Lecture 10

“Changes in phonetic system in Middle English”

1 Vowels in the unstressed position

All vowels in the unstressed position underwent a qualitative change and became the vowel of the type [ә] or [e] unstressed. The phonetic change had a far-reaching effect upon the system of the grammatical endings of the English words which now due to the process of reduction became homonymous. For example:

• forms of strong verbs

Old English – writan – wrãt – writon – written

with the suffixes –an, - on, -en, different only in the vowel component became homonymous in Middle English:

written – wrōt – written – written

2 Vowels under stress

Qualitative changes

Three long monophthongs underwent changes in Middle English:

Old English Middle English

ã > ō stãn stōn stone

ǽ > ē slǽpan slepēn sleep

ŷ > ī fŷr fīr fire

Out of the seven principal short monophthongs : a, e, o, i, æ, y – two changed their quality in Middle English, thus [æ] became [a] and [y] became[i], for example

Old English Middle English

Þæt that

wæs was

fŷrst first

• Changes of diphthongs

All English diphthongs were contacted ( became monophthongs)

ēo >ē dēop deep

ēa > ē bērad bread

New diphthongs appeared in Middle English due to vocalization of some consonants [γ], [ĵ}

[ai], [ei], [au], [ou

3 Quantitative changes

Lengthening of vowels

All vowels which occurred before the combinations of consonants such as mb, nd, ld became long.

[i] >[i:] climban climben climb

- Shortening of vowels

All long vowels were shortened if they are found before two consonants:

Old English Middle English

cēpte ceptte keep

4 Consonants

The most important change in the consonants system that can be observed if we compare the Old English and the Middle English consonants system will be the development of the fricative consonant [ƒ] and affricates [tƒ] and [dצ]

Old English Middle English

[k] > [tƒ] cild child

benc bench

cicen chicken

[sk] > [ƒ] scip ship

[g> [dצ] brycצ bridge