Monophtongs

a>e framian > fremman ‘perform’

sandian > sendan ‘send’

namnian > nemnan ‘name’

æ > e tælian > tellan ‘tell’

sælian > sellan ‘give’

sætian > settan ‘set’

ā > ǣ lārian > lǣran ‘teach’

hālian > hǣlan ‘heal’

o > e ofstian > efstan ‘hurry’

ō > ē dōmian > dēman ‘judge’

wōpian > wēpan ‘weep’

u > y fullian > fyllan ‘fill’

ū > ȳ cūƥian > cȳƥan ‘announce’

Diphtongs

ea >ie hleahian > hliehhan ‘laugh’. This ie often becomes i, y: hlihhan, hlyhhan;

ēā > īē hēārian > hīēran ‘hear’. This ie often becomes ī, ȳ: hīrran, hȳran;

eo > ie afeorrian > afierran ‘remove’. This ie also often becomes i, y: afirran, afyrran;

ēō > īē 3etrēōwi > 3etrīēwe ‘true’. This īē is also often becomes i, y, 3etrīwe, getrȳwe;

Sometimes eo > io, and this io develops back into eo: 3eƥēode > 3eƥīode, 3eƥēode ‘language’.

Back umlaut is very characteristic of OE. A different kind of mutation was caused by a back vowel (u, o, a) of the following syllable. The essence of back mutation is this. The articulation of the back vowel is anticipated in the preceding front vowel, which accordingly develops into a diphthong. Back mutation did not spread equally to all OE dialects. In the West-Saxon literary language it only occurs before liquids and labial consonants (r, l, p, b, f, m). Back mutation may be illustrated by the following examples:

i > io hira > hiora ‘their’, silufr > siolufr ‘silver’, lifast > liofast ‘livest’, sifon > siofon ‘seven’. This io often develops into eo: heora, seolufr, etc;

e > eo herot > heorot ‘hart’, hefon > heofon ‘heaven’, efor > eofor ‘boar’;

a > ea saru > searu ‘armour’.

Fracture is the process of diphtongizing of short vowels under the influence of some consonant clusters. It is the vowels a and e that undergo fracture;

a > ea before the clusters “r+consonant”, “1+consonant”, “h+consonant”, and before the final h: ærm > earm ‘arm’, æld > eald ‘old’, æhta > eahta ‘eight’;

e > eo before the clusters “r+consonant”, “1c, 1h, h+consonant” and h final: herte > heorte ‘heart’, melcan > meolcan ‘milk’, feh > feoh ‘cattle’.

The phonetic essence of fracture is that the front vowel is partially assimilated to the following hard consonant by forming a glide, which combines with the vowel to form a diphthong. Fracture is the most characteristic of the West Saxon dialect. In other dialects, such as Mercian, fracture in many cases does not occur; then the vowel æ becomes a, and the resulting forms are arm, ald, ahta, sah.

Lengthening of vowels

Vowels standing before some consonant groups showed the tendency of lengthening. The consonant groups which caused the lengthening of vowels are the following: nd bindan > bīndan ‘bind’, bunden > būnden ‘bound’, ld cild > cīld ‘a child’, mb climban > clīmban ‘climb’.

If the cluster was followed by another consonant, lengthening did not take place, as in cildru ‘children’.

Palatalization

A palatal consonant standing at the beginning of a word caused a phonetic phenomenon called palatalization. Palatalization of vowels is a process of formation of diphthongs under the influence of initial palatal consonants. The consonants which caused palatalization are the following: 3, c., sc.

Under the influence of these consonants e > ie 3efan > 3iefan ‘to give’;

a, æ, æ > ea scacan > sceacan ‘to shake’; o > eo scort > seort ‘short’.

LECTURE 3

1. Verner’s law.

2. Palatalization of consonants.

3. Other changes and loss of consonants.

4. Metathesis.

5. Stress.

In all the OG languages we can find a certain gradation of consonants which in the period preceding the OE was like this: [s] - [z], [θ] - [ð], [h] - [g], [hv] - [v] (g). This phenomenon was explained by the Danish scholar Verner and came to be known in linguistics as Verner’s Law. The essence of this phonetic phenomenon is the following: a voiceless stop was preceded by an unstressed vowel, the voiceless fricative which developed from it became voiced, and later this voiced fricative became a voiced stop. Thus in the Greek word patēr voiceless stop t was preceded by an unstressed vowel. Under these circumstances the voiceless fricative ƥ which developed from it became a voiced fricative ð, and eventually this voiced fricative developed into the voiced stop d: cweƥan – cweðan – cwædon - cweden ‘to speak’: [ƥ] → [ð] → [d]. The voiced fricative [z] in the position between two vowels changed into [r]. The phenomenon of changing [s] - [z] - [r] is called rhotacism, e.g. ceosan – ceas – curon – coran ‘to choose’. The process of changing of voiceless fricatives into voiced ones according to Verner’s law can be traced in MnE.: be - was - were;

OE wæs - wæron - where OG stress followed the voiceless fricative [s] which turned into [z], the voiced [z] in the position between two vowels changed into [r]. Thus as a result of the influence of Verner’s law and some other phonetic phenomena the OG fricative sounds changed as the following: [f]>[v]>[b]; [ƥ]>[ð]>[d]; [h]>[y]> no consonant; [s]>[z]>[r]> no consonant.