Old English Phonetics.

Plan:

1. Word Stress.

2. Origin of Old English vowels.

3. Origin of Old English consonants.

1. The system of word stress inherited from Proto-Germanic underwent no changes in Early Old English. A syllable was made prominent by an increase in the force of articulation. In disyllabic and polysyllabic words the stress fell on the root – morpheme or on the first syllable. Word stress was fixed; it remained on the same syllable in different grammatical forms of one and the same word. E.g. Nominative case: ‘hlaford [xla:vord], Dative case: ‘hlaforde [xla:vorde] – M. E. Lord.

Polysyllabic words, especially compounds usually had two stresses: chief and secondary. The chief stress was mainly on the first root of the compound. In words with prefixes the position of the stress varied. Verb prefixes were unstressed, while in nouns and adjectives the prefixes were stressed. E.g. Verb: a – ‘risan (M.E. to arise); Noun: ‘mis-dǽd (M.E. misdeed) (!)

If the words were derived from the same root, word stress served to distinguish the noun and the verb. E.g. ‘answaru – noun, and – ‘swarian - verb (M.E. answer).

2. Sound changes, particularly vowel changes, took place in English at every period of its history. The development of vowels in Early Old English consisted of modification of separate vowels and also of modification of sets (!) of vowels. The main phonetic changes which took place in the language are: splitting and merging. Both of them could be in the Independent and Dependent changes.

Independent changes:

1). The Proto-Germanic sounds [a] split into [ǽ], [o], [a]; [a:] splits into [ǽ:], [o:]. E.g. Gt. þata - þǽt (that); Gt. manna – mon (man); mano – O.E. mona (month).

2). Proto-Germanic diphthongs [ei, ai] in Modern English changed into [i:]; [iu, au, eu] – [a:]. E.g. meins – min (mine); Gt. auso – eare (ear).

Dependent changes:

3). Under the influence of preceding and succeeding consonants some early Old English monophthongs developed into diphthongs. This process is called breaking. It was widely spread in all Old English dialects, mostly in West Saxon dialects.

E.g. Early O.E. [ǽ] moved into [ea]; North. ǽld – W.S. eald (M.E. old)

ǽl – eal (M.E. all).

Before “h”, monophthong [ǽ] was broken into [ea:]; “e” – into [eo]; nǽh – neal (M.E. near);

fehtan – feohtan(M.E. fight).

4). Diphthongization.

E.g. “e” moved to [ie] after “sk”: skild – scield (M.E. shield)(!)

“ǽ:” moved to [ea:] after “j”: jǽr – ear (M.E. year).

5). Palatal mutation.

Mutation – it is the change of one vowel to another through the influence of a vowel in the succeeding syllable. In Early O.E. mutations affected numerous vowels and brought about profound changes in the system of vowels. The most important series of vowel mutation is known as “I – umlaut”(!) (palatal mutation). It is the fronting and raising of vowels under the influence of the vowel [i] or consonant [j] in the immediately following syllable. The vowel was fronted and raised in order to be closed to [i] and [j]. E.g. P.G.: sәlian – O.E. selian (M.E. to sell); larsjan - lǽran (M.E. to learn); fullian – fyllar (M.E. to feel).

6). Other vowel mutations.

Velar-mutation. It is the influence of back vowels in the succeeding syllables, which transformed the root vowel into diphthong. E.g. swestar – sweostar (M.E. sister); cary – ceary (M.E. care).

All the changes described above affected stressed vowels. The vowels in the unstressed syllables (final syllables) were different. The number of vowels, which could occur in the unstressed positions greatly reduced. Long vowels became short ones, and short vowels were practically dropped. E.g. nama – name; werian – wear.

In the 10^th c. the system of vowels was the following:

	Monophthongs	Diphthongs
Short	i; e; (oe); ǽ; a; o; u; y	(ie); ea; eo.
Long	i:; e:; (oe:); ǽ:; a:; o:; u:; y:	(ie:); ea:; eo:

3. On the whole, consonants were more stable than vowels, although certain changes took place in all historical periods. Mostly, consonants changed in the West – Saxon dialects. After the changes under the Grimm’s and Verner’s laws in Proto-Germanic language, there were the following sets of fricative consonants: voiceless [f; θ; x; s]; voiced [v; ∂; γ; z]. But in Early Old English voiced fricatives tended to be hardened to corresponding plosives. Voiceless fricatives did not undergo the process of hardening. E.g. [v] was hardened to [b]; [∂] to [d]; [γ] to [g]; [z] to [r] – this process is termed rhotacism. E.g. Gt.: wasjan – O.Icel.: verja – O.E. werian (M.E. to wear).

Voicing and Devoicing of consonants.

Proto-Germanic set of voiceless fricatives and also those of voiced fricatives, which had not turned into plosives, that is, [v] and [γ] were subjected to new process of voicing and devoicing. They became voiced between vowels or a combination vowel + sonorant; vowel + voiced consonant. E.g. wulf – wulfas. But they remained voiceless in other environment: initially, finally and next to other voiceless consonants. So, [f; v; x; s] were devoiced.

Gemination of consonants. (Doubling)

In Old English most consonants were lengthened after short vowels and before sound [j]. In order to indicate in spelling or in writing, the language employed double of consonants. E.g. setjan – settan ( M.E. to set).

Loss of consonants.

Nasal consonants were lost before fricative consonants. E.g. Gt. fimf – O. Icel. fim – O.E. fif (M.E. five). Gt. uns – O.E. us (M.E. us).

Palatalisation.

Velar consonants [k; g; x; γ] were palatalized before front vowels, some times after front vowels unless followed by back vowel. E.g. cild [k’ild]

After all these changes to the end of the 10^th c. the system of consonants was the following:

Consonants

Noise Sonorant

plosives fricatives

voiceless voiced voiceless voiced

Lecture 8