Vowel chances in middle english and early new english

Unstressed Vowels

The tendency towards phonetic reduction operated in all the subsequent periods of history and was particularly strong in unstressed final syllables in ME.

In Early ME the pronunciation of unstressed syllables became in­creasingly indistinct. As compared to OE, which distinguished five short vowels in unstressed position (representing three opposed phonemes [e/i], [a] and [o/u]), Late ME had only two vowels in unaccented syllables: [∂] and [i], which are never directly contrasted; this means that phonemic contrasts in unstressed vowels had been practically lost.

Cf. some OE words with their descendants in Late ME and NE:

OE fiscas	ME fishes ['fif∂s] or [fi∫is]	NE fishes pl
fisces	fishes	fish's Gen. sg
OE rison	ME risen ['riz∂n]	NE rose (OE Past pl)
risen	risen	NE risen (Part. II)
OE talu tale talum	ME tale ['ta:la] talen	NE tale (OE Nom. and other cases sg, Dat. pl
OE bodi3	ME body ['bodi]	NE body

(The last two examples, OE talum and bodi3 show also the fate of consonants in final syllables: -um>en; -i3>-i.)

The occurrence of only two vowels, [∂] and [i], in unstressed final syllables is regarded as an important mark of ME, distinguishing it on the one hand from OE with its greater variety of unstressed vowels, and on the other hand from NE, when the ME final [∂] was dropped.

This final [∂] disappeared in Late ME though it continued to be spelt as -e. The loss of [∂] started in the North, spread to the Midlands, and reached the Southern areas by the 15th c. In the London dialect of Chaucer’s time it was very unstable and could be easily missed out before a following initial vowel or when required by rhythm. When the ending -e survived only in spelling, it was understood as a means of showing the length of the vowel in the preceding syllable and was added to words which did not have this ending before: cf. OE stan, rad and ME stoon, stone, rode (NE stone, rode). (Sometimes it was added even to words where length was already indicated by another device, e.g. OE hūs, ME house.)

It should be remembered though that while the OE unstressed vowels were thus reduced and lost, new unstressed vowels appeared in borrowed words or developed from stressed ones, as a result of various changes, e.g. the shifting of word stress in ME and NE, vocalisation of [r] in such endings as writer, actor, where [er] and [or] became [∂]. Some of the new unstressed vowels were reduced to the neutral [∂] or dropped, while others have retained certain qualitative and quantitative differences.

These developments show that the gap between the stressed and unstressed vowels has narrowed, so that in ME and NE we can no longer subdivide the vowels into two distinct sub-systems — that of stressed and unstressed vowels.

Main Trends in the Changes of Stressed Vowels.

No other part of the English sound system has undergone such sweeping changes as the vowels in stressed syllables. They changed both in quality and quantity, under the influence of the environment and independently, alone and together with the surrounding sounds. As a matter of fact, not a single OE long monophthong or diphthong has remained unaltered in the course of history; only a few short vowels were not changed, unless they were lengthened and then shared the fate of long vowels (for instance, short [i] and [o] have not suffered any changes in is and of — OE is, of, but the same sounds have developed into diphthongs if they became long: OE blind>ME blind [bli:nd]>NE blind, OE hopa>ME hope [ho:p∂]>NE hope).

The system of vowel phonemes has undergone drastic changes in the course of English linguistic history. Though the total number of phonemes has practically remained the same, their distinctive features and the principles of their opposition in the system have altered.

Strictly speaking we can observe all kinds of vowel changes in all historical periods. And yet some prevailing trends of evolution can be singled out for certain groups of vowels at certain periods.

Long vowels were the most changeable and historically unstable group of English sounds. At all times they displayed a strong tendency to become narrower and to diphthongise, whereas short vowels displayed a reverse trend — towards greater openness, though this trend was less obvious and less consistent. Qualitative and quantitative changes were intertwined and often proceeded together.

It may be recalled here that in Early OE the prevalent type of vowel changes were assimilative changes mainly affecting the quality of the vowels. Towards the end of OE quantitative vowel changes gained momentum. Early ME is mainly characterised by positional quantitative changes of monophthongs; at the same time profound independent changes affected the system of diphthongs: OE diphthongs were monophthongised and lost, and new types of diphthongs developed from vowels and consonants.

Late ME saw the beginnings of a new series of sweeping changes: independent qualitative changes of all long vowels known as the “Great Vowel Shift”; it lasted from the 14th till the 17th or even 18th c. Numerous positional vowel changes of this period — together with vocalisation of consonants — gave rise to a number of new long monophthongs and diphthongs.