10. Verner’s Law. Development of Indo-European vowels in Germanic languages.

A sound change, first worked out by the Danish linguist Karl Verner (1846-1896), which explained a class of apparent exceptions to Grimm’s law. He found that Grimm’s law worked well whenever the stress fell on the root syllable of the Sanskrit word; but when it fell on another syllable, the consonants behaved differently. Voiceless stops then did not stay as voiceless fricatives, but became voiced stops.

Verner’s Law: [t > θ > ð > d]: Sans. pitár > PG. faðar > OR. fæder (E. father).

11. Phonetic peculiarities of West-Germanic languages.

1. Doubling of consonants (gemination) took place between a short vowel and sound [j] ([r], [l]): Gothic. saljan, taljan > OE. sellan, tellan > E. sell, tell. (Compare: Rus. веселье, знанье; Ukr. весiлля, знання).

But: r was not doubled: Goth. arjan > OE. erian (‘to plough’) (Compare: Rus. перья; Ukr. пiр’я). Doubling failed after long vowels: Goth. fōdjan > OE. fēdan > E. feed.

2. Rhotacism (development of sound [z]): [s] > [z] > [r]

A common kind of phonetic change whereby a voiced sibilant [z] develops further into [r]. This is found, for instance, in German, compare English lose and German verlieren, and in Latin, compare flos (‘flower’ – nom.) – floris (‘flower’ – gen.). As can be seen in English was – were, rhotacism was an important feature of Germanic verbal morphology because in some points in verbal paradigms an [s] was voiced (due to Verner’s Law) and this [z] developed further to [r]. OE. wæs – wæron (<wæson); Goth. maiza – OE. mara.

12. Anglo-Saxon dialects and their phonetic peculiarities. The area originally occupied by Anglo-Saxons gave rise to two main dialects: - Northumbrian was spoken north of a line running approximately between the Humber and Mersey rivers. It extended into the eastern lowlands of present-day Scotland, where it confronted the Celtic language of the Strathclyde Britons. A period of Northumbrian political power in the late 7^th century made the north a cultural center, with several monasteries and the work of Bede pre-eminent (for example, the Ruthwell cross). - Mercian was spoken in the Midlands, roughly between the river Thames and the river Humber. Very few linguistic remains exist, presumably because of the destructive influence of the Vikings. The chief texts are various charters, a famous gloss to the Vespasian Psalter, and a few other Latin glossaries. The chief period of Mercian power was the early 8^th century. - Kentish, spoken in the area of Jutish settlement, was used mainly in present-day Kent and the Isle of Wight. There is very little extant material – a few charters of 8^th-9^th centuries, a psalm, a hymn, and sporadic glosses. - The rest of England, south of the Thames and west as far as Cornwall was settled by (West) Saxons and became known as Wessex. Most of the Old English corpus is written in the Wessex dialect, West Saxon, because it was its kingdom, under King Alfred, which became the leading political and cultural force at the end of the 9^th century. Modern Standard English is descended not from West Saxon but from Mercian, which was the dialect spoken in the area around London when that city became powerful in the Middle Ages.

1. Development of vowel [a]: a) G. land [land], lanʒ [lang] > OE. land [lånd], lånʒ [lång] (E. land, long). b) Goth. daʒs [daiz] > OE. dæʒ [dæi] (E. day). c) Breaking: before [h, r, l] + another consonant, and also before final [h]: [a] > [ea]. The term ‘breaking’ describes an early OE sound change, in which front vowels diphthongized before certain back consonants, namely before /r/ or /l/ + following consonant and before the velar fricative /x/ (=<h>). Goth. hardus; G. hart > OE. heard (E. hard). The same process took place with [æ] (æld > eald, æhta > eahta, sæh > seah) and [e] ([e > eo]: herte > heorte, melcan > meolcan, feh > feoh).

2. Loss of nasal consonants before fricatives [f, θ, s]: Goth. fimf, OHG. finf > OE. fif (E. five).

13. Phonetic changes in Old English. Vowel changes. 1. Front mutation (=i-umlaut, i-mutation, palatal mutation). [o], [a] > e (Anʒlisc-Enʒlisc); [u] > [y] (kuninʒ-cyninʒ); ea, eo > ie; ēa, ēo > īe. 2. Changes of PG diphthongs. PG. [ai] > OE. [a]; PG [au] > OE. [e:a].

