23. Changes in the phonetic system in Middle English. Consonants.

The most important change in the consonant system that can be observed if we compare the Old English and the Middle English consonant system will be the development of the fricative consonant [ʃ] and the affricates [tʃ] and [dƷ] from Old English palatal consonants or consonant combinations.

Thus we can notice that variants of some Old English consonant phonemes developed differenly. For example:

The phoneme denoted in Old English by the letter с had two variants: [k] — hard and [k’] — palatal, the former remaining unchanged, the latter giving us a new phoneme, the phoneme [tʃ] .

Special notice should be taken of the development of such consonant phonemes that had voiced and voiceless variants in Old English, such as:

[f] — [v] in spelling f

[s] — [z] in spelling s

24. Changes in the phonetic system in New English. Vowels in the unstressed position. Vowels under stress. Qualitative changes.

Vowels in the unstressed position already reduced in Middle English to the vowel of the [ə] type are dropped in New English if they are found in the endings of words, for example:

Old English Middle English New English

Nama name name [neim]

The vowel in the endings is sometimes preserved — mainly for phonetic reason: wanted, dresses

— without the intermediate vowel it would be very difficult to зronounce the endings of such words.

Vowels under stress

Qualitative changes

— Changes of monophthongs

All long monophtongs in New English underwent a change that is called The Great Vowel Shift. Due to this change the vowels became more narrow and more front.

Two long close vowels: [u] and [i] at first also became more narrow and gave diphthongs of the [uw] or [ij] type. But those diphthongs were unstable because of the similarity between the glide and the nucles.

Consequently the process of the dissimilation of the elements of the new diphthongs took place and eventually the vowels [i] and [u] gave us the diphthongs [ai] and [au], respectively.

Middle English New English

[u]>[au] hous house

[i]>[ai] time time

Influence of the consonant “r” upon the Great Vowel Shift.

When a long vowel was followed in a word by the consonant “r” the given consonant did not prevent the Great Vowel Shift, but the resulting vowel is more open, than the resulting vowel in such cases when the long vowel undergoing the Shift was followed by

a consonant other than "r".

As a result of the Great Vowel Shift new sounds did not appear, but the already existing sounds appeared under new conditions. For instance:

The sound existed

before the Shift

[ei] wey

[u:] hous

[i:] time

The sound appeared after the Shift

[ei] make

[u:] moon

[i:] see, etc.

Two short monophthongs changed their quality in new English (XVII century), the monophthong [a] becoming [ae] and the monophthong [u] becoming [ʌ]. For instance:

Middle English New English

That that

Cut cut

However, these processes depended to a certain extent upon the preceding sound. When the sound [a] was preceded by [w] it changed into [o].

Where the sound [u] was preceded by the consonants [p], [b], [f], the change of [u] into [ʌ] generally did not take place,(bull, butcher, pull, push, full, etc.)

But sometimes even the preceding consonant did not prevent the change, for instance:

Middle English New English

[u] > [ʌ] but [but] but [b ʌ t]

— Changes of diphthongs

Two out of the four Middle English diphthongs changed in New English, the diphthong [ai] becoming [ei] and the diphthong [au] contracted to [o:] For example:

Middle English New English

[ai] > [ei] dai day

[au]> [o:] lawe law