenomenon in form of the verb to be →was – were, is – are; ist – sind – war.

II consonant shift occurd in dialects of sothern Gmc. Eg: еда – eat – essen, вода – water – wasser, hope – hoffen, bed – bett.

Ch (G) → C (OE): reich – ricostan.

v Palatal Mutation/i-Umlaut

Mutation – a change of one vowel to another one under the influence of a vowel in the following syllable.

Palatal mutation(or i-Umlaut) happened in the 6^th -7^th c. and was shared by all Old Germanic Languages, except Gothic. I-mutation is a change of root back vowels to front ones or root open vowels to closer ones under the influence of i/j in the next syllable.

Palatal mutation – fronting and raising of vowels under the influence of [i] and [j] in the following syllable (to approach the articulation of these two sounds). As a result of palatal mutation:

· [i] and [j] disappeared in the following syllable sometimes leading to the doubling of a consonant in this syllable;

· new vowels appeared in OE ([ie, y]) as a result of merging and splitting:

before palatal mutation	after palatal mutation	Gothic	OE
a à o à æ à	e	b a di	b e dd (bed)
a: à	æ:	d a ils	d æ lan (deal)
ŏ/ō à	ĕ/ē	m ō tjan	m ē tan (meet)
ŭ/ū à	ŷ/ỹ(labialised) (new!)	f u lljan	f y llan (fill)
ĕă/ēā à ĕŏ/ēō à	ĭě/īē (new!)	ea ld (early OE)	ie ldra (late OE)

Traces of i-Umlaut in Modern English:

1. irregular Plural of nouns (man – men; tooth – teeth);

2. irregular verbs and adjectives (told ←tell; sold ←sell; old – elder);

3. word-formation with sound interchange (long – length; blood – bleed).

IN GRAMMAR:

A synthetic grammatical system (relationships between the parts of the sentence were shown by the forms of the words rather than by their position or by auxiliary words). In the early periods of history the grammatical forms were built by means of: sound interchanges, inflections and suppletion.

Suppletion (inherited from Indo-European) – the usage of 2 or more different roots as forms of one and the same word:

Part of Speech	Indo-European Non-Germanic Languages	Germanic Languages
Italian	русский	English	German
Personal Pronouns	io, mio, mi/me	я, меня, мне	I, my, mine, me	ich, mich, mir
Adjectives	buono, migliore, ottimo	хороший, лучше, лучший	good, better, best	gut, besser, bester
Some Verbs	essere, sono, e`, ero, saro`, etc.	есть, был, будет	be, is, are, am, was, were	sein, bin, ist, sind, war, gewesen, etc.

Inflections (inherited from Indo-European) – though in the Germanic languages inflections were simpler and shorter than in other Indo-European languages.

Let’s take the system of declensions as an example.In PG it was well-developed but in the Old Germanic languages, due to the stress that was fixed on the root and the weakening of the end of a word as a result, the declensions started to disappear. While the nouns and adjectives still preserved stem-suffixes, they had declensions but once the stem suffixes started to weaken and disappear, the declensions were lost as well and the endings were simplified and got fewer:

Word Structure
PG	mak-oj-an	root + stem-suffix (word-deriv.)	+ gram. ending(form-marker)
Old Germanic Languages	mac-ian	stem(root melted with stem-suffix)	+ gram. ending

Sound Interchange – the usage of interchange of vowels and consonants for the purpose of word- and form-building (e.g.: English: b ea r – b i rth, buil d – buil t, t oo th – t ee th; German: geb ä ren – Geb u rt)

Ablaut/Vowel Gradation – an independent vowel interchange, unconnected with any phonetic conditions (phonetic environment/surrounding) used to differentiate between grammatical forms of one and the same word. The Germanic ablaut was consistently used in building the principle forms of strong verbs.

Jacob Grimm has subdivided all the verbs into two groups according to the way they build their principle forms:

	Strong Verbs (irregular)	Weak Verbs (regular)
called so because they have preserved the richness of forms since the time of Proto-Germanic	called so because they have lost their old Proto-Germanic forms and acquired new ones
form-building	vowel interchange + gram. ending	suffix –d/t (a Germanic invention!!!)
E.g.	OE	r ei san – r ai s – r i sum – r i sans	macian – maco d e - maco d
	cepan – cep t e - cep t
ModE	r i se – r o se - r i sen	make – ma d e – ma d e
	keep – kep t – kep t

The most important innovation in Gmc was the emergence of the new types of verbs – “weak”, past tense with the dental suffix d: open – opened, work – worked.

IN LEXIS:

Native words

1. In all Gmc languages we find a number of words which are not found in the other IE languages, have no parallels outside the group. Appeared from purely Gmc roots, spheres: nature, sea, home life (sea, house, God, send, drink, broad, own).

2. The most ancient etymological layer in the Gmc vocabulary is made up by words (roots) shared by most IE languages (natural phenomena, animals & plants, some pronouns and numerals): Fr deux – R два– OE twa – NE two.

Borrowings

Latin words (refer to trade and warfare). The words reflect the contacts of the Gmc tribes with Rome and the influence of the Roman civilization on their life. Ex: Lat strata via – OE stræt – NE street

Old English Dialects

Kingdom	Kent	Wessex	Mercia	Northumbria
Dialect	Kentish	West Saxon	Mercian	Northumbrian
Spoken	in Kent, Surrey, the Isle of Wight	along the Thames and the Bristol Channel	between the Thames and the Humber	between the Humber and the Forth
Origin	from the tongues of Jutes/ Frisians	a Saxon dialect	a dialect of north Angles	a dialect of south Angles
Remarks		9^th c. – Wessex was the centre of the English culture and politics. West Saxon – the bookish type of language (Alfred the Great – the patron of culture and learning)		8^th c. – Northumbria was the centre of the English culture

The most important was the WEST SAXON DIALECT.