Consonant changes. 1. Palatalization of velar consonants (began before the 6^th century).

[k] > [k’] > [tʃ]	OE. cild [tʃild] > E. child
[g] > [g’] > [dʒ]	OE. bricʒe [bridʒ] > E. bridge
[sk] > [sk’] > [ʃ]	OE. scip [ʃip] > E. ship

2. Voicing of fricatives. OE. wulf [wulf] – wulfas [‘wʋlvaz]; OE. wīf [wi:f] – wīfes [‘wi:ves]. OE. bæþ [bæθ] – baþian [‘baðian].

14. The Old English system of sounds and letters. 1) monophthongs (7 long, 7 short) 2) diphthongs (4 long, 4 short) 3) consonants.

There are no silent letters in Old English: all vowels and consonants are pronounced. f, s and p are pronounced voiced ([v, z, ð]) between vowels. Elsewhere they are voiceless. Doubled consonants are distinct from single ones; thus the dd in biddan (‘ask for’) is pronounced like –d d– in the phrase bad debt. Bear in mind that the combination cʒ was pronounced j as in ‘judge’; the combination sc was pronounced sh as in ‘ship’. OE ʒ was usually pronounced as g in ‘girl’, however, before e and i, and at the end of a word, it could be pronounced like the y in ‘yet’. OE c was usually pronounced k as in ‘king’. However, before e and i, and at the end of a word, it could be pronounced ch as in ‘chill’.

15. Middle English spelling changes. 1. The following letters went out of use: æ, ʒ, þ, ð, ƿ. 2. Some letters were borrowed from French: g, j, k, q, v, z. 3. New digraphs were introduced for consonant sounds: ch, sh, th, gh, ph, ck, dg, qu. 4. New digraphs were introduced to denote long vowel sounds: oo, ee, ie, ei, ou, ow. 5. More influence of French: c [s] before e, i, y; c [k] before a, o, u (cēpan – keepen). 6. In words with many vertical strokes letter u was substituted by letter o: cuman > comen (pronunciation of the stressed vowel remained the same).

16. Middle English consonant changes. 1. Simplification of some consonant groups (hr, hn, hl): hr, hn, hl > r, n, l: OE. hrinʒ, hlāford, hnutu > ME. ring, loverd, nute > E. ring, lord, nut.

2. Development of sound [ɣ]: ʒ [ɣ] > [w] w: OE. boʒa, morʒen > ME. bowe, morwen > E. bow, morrow. Compare Russian: его ([г > в]). Note: later this [w] denoted by w vocalized after vowels.

3. Vocalization of [j] and [w] after vowels:

[j] > [i]; [w] > [ʋ]: OE. snāw [sna:w] > snow [snow] > ME. snow [snəʋ] .

17. Middle English quantitative changes of vowels. 1. Lengthening of short vowels before homorganic clusters mb, ld, nd (started in the 9^th century). OE. cild [i] > ME. child [i:]. Homorganic lengthening failed before three-consonant clusters, e.g. cildru. 2. Shortening of long vowels (11^th century). OE. dūst [u:] > ME. dust [ʋ]. 3. Lengthening of [a, o, e] in open stressed syllables of disyllabic words (13^th century). OE. talu > ME. tale.

18. Middle English qualitative changes of vowels. Development of monophthongs ā, æ, ǣ, å, y, ȳ. 1. [æ] > [ʌ] OE. cæt > ME. cat.

2. [æ:] > [ɛ:] OE. sæ > ME. se 3. [a:] > [ɔ:] OE. bāt > ME. boot > ENE. boat [bɔ:t] (E. boat) [a:] > [o:] OE. stān > ME. stone 4. [å] > [o] only in West Midland: OE. land, man > lond, mon [å] > [a] in all other dialects: OE. land, man > land, man 5. [y] > [i] in the North-Eastern dialects: ME. hill [hil] [y] > [ʋ] in the Western dialects: ME. hull [hʋl] [y] > [e] in the Southern dialects: ME. hell [hel] 6. [ȳ] > [i:] in the North-Eastern dialects: ME. fir [fi:r] [ȳ] > [ʋi] in the Western dialects: ME. fuir [ȳ] > [ɛ:] in the Southern dialects: ME. fer.