Word stress

The word stress in OE was dynamic or force. Besides, it became fixed; in disyllabic and polysyllabic words it fell on the root morpheme or on the first syllable. It didn’t change its position in word forms. There were two types of word stress: verbal and nominal – in verbs the root was stressed while in nominal parts of speech the first syllable which could be a prefix was stressed. In this way the stress started to distinguish between verbs and nouns.

The stress greatly influenced the development of the vowel system. As the unstressed vowels were weaker they changed differently from stressed vowels.

VOWELS

Vowels in the English language underwent qualitative and quantitative, dependent (assimilative) and independent (spontaneous) changes; every change was a gradual process and began with the growth of variation in pronunciation. This variation was manifested in a number of allophones, and then one of them prevailed and replaced the others. Different allophones could prevail in different dialects.

There were some tendencies in the development of the vowel system:

1. The stressed and unstressed vowels changed in different ways.

2. Long monophthongs became closer and some were diphthongized.

3. Short monophthongs became more open.

4. Diphthongs which in Proto-Germanic were sequences of monophthongs rather than diphthongs were monophthongized or turned into diphthongs with different glides. Most of the new diphthongs developed as a result of assimilative changes under the influence of preceding or following consonants.

5. If we compare the vowel systems of different periods we can observe some systematic changes. The OE vowel system is symmetric basing on the feature of length. There are short and long vowels and diphthongs which differ only in length. There is no qualitative difference between long and short vowels. In ME this symmetry is lost though some monophthongs still have short and long counterparts. There are no more long diphthongs and there are some long monophthongs which don’t have short counterparts. In Modern English long and short monophthongs have qualitative differences: they have place of articulation, they differ as tense and lax.

6. In the cause of time diphthongs proved to be not very stable. They were monophthongized while new diphthongs developed as a result of new assimilative changes.

7. The modern rules of vowels pronunciation began to develop in the ME when the length of the vowel began to depend on the position. They became long before certain clusters of consonants and remained or became short before other clusters. In the same period the difference in pronunciation between vowels in open and closed syllables developed.

8. The 3^rd and 4^th types of reading developed in the NE period; these were assimilative changes influenced by the consonant [r].

9. There were other qualitative assimilative changes with the influence of preceding or following consonants in the NE period.

10. The biggest independent qualitative change of vowels was the Great Vowel Shift which lasted during several centuries. It influenced all long monophthongs and even several diphthongs.

11. When speaking about vowel changes we should keep in mind that spelling did not necessarily change together with the pronunciation and that’s why it seems so complicated now.

12. The unstressed vowels developed in a different way. In OE the number of unstressed vowels reduced and no long monophthongs or diphthongs were used in the unstressed position. In ME the number of unstressed vowels reduced even more to [i], [e], [a] and shwa [ə]; in NE we should distinguish between native and borrowed words because the status of unstressed vowels in them is different. Thus in native and completely assimilated words there are the following unstressed vowels [i], [e] and[ə], while in borrowed words there is practically no restriction – both long monophthongs and diphthongs can be used in the unstressed position.

DEVELOPMENT OF STRESSED VOWELS

OLD ENGLISH

INDEPENDENT CHANGES OF STRESSED VOWELS

Splitting of [a] and [a:]

The PG short [a] and long [a:] were fronted and in the process of fronting they split into several sounds. The change of [a] > [æ] and [a:] > [æ:] is fronting or palatalisation of [a, a:]. But this process had a restriction: before a nasal consonant [a] changed to [ɔ] or [ã] and [a:] changed to [o:].

Development of Proto-Germanic Diphthongs

The PG diphthongs underwent regular independent changes in Early OE. The diphthongs with i-glide were monophthongized while those with u-glide changed to long diphthongs [ea:], [eo:] and [io:].

ASSIMILATIVE VOWEL CHANGES

Breaking

Stressed vowels underwent assimilative changes under the influence of succeeding or preceding consonants.

If a front vowel stood before a velar consonant there developed a glide between them. The glide together with the original monophthongs formed a diphthong. Breaking produced short diphthongs [ea] and [eo] – counterparts to long diphthongs which had developed from the PG ones. Short diphthongs are a specific OE feature.

Diphthongization – (6^th century)

after sk’, k’, j

Diphthongization was caused by preceding consonants – a glide appeared after a palatal consonant as a transition to a vowel.

After palatal consonants [k’], [sk’] and [j] short and long [e] and [æ] turned into diphthongs with a more front close vowel as their first element. At first the initial element of these diphthongs was unstressed but later the stress shifted.

Palatal Mutation – (7^th century)

Palatal mutation is the fronting and raising of vowels through the influence of [i] or [j] in the immediately following syllable

Practically all monophthongs and diphthongs were palatalized in this phonetic condition. It led to the growth of new vowel interchanges and the variability of root-morphemes increased – many related words and grammatical forms acquired a new root. Vowel interchanges

The mechanism of palatal mutation: the sounds [i] or [j] influenced the preceding consonant causing its palatalisation; the palatalized consonant caused the palatalisation of the vowel.

Velar mutation

Velar mutation is a transformation of a root vowel into a diphthong through the influence of a back vowel in the succeeding syllable:

Velar mutation took place in some of the OE dialects.