In the 8^th – 9^th c. Britain was raided and attacked by the Scandinavians/Vikings. And as soon as the Scandinavian dialects also belonged to the Germanic group, the Danes soon linguistically merged into the local Old English dialects leaving some Scandinavian elements in them.

After the Norman Conquest:

· French became the official language of administration. It was also used as a language of writing and teaching as well as Latin.

· English was the language of common people in the Midlands and in the north of England.

· Celtic Dialects were still used by the Celtic population in the remote areas of the country.

Actually, during the presence of the Normans the country experienced the period of bilingualism (French and English were both used in the country).

The Norman and the English drew together in the course of time and intermixed. French lost its popularity due to the fact that it was not the language of the majority and could not be used to communicate with local people. English regained its leading position with time and became accepted as the official language. The proofs are:

· The Parliamentary Proclamation of 1258 – in French, Latin and English.

· In the 14^th – 15^th c. legal documents started to be issued in English.

· 1364 – Parliament was opened with an address in English.

· 1399 – Henry the 4^th accepted the throne and made a speech in English.

· Translations of the documents written in French into English.

Thus in the 14^th c. English becomes the language of literature and administration.

Middle English Dialects

OE Dialects	Kentish	West Saxon	Mercian	Northumbrian
	¯	¯	¯	¯
ME Dialects	Kentish Dialect	South-Western Dialects	Midland Dialects	Northern Dialects
Examples	-	East Saxon Dialect London Dialect Gloucester Dialect	West Midland Dialect	East Midland Dialect	Yorkshire Dialect Lancashire Dialect

The most important dialect in the Middle English period was the LONDON DIALECT.

London Dialect

In the 12^th -13^th c. the London Dialect became the literary language and the standard, both in written and spoken form. The reasons why this happened:

· The capital of the country was transferred from Winchester, Wesses, to London

· The East Saxon Dialect (the basis of the London Dialect) became prominent in that period.

· Most authors of the Middle English period used the London Dialect in their works.

Features of the London Dialect:

· The basis of the London Dialect was the East Saxon Dialect

· The East Saxon Dialect mixed with the East Midland Dialect and formed the London Dialect.

· Thus the London Dialect became more Anglican than Saxon in character à The London Dialect is an Anglican dialect.

Alphabets

The first Old English written records are considered to be the runic inscriptions. To make these inscriptions people used the Runes/the Runic Alphabet – the first original Germanic Alphabet.

Runes/Runic Alphabet:

· appeared in the 3^rd – 4^th c. A.D.;

· the word “rune” meant “secret, mystery”;

· each symbol indicated a separate sound (one symbol = one sound);

· the symbols were angular due to the fact that they had to be carved on hard materials;

· the number of symbols: GB – 28-33; on the continent – 16-24).

Best known Runic Inscriptions:

1. Franks Casket – a box with 4 sides made of whale bone, each side contained a picture in the centre and runic inscriptions around the picture that told the story of the whale bone in alliterative verse.

2. Ruthwell Cross – was found near thevillage of Ruthwell, Dumfriesshire, it is a 15 feet tall stone cross ornamented in all sides with runic inscriptions that are actually a passage from a religious poem “The Dream of the Rood”.

Old English Alphabet

The Old English Alphabet was borrowed from Latin, but there were also some letters that were borrowed from the Runic Alphabet: (“thorn”) = [q] and [ð];(“wynn”) = [w]; (“mann”) = stood for OE word “man”; (“dæζ”) = stood for OE word “day”. Some new letters were introduced:

ζ = [g] and [j]; ð/þ/Đ/đ = [q] and [ð]; æ = a ligature of [a] and [e]; œ = a ligature of [o] and [e].

Rules of Reading:

They resemble the modern rules, with several exceptions though:

1. f = [v] s = [z] 1. between vowels;2. between a vowel and a voiced consonant ([r, m, n, l, d, etc.]). ð/þ = [ð]

2. – [j] – before and after front vowels (y, e, i, æ]);

ζ (yough) – [g] – before back vowels ([a, o, u]) and consonants at the beg of words, after n

- [г бел] – between 2 back vowels (a,o,u) and after l. r

cζ = [г’].

3. –[ k’] before and after front vowels (y, e, i, æ)

c - [k]

4. –[ x’ ] after front vowels (y, e, i, æ)

h - [x] after back vowels ([a, o, u]) and consonants at the beg of words, after l,r

- [h] before vowels at the beg of words

Old English Manuscripts

Most of the Old English manuscripts were written in Latin letters (some letters were changed and some new letters were added). The Old English manuscripts that give us the examples of the language of that period are:

· personal documents containing names and place names;

· legal documents (charters);

· religious texts

· textual insertions (pieces of poetry).

· Anglo-Saxon chronics

Old English Poetry

1. Among the earliest textual insertions in Old English are the peaces of Old English poetry. They are to be found in “The Ecclesiastical History of the English People” written in Latin in the 8^th c. by Bede the Venerable, an English monk. These two pieces are: 5 lines know as “Bede’s Death Song”; 9 lines of a religious poem “Cædmon’s Hymn”.

