- •7.Old English Vowels. Gradation. Phonetic changes(breaking, I-mutation, back mutation)
- •3.Back, or Velar Mutation
- •8. Old English Vowels. Phonetic changes( palatalization, contraction, lengthening of Vowels in Certain Conditions)
- •1)Diphthongization after palatal consonants(palatalization)
- •2)Contraction
- •9.Old English Consonants. Phonetic Changes
- •1) Voicing of fricatives in intervocal position
- •10.Old English Morphology.
- •11. Old English Noun. Categories of oe Noun
- •13 Old English paradigm of the Noun and its reflection in Present-day English forms of the noun.
- •14 Old English pronoun. Classes.
- •15 Oe adjective and its categories
- •21. Old English vocabulary
- •22. Middle English. General characteristics of the period.
- •23. The Scandinavian Conquest. The Scandinavian influence on the English language
- •24. The Norman Conquest. French element in the me.
- •25. Changes in the System of Spelling
- •26. Middle English Phonology
- •27. Middle English Noun
- •28. Pronouns in Middle English
- •30.New Categories of the Middle English Verb
- •31.Verbals(Non-finite forms of the verb) in Middle Eng
- •32. Modern Eng.Formation of the national language.Expansion
- •35. Early Modern English Changes of Consonants
- •36. Nominal Parts of Speech in Early Modern English
- •37.Structures with Auxiliary do in Early Modern English
- •38. Changes in the Verbal System of Early Modern English
- •39. Vocabulary of Early Modern English
- •40. Early Modern English Syntax
35. Early Modern English Changes of Consonants
In many cases the change is resulted in the loss of consonants in certain
positions.
The sound I is lost in combinations before k, m , f v
talk; walk; stalk; folk; chalk
palm, calm, qualm, psalm (but not in helm, elm)
half, calf (but wolf, elf)
halves (but silver).
Some of these words, however, preserve the sound in the American
variant of the English language.
The sound I was preserved in the words of Latin origin such as resolve,
dissolve etc.
It was also lost after a vowel before d in should, could, would
The sound b was dropped in combinnation mb when at the end of the
word and not followed by another consonant: lamb; climb; tomb; comb;
numb; bomb
n - in combination mn autumn; solemn; column
t - in combinations stl, stn, ftn, stm and ktl - castle; whistle;
thistle; fa sten ;listen ;g listen ; often; soften; Christmas;
postman; exactly; directly
k - in combination ski — muscle
The consonants were lost in such initial clusters:
g and k in gn, kn:
knight; knee; know; knave; knack, knock; knead, knife
gnat; gnaw; gnarl; gnome
w before a consonant (mainly r) was lost at the beginning of the
words:
wreath; write; wrong; wreck; wrestle; wretched; wring;
wrinkle; wrist
and in unstressed syllables after a consonant in such words as
answer; conquer; chequer; laquer; Southwark; Berwick;
Chiswick; Greenwich; Norwich; Warwick,
and also in such words as sword; two; towards.
The sound h disppeared in many unstressed syllables (save for American
variant of the language where in some cases it is preserved) - forehead;
shepherd; perhaps; Chatham; Nottingham, Birmingham, Brougham
[bru:m].
Qualitative change of consonants is illustrated by voicing of fricatives
(when the preceding vowels was unstressed):
s —> z: dessert; resemble; possess; dissolve; example; exhibit;
anxiety; luxurious (in the words luxury, anxious and
exhibition, where the preceding vowel is stressed, at least has
a secondary stress they are not voiced)
/ —≫ v: o f (but adverb off is usually stressed, and the sound is not voiced)
t f —> cfj: knowledge; Greenwich; Norwich.
36. Nominal Parts of Speech in Early Modern English
In late modern English the ending –es was the prevalent marker of nouns in the plural. In early New English it extended to more nouns- to the new words appearing in English vocabulary, to many words of other way of plural formation or which employed –es as just of the variant endings.
Thus, we see that the complicated noun paradigm that existed in Old English was greatly simplified in Middle English, which is reflected in the following:
1. reduction of the number of declensions.
2. reduction of the number of grammatical categories
3. reduction of the number of categorial forms within one of two remaining grammatical categories- the category of number.
The plural ending –es underwent several phonetic changes: the voicing of fricatives and the loss of unstressed vowels in the final syllables.
The Middle English plural ending –en lost its former productivity and is found nowdays only in oxen, children and brothren, poetic kine (cow). (Children and brothren in Old English belonged to the es-stems with –ru in the plural.)
The small group of Middle English nouns with homonymous forms of the singular and plural has been reduced to three “exceptions” in Modern English: deer, sheep, and swine.
The group of former root-stems has survived as exceptions man, tooth and the like.
The nouns wife-wives and the like have retained consonant interchange.
Now a few words about exception tooth- teeth. In Old English plural ending was –i: tōp- tōp+i. Letter ō compared to the ending –i: top > tēp > tēth > teeth
Also the words foot- feet, goose- geese.
All modern irregular noun forms are according to their origin.