Гос филология / Гос филология / 36. Old English Phonetic Changes

Old English Phonetic Changes

Most of the changes in OE were assimilative changes that is the changes that are explained by the phonetic position of the sound in the word. The most important are:

• Breaking

• Mutation

They are qualitative changes in OE vowels

OE breaking (fracture) is the diphthongization of short vowels before certain sonorant clusters

Эerm – earm

The process of breaking took place in the 6^th century. It affected 2 vowels эe and e. then they were followed by the cons-s r, l, h and the other cons-s and h-final

æ>ea

e>eo

h+cons

h final

the mechanism of this process

when reaching the hard cons-t it appeared a transitional element between the monophthong and consonant. The resulting vowel was a diphthong. Hence the name breaking which means that a monophthong was broken into a diphthong.

Palatalization

OE vowels also changed under the influence of the initial cons-t

Жи [j]-front vowels

C [k’] – front vowels

Sc [sk’] - all vowels

Жи and c influenced only front vowels and sc influenced all vowels. As a result monophthongs were diphthongized. There may be a different int… The letter e and a which appeared might have indicated just a palatal quality of the precede cons.

Mutation is the change of one vowel to another through the influence of a vowel in the succeeding syllable

tælian – telan

dōmiam – deman

tōþi (последняя буква исчезает) – teþ

in mutation we can find different cources

i-mutation (palatal mutation) occurred in the almost stressed vowels, when followed by the sound I and became further more forward and higher, more palatal and narrower with the exception of e and I which could not go any further. This is a kind of partial assimilation that is the type of regressive assimilation:

fullian – fyllan

as a result of i-mutation new phonemes entered the vowel system of OE. They are y, ý. Due to the reduction of final syllables the conditions which cause the palatal mutation I and j had disappeared in most words by the age of writing

back-mutation

e – eo, a –ea, i – io

this kind of mutation was caused by back vowels u, a, o of the following syllable. The essence of it is like this: the articulation of the back vowel is anticipated in the preceeding front vowel which accordingly develops into a diphthong

saru-searu, hira-hiora

h-mutation (mutation before h)

the phonetic essence of this type remains somewhat obscure. The example of this is to be seen in the word night. It occurred in OE in the following variants

naht-neaht, nieht, niht

it might have been due to the palatal quality of h or due to the sound I which might have been a case of ending in the original type of declension to which the word belong