2. All in all we have about 30 000 lines of OE verse from many poets, but most of them are unknown. The two best known Old English poets are Cædmon and Cynewulf (Northumbrian authors).

3. The topics of Old English poetry:

· heroic epic (“Beowulf”, the oldest in the Germanic literature, 7^th c., was written in Mercian or Northumbrian but has come down to us only in a 10^th c. West Saxon copy. It is based on old legends about the tribal life of the ancient Teutons and features the adventures and fights of the legendary heroes);

· lyrical poems (“The Wanderer”, “The Seafarer”, etc. Most of the poems are ascribed to Cynewulf);

· religious poems (“Fate of the Apostles” (probably Cædmon), “Dream of the Rood”, etc.).

4. The peculiarities of Old English poetry:

· written in Old Germanic alliterative verse:

- the lines are not rhymed;

- the number of the syllables in a line is free;

- the number of stressed syllables in a line is fixes;

- the line is usually divided into 2 halves, each half starts with one and the same sound;

· a great number of synonyms (e.g. beorn, sec ζ, ζ uma, wer were all the synonyms of “man”) and kennings metaphorical phrases or compounds describing the qualities or functions of a thing in which the 1^st element provides the clue to the riddle of the 2^nd element(e.g. hronrād “whale-road” (for “sea”); bānhūs “bone-house” (for “a person’s body”); hēaþu-swāt “war-sweat” (for “blood”)).

Middle English Alphabet

The Middle English Alphabet resembled the Old English Alphabet but some changes were introduced:

· th replaced ð/þ/Đ/đ;

· æ, œ disappeared;

· digraphs (2 letters = one sound) appeared (came from French): th for [q] and [ð];

tch/ch for [t∫]; sch/ssh/sh for [∫]; dg for [dζ]; wh replace hw but was pronounced still as [hw]!;

gh for [h]; qu for [kw]; ow/ou for [u:] and [ou]; ie for [e:].

Rules of Reading:

They resemble the modern rules, with several exceptions though:

1. Double vowels stood for long sounds, e.g. oo = [o:]; ee = [e:].

2. g = [dζ]

c = [s] before front vowels ([i, e]).

=[k] in all other cases

g = [g]

c = [k] before back vowels ([a, o, u]).

3. y = [j] – at the beginning of the word;

= [i] – in the cases when i stood close together with r, n, m and could be confused with one of these letters or could be lost among them, it was replaced with y, sometimes also for decorative purpose.(e.g. nyne [‘ni:nə], very [‘veri]).

4. th = [ð]

s = [z] between vowels.

5. o = [o] – in most cases;

= [u] – in the words that have [Λ] sound in Modern English (e.g. some, love), close to n,m,v

6. j = [dζ]

Beowulf.

Heroic epic (7/8th).The oldest poem in Germanic literature. It’s the story of the youth and age of a hero. Built up of several songs arranged in 3 chapters.Based on old legends about the tribal life of the ancient teutons language – Late West Saxon. It is written in the alliterative verse. It was meant to be heard rather than read

SPELLING CHANGES IN ME

The most important feature of Late ME texts in comparison with OE texts is the difference in spelling. The written forms of the words in Late ME texts resemble their modern forms, though the pronunciation of the words was different.

In the course of ME many new devices were introduced into the system of spelling; some of them reflected the sound changes which had been completed or were still in progress in ME; others were graphic replacements of OE letters by new letters and digraphs.

In the ME the runic letters passed out of use.

· th replaced ð/þ/Đ/đ;

· æ, œ disappeared;

· the rune “wynn” was displaced by –w-

After the period of Anglo-Norman dominance (11^th-13^th c.) English regained its prestige as the language of writing, writing was in the hands of those who had a good knowledge of French. Therefore many innovations in ME spelling reveal an influence of French scribal tradition. The digraph ou ie and ch which occurred in many French borrowings and were regularly used in Anglo-Norman texts were adopted as new ways of indicating the sound [u:], [e:], [tſ].

Compare: out – ūt, chief – thief. The letters “j, k, v, q” were probably first used in imitation of French manuscripts. The 2-fold use of “g” and “c” stood for [dg], [s], before front vowels and for [g], [k] before back vowels.

Other alterations in spelling cannot be traced directly to French influence though they testify to a similar tendency: a wider use of digraphs. In addition to ch, ou, ie and th, introduced sh (also ssh and sch) to indicate the new sibilant [ſ], dg to indicate [dg], alongside j and g (before front vowels) the digraph wh OE sequence of letters “hw” as in OE “hwæt” but it was still reading like hw. Long sounds were shown by double letters, for ex. ME book, though with vowels this practice was not very regular, long [e:] could be indicated by ie and ee and also by “e”.

Some replacements were probably made to avoid confusion of resembling letters: thus [o] was employed not only for [o] but also to indicate short [u]; it happened when “u” stood close to n, m, v for they were all made up of down strokes and were hard to distinguish in a hand-written text. This replacement was facilitated – if not caused – came to be used as an equivalent of ‘i’.

For letters indicating 2 sounds the rules of reading are as follows: g and с [dg], [s], before front vowels and for [g], [k] before back vowels. “y” – stand for [j], at the beginning of words equivalent of “i”. “Th” and “s” indicate voiced sounds between vowels and voiceless – initially finally and next to the other voiceless consonants.

Note! in ME – unlike OE- this rule doesn’t apply to the letter “f”, it stands for the voiceless [f] while the voiced [v] is shown by “v” and “u”.

