3. Quantitative changes

In OE short vowels were phonemically opposed to long ones. OE short vowels had developed from PG short vowels, while long ones went back to long vowels or bi-phonemic vowel sequences.

In later OE and in Early ME vowel length began to depend on phonetic conditions.

The earliest development was a change (the lengthening / shortening) of vowels before some consonant clusters; it occurred in Early ME or in Late OE.

1. Short vowels were lengthened before a sonorant and a plosive (ld, nd, mb), e.g. OE wild > ME wīld [wi:ld] ‘wild’, OE comb >ME cōmb ‘comb’, OE sund > ME sūnd ‘sound’.

2. Long vowels were shortened before all other groups of two or more consonants, e.g. OE cēpte > ME kepte ['keptə] ‘kept’; OE hūsbanda > ME husband; OE bewildrian > ME bewildren [be'wildrən] ‘bewilder’.

3. In the 12th or 13th c. short vowels became long in open syllables. This mostly affected the open short vowels [e], [a] and [o], but sometimes it is also found in the close vowels, [i] and [u]. In the process of lengthening close vowels became more open, e.g., OE open > ME open [':pən] ‘open’, wike > weke ['we:kə] ‘week’, nama > name ['na:mə] ‘name’.

In spite of some restrictions (e.g. no lengthening occurred in polysyllabic words and before some suffixes, e.g. OE bodi > ME body ['bodi] ‘body’, the alteration affected many words (see Table 7.5).

Table 7.5

Quantitative Vowel Changes in Late Old English and Early Middle English

Phonetic ­	Change	Examples
conditions	illustrated	OE	ME	NE
Before consonant sequences: sonorant plus plosive	Vowels be­come long	cild findan climban cold	child [i:ld] finden ['fi:ndən] climben ['kli:mbən] cold |'ko:ld]	child find climb cold
(ld, nd, mb)		feld	field [fe:ld]	field
		fundon	founden ['fu:ndən]	found
				(Past of
				find
		gold	gold [go:ld]	gold
Before other consonant sequences	Vowels be­come short	fifti fēdde mētte	fifty ['fifti] fedde ['feddə] mette ['mettə]	fifty fed met
		wīsdōm	wisdom ['wizdəm]	wisdom
In open syllables	Vowels be­come long and more	mete stelan	mete ['m:tə] stelen ['st:lən]	meat steal
	open	macian	maken ['ma:kən]	make
		talu	tale ['ta:lə]	tale
		nosu	nose ['no:zə]	nose
		stolen	stolen ['sto:lən]	stolen
		yfel	yvel, evel [i:], [e:]	evil3
		duru	doore ['do:rə]	door