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.

Features of OE vocalic system:

1. OE had a large vowel system. It was represented by two sets of vowels: monophthongs and diphthongs.

2. There were long and short vowels

3. OE had 7 or 8 monophthongs depending on the dialect and each could appear as either a long or short monopthong

4. All dialects of OE had 3 or 4 diphthongs which appear to have short and long versions

5. Unstressed vowels were not reduced

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.

Unstressed Vowels

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: [ə] and [i], which are never directly contrasted; this means that phonemic contrasts in unstressed vowels had beer, practically lost.

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

QUALITATIVE VOWEL CHANGES IN EARLY MIDDLE ENGLISH

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

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

1. 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.
2. 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

5. 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]

Dipthongs

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

In Early ME we observe loss of OE diphthongs and the growth of new diphthongs, with new qualitative and quantitative distinctions.

OE diphthongs turned into monophthongs in ME

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:

The diphthong oi was of French origin.

7. MAJOR VOWEL CHANGES IN NEW ENGLISH

In ME the following changes occurred (14th c): i   u   i:    u: e o      e:    o: a  e:    o: a:

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.

It should be remembered, 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:

· the shifting of word stress

· vocalization of r in such endings as writer, actor where [er] and [or] became [ǝ]

· some of the new unstressed vowels were reduced to the neutral sound, while others have retained certain qualitative and quantitative differences: adversely - [æ], directly [ai]

These developments show that the gap between the stressed and the unstressed vowels has narrowed, so that in ME and NE we can no longer subdivide the vowels into two distinct vowel systems (stressed and unstressed), like we can in OE

Rise and growth of long monophthongs and diphthongs due to the vocalisation of consonants

· [au] was contracted to [o:] in accordance with regular vowel changes and [x] was lost, which transformed the words into NE taught

· Palatal fricative [x’] turned into [j] during the 15^th century => the preceding [i] turned into [i:]. Example: the stages of the word night – [nix’t]>[nijt]>[ni:t]>[nait]

· Lengthening of vowels due to 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

The Great Vowel Shift

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.

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

Qualitative changes in NE. In addition to the main sources of long monophthongs and diphthongs in Early NE, such as the Great Vowel Shift and the vocalisation of the sonorant [r], there were a few other instances of the growth of long vowels from short ones in some phonetic conditions. This lengthening resembles Early ME quantitative vowel changes before consonant groups; only this time the consonant sequences which brought about the lengthening were different: [ss], [ft] and [nt]; the sequences mainly affected the vowel [a], e.g. ME plant [plant ]>NE plant, ME after ['aft∂r]>NE after, ME mass [mass]>-NE mass.

8. THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE NOUN IN THE HISTORY OF ENGLISHTHE CATEGORIES OF NOUN:

1. Number (gram category) – Singular (Sg) and Plural (Pl). Number proved to be the most stable of all the nominal categories. The noun preserved the formal distinction of two numbers through all the historical periods

Since OE is a synthetic lang., it employs dif. Ways of forming the plural which depend on the type of declension a noun refers to

- in most declensions the plurals were inflected (lamb – lambru)

- some nouns made plural by vowel gradation (mann – menn)

- the sg. And the pl. form coinside

This system has still trases in MnE, which are preserved as irregular plurals: goose – geese, man – men

2. Gender – Masculine (M), Feminine (F), Neuter (N). The OE Gender (there were 3 genders), being a classifying feature (and not a grammatical category proper) disappeared together with other distinctive features of the noun declensions. The Gender in OE was not supported semantically. It was only a classifying feature for the declensions and as far as the declensions disappeared there was no necessity to preserve the Gender. It disappeared by the 11th – 12t-h -13 c.(Early ME).

3. Case (gram category) – Nominative, Genitive, Dative, Accusative.

The main peculiarities of OE cases:

1. Nom and Acc were coinside;

2. Dat pl ended in ‘-um’;

3. Gen pl always had ‘-a’.

The grammatical category of Case was preserved but under­went profound changes in Early ME. The number of cases was reduced from four (distinguished in OE) to two in Late ME due to:

Causes for Decay of Case System:

1. Extra linguistic factor. Influence of the Scandinavian Dialects that were grammatically simpler in comparison with OE Dialects and this influence led to the minimization of grammar.

2. Phonetic reduction of final unstressed syllables (inflections), forms of diff. cases became harmonious

3. As far as there was no distinctions between the Cases, the distinction between the Subject and the Object of a sentence was lost => fixed word order appeared (The Subject almost always took the first place and was followed by the Object).

4. The growing number and role of prepositions