Long sounds in ME texts are often shown by double letters or digraphs: open syllables often contain long vowels, while closed syllables may contain both short and long vowels. Vowels are long before a sonorant + a plosive consonant and short before other sequences.

OE SOUND SYSTEM

The OE sound system developed from the PG system. It underwent multiple changes in the pre-written periods of history, especially in Early OE.

In OE a syllable was made prominent by an increase in the force of articulation; in other words, a dynamic or a force stress was employed. In disyllabic and polysyllabic words the accent fell on the root-morpheme or on the first syllable. Word stress was fixed; it remained on the same syllable in different grammatical forms of the word and, as a rule, did not shift in word-building either.

OE Vowels

The OE vowel system shows 7 points of short and long vowels.

ī ĭ y (short and long) ŭū

ēĕ ōŏ

æ (short and l) ăā

The peculiarity of OE vowels: it showed full symmetry.

Length of vowels was phonological, that is to say it could distingyish different words: gōd (=good NE) and gŏd (god NE)

In ME the following changes occurred (14^th c)

Short: Long:

i u i: u:

e o e: o:

a e: o:

a:

The number of short vowels decreased, instead of 7 we find 5 (y-i, æ – a) these vowels merged.

The main process that took place in long vowels was narrowing (ē → e: æ (long)→e: ŏ→o: ā→o:). The origin of a: it developed from short a in open stressed syllables.

Palatal Mutation/i-Umlaut

Mutation – a change of one vowel to another one under the influence of a vowel in the following syllable.

Palatal mutation (or i-Umlaut) happened in the 6^th -7^th c. and was shared by all Old Germanic Languages, except Gothic. I-mutation is a change of root back vowels to front ones or root open vowels to closer ones under the influence of i/j in the next syllable.

Palatal mutation – fronting and raising of vowels under the influence of [i] and [j] in the following syllable (to approach the articulation of these two sounds). As a result of palatal mutation:

· [i] and [j] disappeared in the following syllable sometimes leading to the doubling of a consonant in this syllable;

· new vowels appeared in OE ([ie, y]) as a result of merging and splitting:

Traces of i-Umlaut in Modern English:

4. irregular Plural of nouns (man – men; tooth – teeth);

5. irregular verbs and adjectives (told ←tell; sold ←sell; old – elder);

6. word-formation with sound interchange (long – length; blood – bleed).

Breaking

Under the influence of succeeding and preceding consonants some Early OE monophthongs developed into diph­thongs. If a front vowel stood before a velar consonant there developed a short glide between them, as the organs of speech prepared themselves for the transition from one sound to the other. The glide, together with the original monophthong formed a diphthong.

The front vowels [i] and [e] and the newly developed [æ], changed into diphthongs with a back glide when they stood before [h], before long (doubled) [ll] or [l] pJus another consonant, and before [r] plus other consonants, e.g.: OE deorc, NE dark. The change is known as breaking or fructure. Breaking is dated in Early OE, for in OE texts we find the process already completed.

Breaking produced a new set of vowels in OE — the short diphthongs [ea] and [eo[ they could enter the system as counterparts of'the long [ea:], [eo: ] which had developed from PG prototypes

Old English Consonant System

The system consisted of several correlated sets of consonants. All the consonants fell into noise consonants and sonorants. The noise con­sonants were subdivided into plosives and fricatives; plosives were further differentiated as voiced and voiceless, the difference being pho­nemic. The fricative consonants were also subdivided into voiced and voiceless; in this set, however, sonority was merely a phonetic difference. The opposition of palatal and velar lingual consonants [k] — [k'], [g]— [g'] had probably become pho­nemic by the time of the earliest written records It is noteworthy that among the OE consonants there were few sibi­lants (s,z) and no affricates.

The most universal distinctive feature in the consonant sys­tem was the difference in length. During the entire OE period long con­sonants are believed to have been opposed to short ones on a phonem­ic level; they were mostly distinguished in intervocal position. Sin­gle and long consonants are found in identical phonetic conditions.

Place of artic Manner	labial	dental	palatal	velar
noise	Plosive voiceless voiced	p p: b b:	t t: d d:	k’ k’: g’:	k k: g g:
fricative voiceless voiced	f f: v	q q: s s: ð z:	x’ x’: y’ j	x x: y
sonorants	m m: w	n n: r l	j	gn

 

Treatment of Fricatives. Hardening. Rhotacism. Voicing and Devoicing

The changes under Grimm's Law and Verner's Law PG had the following two sets of fricative consonants: voiceless [f, th, x, s] and voiced [v z y z]

In Early OE the difference between the two groups was supported by new features. PG voiced fricatives tended to be hardened to corresponding plosives while voiceless fricatives, being contrasted to them primarily as fricatives to plosives, developed new voiced allophones.

The PG voiced [ð] (due to Verner's Law or to the third act of the shift) was always hardened to [d ] in OE and other WG languages. The two other fricatives, [v] and [γ] were hardened to [b] and [g] ini­tially and after nasals, otherwise they remained fricatives

Hardening (the process when a soft consonant becomes harder)– usually initially and after nasals ([m, n])

[ð] à	[d]	rauðr (Icelandic)	rēad (OE) (red)
[v] à	[b]	-	-
[γ] à	[g]	guma (Gothic)	ζuma (OE) (man)

PG [z] underwent a phonetic modification through the stage [5] into [r] and thus became a sonorant, which ultimately merged with the older IE [r]. This process, termed rhotacism, is characteristic not only of WG but also of NG

In the meantime or somewhat later the PG set of voiceless fricatives [f, q, h, s] and also those of the voiced fricatives which had not turned into plosives, that is, [v] and [y], were subjected to a new pro­cess of voicing and devoicing. In Early OE they became or remained voiced intervocally and between vowels, sonorants and voiced conso­nants; they remained or became voiceless in other environments, name­ly, initially, finally and next to other voiceless consonants.

