Lecture 2 Historical Phonetics Plan 1 Phonetic development

Lecture 2 Historical Phonetics Plan: 1. Phonetic development of English vowels 2. Phonetic development of English consonants

OE Vowel System OE vowels (monophthongs) - 7 OE diphthongs (3) īe/ĭe ēo/ĕo ēa/ĕa ī/ĭ ȳ/ỹ ū/ŭ ē/ĕ ō/ŏ ǣ/ǣ ā/ă (ǣa/ǣa) Note 1: There is a complete symmetry of short & long vowels (the main phonemic opposition) Note 2: Length is a phonological distinctive feature Eg: īs - ĭs, gōd – Gŏd (marked with a macron)

I-umlaut/I-mutation In the course of time Germanic vowels proved to be more changeable than Germanic consonants. And within vowels, long vowels have proved to be more changeable than short ones. Besides both groups of vowels have shown themselves as prone to numerous positional changes. The most important of them in Old Germanic was i-umlaut (term by J. Grimm) or imutation or front mutation.

I-umlaut/I-mutation (2) I-mutation is a change of root back vowels or root open vowels to front ones or more close ones if followed by i/j in the next syllable. Eg: Goth badi -> OE bedd (bed) Goth fuljan -> OE fyllan (fill) The time of the change was the 6 -7 th c AD. (That’s why it is not observed in Gothic, Ulfila’s Bible of the 4 th c. in particular)

I-umlaut/I-mutation (3) One of the results of i-umlaut was the emergence of the new front vowels /y, y: / Because the elements i/j were common in Old Germanic suffixes and endings, front mutation affected great numbers of words. After causing the change the elements i/j often disappeared from the word. The remains of i-mutated words in Mod E are few (if compared with German).

I-umlaut/I-mutation(4) There are rather few traces of i-umlaut in Modern English: 1) irregular plurals (foot- feet, man –men, mouse – mice, tooth – teeth, goose- geese); 2) full – to fill, food – feed, tale – tell, strong – strength, old –elder, long - length. It was an Old Germanic change and it was a very common one. But Gothic was not affected.

Old English breaking (fructure) berg beorʒe alt eald alles ealle (все) eall(всякий, весь) hardus heard das heorte Herz This process took place before the following consonant combinations: l/r/w/h + another consonant This phenomenon took place in OE of all Germanic languages (OE breaking). But it spread between dialects unevenly (more characteristic of West Saxon). Breaking produced a new set of vowels in OE – the short diphthongs [ea] and [eo].

Lengthening of Vowels in OE In Early OE (9 th c) all vowels before ld, nd, mb were lengthened eg: fĭndan > fīndan (find) ăld > āld (old) Vowels were also lengthened as the result of the loss of consonants: Gt fimf – OE fīf (five) Gt uns – OE ūs (us)

Vowel Changes in ME 1. Quantitative vowel changes a) Lengthening in Late OE/Early ME – short vowels remained/were lengthened before two homorganic consonants, a sonorant and a plosive: ld, nd, mb, e. g. OE wīld – ME wild [wi: ld].

Vowel Changes in ME b) Shortening – other groups of two or more consonants made the preceding vowel short, e. g. OE cēpte – ME kepte, OE fēdde – ME fedde, OE wīsdōm – ME wisdom. c) Lengthening in the 12 th or 13 th c. – short vowels became long in open syllables. The lengthening mainly affected the more open of the short vowels [e], [a] and [o], e. g. OE open – ME open [o: pen], OE nama – ME name [na: me].

Vowel Changes in ME Qualitative vowel changes a) Development of monophthongs [y], [y: ] were replaced by [i], [i: ] in WS or [e], [e: ] in other areas, e. g. OE fyllan – ME fillen (unrounding). [a: ] was narrowed to [o: ], e. g. OE stān – ME stone (long vowels in general show tendency for narrowing) [æ] was replaced by [a], e. g. OE þæt – ME that

Vowel Changes in ME All OE diphthongs became monophthongs (monophthongization of dipgthongs: all diphthongs were monophthongised before [xt, x’t] and after [sk’], the diphthongs [ie: ], [ie] fused with [i: , i]) OE ME īe/ĭe > ī/ĭ ēo/ĕo > ē/ĕ ĕa > a ēa > ɛ:

Vowel Changes in ME b) Development of diphthongs As the vowel system lost two sets of diphthongs, long and short, a new set of diphthongs developed due to vocalisation of OE [j] and [γ] into [i] and [u], e. g. OE dæʒ - ME dai Diphthongs: ei, ai, oi, au, ou

The Great Vowel Shift (began in the late 14 th century and ended in the 16 th c. ) A peculiar change in LME during which all the 7 vowels then in existence came into motion and underwent either narrowing or diphthongizing or both. i: > ai ti: m > taɪm (time) u: > aʊ hu: s > haʊs (house) e: > i: se: n > si: (see) o: > u: mo: n > mu: n (moon) ɛ: > e: > i: sɛ: > si: (sea) ɔ: > əʊ hɔ: m > həʊm (home) a: > eɪ na: m > neɪm (name)

The Great Vowel Shift (2) Note 1: No new vowels resulted from the change. What occurred was the redistribution of the existing phonemes in certain types of words Cf: [ti: m > taɪm] [bi: < be: ] [hu: s > haʊs] [mu: n < mo: n] Note 2: The GVSh changed the pronunciation of countless E. words, but it was not followed by any significant and regular changes in E. spelling, which accounts for its irregularity. Numerous modern E. words are spelt nowadays the way they were pronounced and written before the GVSh. , i. e. in Late ME Eg: time, like, moon, see, me home, spoken, etc.

Important Positional Vowel Changes 1) reduction of unstressed vowels with the loss of final -e in the late 14 th c. OE sunu – LME sun(e) - son 2) rounding (labialization) in the 15 -16 th c. of [wa] > [wɔ] eg: was, want, wash, swan, quality, etc 3) vocalization of /r/ when final or before another consonant and the rise of new long vowels /ɔ: a: ə: / 17 th century eg: far, park, four, sir, purse

Phonetic Development of Consonants a) the existence of long consonants which disappear in ME E. g. tellen, sittan, mann b) absence of /ʃ ʒ ʧ ʤ/ which appear in EME OE ME [sk’] ˃ /ʃ/ skip > ship [k’] > /ʧ/ cild > child [gg’] > /ʤ/ ecg > edge Note: as for /ʒ/, it came later in EME with French words, still remains a comparatively rare phoneme and is generally a sign of borrowings. E. g. : pleasure, mirage, genre, garage

Phonetic Development of Consonants c) presence of [x x’ ɣ] which disappear in ME but can be traced in the spelling of many words. E. g. : mihte [x’] > might d) voiced [v z р] where positional variants of the voiceless phonemes /f s Ѳ/ and until ME occurred in voiced environment only. Cf: wᴂs [s] wesan [z] cwᴂр [Ѳ] cweрan [р] fif [f] lufu [v]

Phonetic Development of Consonants Like vowels, E. consonants have been prone to positional changes, palatalization among those. The typical examples of palatalization in NE are the following: [sj] > [ʃ] mission [zj] > [ʒ] vision [tj] > [ʧ] nature [dj] > [ʤ] procedure b) Simplification of initial and final consonant clusters: wr- > r- wrong kn- > n- knee gn- > n- gnat -mn > -m autumn -mb > -m lamb -stl > -sl castle -stn > -sn listen