12. Consonant changes in me and ne (growth of affricates, loss of certain consonants).

A large number of consonants have probably remained unchanged through all historical periods. The most important development in the history of new sets of sounds, - affricates and sibilants, - and the new phonological treatment of fricatives.

Growth of affricates: The new type of consonants developed from OE palatal plosives [k’, g’] and also from the consonant cluster [sk’]. The 3 new phonemes which arose from these sources were [t∫], [dʒ], [∫]. In Early ME they began to be indicated by special letters and digraphs, which came into use under the influence of the French scribal tradition – ch, tch, g, dg, sh, ssh, sch. The sound changes: k’ > t∫; g’ > dʒ; sk’ > ∫.

In ME the opposition of velar consonants to palatal – [k,k’,g,j] – had disappeared, instead, plosive consonants were contrasted to the new affricates and in the set of affricates [t∫] was opposed to [dʒ] through sonority.

In the numerous loan-words of Romance origin adopted in ME and Early NE the stress fell on the ultimate or penultimate syllable: the stress was moved closer to the beginning of the word.

In Early NE the clusters [sj, zj,tj,dj] - through reciprocal assimilation in unstressed position – regularly changed into [∫,ʒ, t∫, dʒ]: [sj]> [∫], [zj]>[ ʒ], [tj]> [t∫]; [dj]> [dʒ].

Loss of certain consonants: In Late ME long consonants were shortened and the phonetic opposition through quantity was lost. 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. In ME the length of the syllable was regulated by the lengthening and shortening of vowels.

In Early NE the aspirate [h] was lost initially before vowels – though not in all the words. In Early NE the initial consonant sequences [kn] and [gn] were simplified to [n], as in ME. Simplification of final clusters produced words like NE dumb, climb, in which [mb] lost the final [b].

14. 15. The oe noun system (grammatical categories, major types of declension).

The OE noun had 2 grammatical categories: number and case. Also, nouns distinguished 3 genders, but gender was not a grammatical category; it was merely a classifying feature accounting for the division of nouns into morphological classes.

The category of number consisted of two members: singular and plural. There were 4 major cases: nominative, genitive, dative, accusative.

The OE system of declensions was based on a number of distinctions: the stem-suffix, the gender of nouns, the phonetic structure of the word, phonetic changes in the final syllables.

Stem-suffixes could consist of vowels (vocalic stems, e.g. a-stems, i- stems), of consonants (consonantal stems, e.g. n-stems), of sound sequences, e.g. -ja-stems, -nd-stems. Some groups of nouns had no stem-forming suffix or had a “zero-suffix”; they are usually termed “root-stems” and are grouped together with consonantal stems, as their roots ended in consonants, e.g. OE man, bōc.

OE nouns are divided as either strong or weak. Weak nouns have their own endings. In general, weak nouns are easier than strong nouns, since they had begun to lose their declensional system. Strong (a,o,i,u –stem). A-stem and its variation ja&wa – m,n. O-stem – jo&wo –f noun. I-stem – m,f,n. U-stem – m,f. j,w –appeare before inflexion. Weak decl – n –m,f,n. es –n. room-stem (Root-stem formed some cases not by an in flexional ending, but by the chance of the root vowel due to mutation)-no form suffixes. Mutation was used to define number and gender of noun. Primary compound (both parts in Nomcase) +adj+noun. Secondary comp.noun (the 2-nd part in Gen Case.)=noun+noun, verb+noun.