The mutually exclusive phonetic conditions for voiced and voice­less fricatives prove that in OE they were not phonemes, but allophones.

Velar Consonants in Early Old English. Growth of New Phonemes

The velar consonants Ik,g,x,yl were palatalised before a front vowel, and sometimes also after a front vowel, unless followed by a back vowel. Thus in OE cild (NE child) the velar consonant [k]was softened to [k'] as it stood before the front vowel [i] In the absence of these phonetic conditions the consonants did not change, with the result that lingual consonants split into two sets, palatal and velar. The difference between them became phonemic when, a short time later, velar and palatal consonants began to occur in simi­lar phonetic conditions.

Growth of new phonemes: Palatalisation of Consonants (a process when hard vowels become soft) – before a front vowel and sometimes also after a front vowel

[g, γ, k, h] à [g’, γ’, k’, h’]

Though the difference between velar and palatal consonants was not shown in the spellings of the OE period, the two sets were undoubtedly differentiated since a very early date. In the course of time the phonetic difference between them grew and towards the end of the period the pal­atal consonants developed into sibilants and affricates: |k')>ch [gl>ld31; in ME texts they were indicated by means of special digraphs and letter sequences

Loss of Consonants In Some Positions

Nasal soncrants were regularly lost before fricative consonants; in the process the preceding vowel was probably nasalised and length­ened

Fricative consonants could be dropped between vowels and before some plosive consonants; these losses were accompanied by a compensatory lengthening of the preceding vowel or the fusion of the preceding and succeeding vowel into a diphthong,

We should also mention the loss of semi-vowels and conso­nants in unstressed final syllables. |j] was regularly dropped in suffix­es alter producing various changes in the root: palatal mutation of vow­els, lengthening of consonants after short vowels. The loss of [w] is seen in some case forms of nouns

Loss of Consonants:

· sonorants before fricatives (e.g. fimf (Gothic) – fīf (OE) (five));

· fricatives between vowels and some plosives (e.g. sæζde (early OE) – sæde (late OE) (said));

· loss of [j] – as a result of palatal mutation (see examples above);

· loss of [w] (e.g. case-forms of nouns: sæ (Nominative) – sæwe (Dative) (OE) (sea).

 

OE Vowels (monophthongs)

The OE vowel system shows 7 points of short and long vowels.

ī ĭ y (short and long) ŭū

ēĕ ōŏ

æ (short and l) ăā

The peculiarity of OE vowels: it showed full symmetry.

Length of vowels was phonological, that is to say it could distingyish different words: gōd (=good NE) and gŏd (god NE)

In ME the following changes occurred (14th c)

Short: Long:

i u i: u:

e o e: o:

a e: o:

a:

The number of short vowels decreased, instead of 7 we find 5 (y-i, æ – a) these vowels merged.

The main process that took place in long vowels was narrowing (ē → e: æ (long)→e: ŏ→o: ā→o:). The origin of a: it developed from short a in pen stressed syllables.

Changes of Unstressed Vowels in Early Old English

The development of vowels in unstressed syllables, final syllables in particular, was basically different Whereas in stressed position the number of vowels had grown (as compared with the PG system), due to the appearance of new Qualitative differences, the number of vowels distinguished in unstressed position had been reduced. In unstressed syllables, especially final, long vowels were shortened, and thus the opposition of vowels — long to short — was neutralised. It must also be mentioned that some short vowels in final unstressed syllables were dropped.

Unstressed Vowels IN MIDDLE ENGLISH AND EARLY NEW ENGLISH

In ME and NE the main direction of the evolution of unstressed vowels was the same as before; even in the pre-written period un­stressed vowels had lost many of their former distinctions, namely their differences in quantity as well as some of their differences in quality The tendency towards phonetic reduction operated in all the subsequent periods of history and was particularly strong in unstressed final syllables in ME.

In Early ME the pronunciation of unstressed syllables became increasingly indistinct. As compared to OE, which distinguished five short vowels in unstressed position Late ME had only two vowels in unaccented syl­lables: [d ] and [i ], which are never directly contrasted; this means that phonemic contrasts in unstressed vowels had beer, practically lost.

The occurrence of only two vowels, schwa vowel and [i] in unstressed final syllables is regarded as an important mark of ME, distinguishing it on the one hand from OE with its greater variety of unstressed vowels, and on the other hand from NE.

It should be remembered though that while the OE unstressed vowels were thus reduced and lost, new unstressed vowels appeared in borrowed words or developed from stressed ones, as a result of various changes, e.g. the shifting of word stress in ME and NE, vocalisation of [r]. These developments show that the gap between the stressed and unstressed vowels has narrowed, so that in ME and NE we can no longer subdivide the vowels into two distinct sub-systems— that of stressed and unstressed vowels).

QUANTITATIVE VOWEL CHANGES IN EARLY MIDDLE ENGLISH

At the end of OE and in the immediately succeeding centu­ries accented vowels underwent a number of quantitative changes which affected the employment and the phonological status of short and long vowels in the language. At that time vowel length was for the most part an inherited feature: ОE short vowels had developed from PG short vowels, while long ones went back to long vowels or bi-phonemic vowel sequences.

Shortening: In early ME 12-13c) all long vowels became short if followed by 2 or more consonants: ce(long)pan (OE) – ke:pen(ME)-keep

Lengthening: In the 12th or 13th c. Short vowels became long in open syllables. This lengthening mainly affected the more open of the short vowels e,o,a before clusters [ld, nd, mb]; in 2-syllable words, only to [e, o, a] in open stressed syllable

Reduction – weakening and disappearance of unstressed vowels. As far as the stress was mainly on the root the vowels in prefixes and suffixes got weak and underwent reduction. Full vowels began to change to schwa and then it was weakened to zero. In unstressed position only two vowels were left – [shwa] and [i]. They had never been contrasted. E.g. ME tale [‘ta:l shwa], body [‘bodi]

In NE sound (schwa) was dropped at the end of the words but the letter e was left in spelling to show the length of the preceding vowel. This change brought our many monosyllabic words and caused great changes in grammar (loss of inflections-English became an analytical lang)

QUALITATIVE VOWEL CHANGES IN EARLY MIDDLE ENGLISH

As compared with quantitative changes, qualitative vowel changes in Early ME were less important. They affected several mono­phthongs and displayed considerable dialectal diversity. On the whole they were independent of phonetic environment.

The OE close labialised vowels [y] and [y:] disappeared in Early ME, merging with various sounds in different dialectal areas.

The vowels lyl and ly:l existed in OE dialects up to the 10th c, when they were replaced by [i] and[i:]

The main process that took place in long vowels was narrowing (ē → e: æ (long)→e: ŏ→o: ā→o:). The origin of a: it developed from short a in open stressed syllables.

In Early ME the long OE [a:] was narrowed to [o]. This was an early instance of the growing tendency of all long monophthongs to become closer; the tendency was intensified in Late ME when all long vowels changed in that direction, [a:] became (э:1

The short OE [æ] was replaced in ME by the back vowel [a] In OE [æ] was either a separate phoneme or one of a group of allophones distinguished in writing [е, a, a, ea 1 All these sounds were reflected in ME as [a] except the nasalised [a] which became [o]

Lengthening in NE due to the vocalization of r.

After short vowels

ME: o+r=o: (NE): for-fo:

ME: a+r=a: (NE): bar-ba:

ME: I,e,u+r=e: (NE): fur-fe:

ME: shwa+r=shwa (NE): brother-brathe

After long vowels:

i:+r=aie: fire-faie

e:+r= ie: beer-bie

a+r=ee: bear-bee

o:+r=o: floor

flower

The Great Vowel Shirt

Early NE witnessed the greatest event in the history of Eng­lish vowels — the Great Vowel Shift, — which involved the change of all ME long monophthongs, and probably some of the diphthongs.

Great Vowel Shift – the change that happened in the 14th – 16th c. and affected all long monophthongs + diphthong [au]. As a result these vowels were:

· diphthongized;

· narrowed (became more closed);

· both diphthongized and narrowed.

ME Sounds	NE Sounds	ME	NE
[i:] à	[ai]	time [‘ti:mə]	time [teim]
[e:] à	[i:]	kepen [‘ke:pən]	keep [ki:p]
[a:] à	[ei]	maken [‘ma:kən]	make [meik]
[o:] à à	[ou] [u:]	stone [‘sto:nə] moon [mo:n]	stone [stoun] moon [mu:n]
[u:] à	[au]	mous [mu:s]	mouse [maus]
[au] à	[o:]	cause [‘kauzə]	cause [ko:z]

The spelling remained unchanged.

lt should be obvious from the chart and the table that the Great Vowel Shift did not add any new sounds to the vowel system; in fact, every vowel which developed under the Shift can be found in Late ME

And nevertheless the Great Vowel Shift was the most profound and comprehensive change in the history of English vowels: every long vowel, as well as some diphthongs, were "shifted", and the •pronunciation of all the words with these sounds was altered

 

11. Dipthongs

The PG diphthongs — ei ai iu eu au underwent regular independent changes in Early OE; they took place in all phonetic conditions irrespective ot environ­ment. The diphthongs with the i-glide were monophthongised into [i] and [a], respectively; the diphthongs in u were reflected as long diphthongs |io:|, leo:l and lea: I

All Engl dipthongs were monophonized from OE to NE.

In PG there were no diphthongs. There was just a sequence of two separate vowels. Diphthongs appeared in OE: some (usually long diphthongs) – as a result of merging of two vowels:

 

Sounds	Diphth.	Gothic	OE
a + u à	ea:	au so	ea re (ear)
e + u à	eo:	þ eu dans	þ ēo den (king)
(i + u)à	(io:) (dialectal variant)	d iu ps	d īo p (deep)

others (usually short diphthongs) – as a result of the influence of the succeeding and preceding consonants (breaking of [æ, e])

Monoph.	Diphth.	Influence	Gothic	OE
æ à	ea	before l	a lls	ea ll (all)
æ à	ea	before h	a htau	ea hta (eight)
e à	eo	before r	h e rza	h eo rte (heart)
æ à	ea	after sk’/k’	sk a dus	sc ea du (shade)
æ: à	ea:	after j	j â r	ζ ēa r (year)

Breaking

Under the influence of succeeding and preceding consonants some Early OE monophthongs developed into diph­thongs. If a front vowel stood before a velar consonant there developed a short glide between them, as the organs of speech prepared themselves for the transition from one sound to the other. The glide, together with the original monophthong formed a diphthong.

The front vowels [i] and [e] and the newly developed [æ], changed into diphthongs with a back glide when they stood before [h], before long (doubled) [ll] or [l] pJus another consonant, and before [r] plus other consonants, e.g.: OE deorc, NE dark. The change is known as breaking or fructure. Breaking is dated in Early OE, for in OE texts we find the process already completed.

Breaking produced a new set of vowels in OE — the short diphthongs [ea] and [eo[ they could enter the system as counterparts of'the long [ea:], [eo: ] which had developed from PG prototypes

OE diphthongs turned into monophthongs in ME

OE Diphth.	ME Sounds	OE	ME
ĭě/īē à	i	l īe htan	l i ghten (lighten)
ĕŏ/ēō à	e	h eo rte	h e rte (heart)
ĕă/ēā à	æ	ēa st	ee st (east)

 

New diphthongs appeared due to vocalisation of [j], [γ] and [w]. These consonants turned into vowels ([i], [u] and [u] respectively) and became the glides of the new diphthongs:

 

i-glides	OE	ME	u-glides	OE	ME
[ei]	weζ [j ]	wey [i ] (way)	[iu]	-	-
[ai]	m æ ζ [j]	may [i ] (may)	[au]	la ζ[ γ ] u	law [u] e [‘lauə] (low)
[oi](in French loan-words)		boy, toy	[ou]	cnāw [w] an	know [u] en [‘knouən] (know)

The diphthong oi was of French origin.

Lengthening and diphthongization in NE (17c) due to the vocalization of r.

After short vowels

ME: o+r=o: (NE): for-fo:

ME: a+r=a: (NE): bar-ba:

ME: I,e,u+r=e: (NE): fur-fe:

ME: shwa+r=shwa (NE): brother-brathe

After long vowels:

i:+r=aie: fire-faie

e:+r= ie: beer-bie

a+r=ee: bear-bee

o:+r=o: floor

flower

The Great Vowel Shirt

Early NE witnessed the greatest event in the history of Eng­lish vowels — the Great Vowel Shift, — which involved the change of all ME long monophthongs, and probably some of the diphthongs.

Great Vowel Shift – the change that happened in the 14th – 16th c. and affected all long monophthongs + diphthong [au]. As a result these vowels were:

· diphthongized;

· narrowed (became more closed);

· both diphthongized and narrowed.

ME Sounds	NE Sounds	ME	NE
[i:] à	[ai]	time [‘ti:mə]	time [teim]
[e:] à	[i:]	kepen [‘ke:pən]	keep [ki:p]
[a:] à	[ei]	maken [‘ma:kən]	make [meik]
[o:] à à	[ou] [u:]	stone [‘sto:nə] moon [mo:n]	stone [stoun] moon [mu:n]
[u:] à	[au]	mous [mu:s]	mouse [maus]
[au] à	[o:]	cause [‘kauzə]	cause [ko:z]

The spelling remained unchanged.

lt should be obvious from the chart and the table that the Great Vowel Shift did not add any new sounds to the vowel system; in fact, every vowel which developed under the Shift can be found in Late ME

And nevertheless the Great Vowel Shift was the most profound and comprehensive change in the history of English vowels: every long vowel, as well as some diphthongs, were "shifted", and the •pronunciation of all the words with these sounds was altered

 

12.CONSONANT CHANGES IN THE HISTORY OF ENGLISH.

A large number of consonants have probably remained unchanged through all historical periods. Thus we can assume that the sonorants [m,n,l], the plosives [p,b,t,d] and also [k, g] in most positions have not been subjected to any noticeable changes.

The most important developments in the history of English conso­nants were the growth of new sets of sounds, — affricates and sibilants (свистячие), — and the new phonological treatment of fricatives. Both changes added a number of consonant phonemes to the system. On the other band, some consonants were lost or vocalised, which affected both the consonant and the vowel system.

Growth of Sibilants and Affricates

In OE there were no affricates and no sibilants, except [s, z]

The earliest distinct traces of these sounds appeared towards the end of OE or during the Early ME period. The new type of consonants de­veloped from OE palatal plosives [k', g'] (which had split from the corresponding velar plosives [k and g] in Early OE and also from the consonant cluster [sk']. The three new phonemes which arose from these sources were [t ∫, дж and ∫ ]. In Early ME they began to be indicated by special letters and digraphs, which came into use mainly under the influence of the French scribal tradition — ch, tch, g, dg, sh, ssh, sch

[k’] à[t∫]: cild [k’il’d]- child [t∫ild]

[g’] à[dζ]: ecge [‘egg’] edge [‘edζ]

[sk’] à[∫]: fisc [fisk’]- fish [fi∫]

Another development accounting for the appearance of sib­ilants and affricates in the English language is dated in Early NE and is connected with the phonetic assimilation of lexical borrowings. In the numerous loan-words of Romance origin adopted in ME and Early NE the stress fell on the ultimate or penultimate syllabic. In accordance with the phonetic tendencies the stress was moved closer to the beginning of the word. The final syllables which thus became unstressed, or weakly stressed, underwent phonetic alterations: the vowels were reduced and sometimes dropped; the sounds making up the syllable became less distinct. As a result some sequences of consonants fused into single consonants.

Palatalisation – as a result of reduction of unstressed vowels several consonants merged into one:

ME Sounds	NE Sounds	ME	NE
[sj] à	[∫]	commissioun [komi’sjon]	commission [kə’mi∫ən]
[zj] à	[ζ]	pleasure [ple’zjur]	pleasure [‘pleζə]
[tj] à	[t∫]	nature [na’tjur]	nature [‘neit∫ə]
[dj] à	[dζ]	procedure [,pros’djur]	procedure [prə’si dζə]

There were some exceptions though, e.g. mature, duty, due, suit, statue, tune, etc

Treatment of Fricative Consonants in ME and Early NE

A new, decisive alteration took place in the 16th c. The fric­atives were once again subjected to voicing under certain phonetic conditions.

They were voiced: in functional words and auxiliaries that are never stressed; when preceded by an unstressed and followed by a stressed vowel:

ME Sounds	NE Sounds	ME	NE
[s] à	[z]	possess [pə’ses]	possess [pə’zes]
[q] à	[ð]	this [qis],the [qə], there [qεə]	this [ðis],the [ðə], there [ðεə]
[f] à	[v]	of [of]	of [ov]
[ks] à	[gz]	anxiety [,ən’ksaiəti]	anxiety [,ən’gzaiəti]
[t∫] à	[dζ]	knowledge [‘kno:lət∫ə]	knowledge [‘no:lidζ]

On the whole in Early NE voicing of fricatives was rather irregular. Though it was a positional change occurring jn certain phonetic conditions, these conditions were often contradictory. The voicing had many exceptions.

Loss of Consonants

As shown in the preceding paragraphs, the system of conso­nants underwent important changes in ME and Early NE. It acquired new phonemes and new phonemic distinctions, namely a distinction between plosives, sibilants and affricates, a phonemic distinction through sonority in the sets of fricatives, sibilants and affricates. On the other hand, some changes led to the reduction of the consonant system and also to certain restrictions in the use of consonants.

A number of consonants disappeared: they were vocalized and gave rise to diphthong­al glides' or made the preceding short vowels long.

With the disappearance of [x'] the system lost one more opposition — through palatalisation, as "hard" to "soft". (The soft [k'] and [g'l turned into affricates some time earlier).

Another important event was the loss of quantitative distinc­tions in the consonant system.

It should be recalled that in OE long consonants were opposed to short at the phonological level. This is confirmed by their occurrence in identical conditions, their phonological application and the consistent writing of double letters, especially in intervocal position. In Late ME long consonants were shortened and the phonemic opposi­tion through quantity was lost.

The loss of long consonant phonemes has been attributed to a va­riety of reasons. Long consonants disappeared firstly because their functional load was very low, and secondly, because length was becoming a prosodic feature, that is a property of the syllable rather than of the sound. Some consonants underwent positional chances which restricted their use in the language. The consonants [ ∫ ] and [r] were vocalized under certain phonetic conditions — finally and before consonants. [ r] was vocalised at the end of the word in the 16^th -17^th c. (see Lecture 11); [j] disappeared as a result of palatalisation); [j] remained only initially (e.g. year, yard, etc.); [х, х’] were lost (e.g. ME taughte [‘tauхtə] – NE taught [to:t], ME night [niх’t] – NE night [neit] [kn] à [n] (e.g. ME know [knou] – NE know [nou]); [gn] à [n] (e.g. ME gnat [gnat] – NE gnat [næt]);

 

13. FORM-BUILDING MEANS IN THE HISTOEY OF ENGLISH

OE was a synthetic language; it showed the relations between words and expressed other grammatical meanings mainly with the help of simple (synthetic) grammatical forms. In build­ing grammatical forms OE employed grammatical endings, sound interchanges in the root, grammatical prefixes, and suppletive forma­tion.

Grammatical endings, or inflections, were certainly the principal form-building means used: they were found in all the parts of speech that could change their form; they were usually used alone but could also occur in combination with other means.

Sound interchanges were employed on a more limited scale and were often combined with other form-building means, especially endings. Vowel interchanges were more common than interchanges of consonants.

The use of prefixes in grammatical forms was rare and was confined to verbs. Suppletive forms were restricted to several pronouns, a few ad­jectives and a couple of verbs.

There were five nominal grammatical cate­gories In OE: number, case, gender, degrees of comparison, and the category of definiteness/indefiniteness (adj). Each part of speech had Its own peculiarities in the inventory of categories and the number of members within the category. The noun had only two grammatical categories proper: number and case (for the distinction of gender). The adjective had the maximum number of categories — five. The number of members in the same grammatical categories in differeni parts of speech did not necessarily coincide: thus the noun had four cases. Nominative, Genitive, Dative, and Accusative, whereas the adjective had five (the same four cases plus the Instrumen­tal case)1. The persona'; pronouns of the 1st and 2nd p., unlike other parte of speech, distinguished three numbers — Singular, Plural and Dual.

Verbal grammatical categories were not numerous: tense and mood — verbal categories proper — and number and person, showing agreement between the verb-predicate and the subject of the sentence.

ME and NE

In the course of ME and Early NE the grammatical system of the language underwent profound alteration. Since:he OE period the very grammatical type of the language has changed; from what cart be defined as a synthetic or inflected language, with a well developed morphology English has been transformed into a language of the "ana­lytical type", with analytical forms and ways of word connection pre­vailing ever synthetic ones. Some grammatical characteristics remained absolutely or re­latively stable; others were subjected to more or less extensive modifi­cation.

The division of words into parts of speech has proved to be one of the most permanent characteristics of the language. The only new part of speech was the article which split from the pronouns in tiarly ME

Between the 10th and the 16th c, that is from Late OE lo Early NE the ways of building up grammatical farms underwent consid­erable changes. In OE all the forms which can be included into mor­phological paradigm