12. Consonant changes in the history of English

The Development of Consonant System in ME and NE: English consonants proved to be more stable than vowels. Nevertheless, new sets of consonants started to appear.

Sibilants and Affricates: Sibilants – a type of fricatives, narrower and sharper than all other fricatives ([f, v, , ð, h]) – [s, z, ∫, ζ]. Affricates – sounds consisting of a plosive immediately followed by a fricative – [t∫, dζ]. In OE there were only 2 sibilants – [s, z]. [∫] appeared in ME and [ζ] – in NE. Affricates [t∫, dζ] appeared both in ME and in NE. M E: New consonants developed from palatal plosives [k’], [g’] and the cluster [sk’]:

OE Sounds ME Sounds In Writing

[k’]  [t∫] tch, ch

[g’]  [dζ] g, dg

[sk’]  [∫] sh, ssh, sch

ME Sounds	NE Sounds
[sj] 	[∫]
[zj] 	[ζ]
[tj] 	[t∫]
[dj] 	[dζ]

NE: Palatalisation – as a result of reduction of unstressed vowels several consonants merged into one:

There were some exceptions though, e.g. mature, duty, due, suit, statue, tune, etc. Fricatives

Voicing – occurred in the 16^th c. (NE) to fricatives: 1) in functional words and auxiliaries that are never stressed; 2)when preceded by an unstressed and followed by a stressed vowel.

Loss of Some Consonants: In NE some consonants were vocalised or gave birth to diphthongs and triphthongs. 1)[r] was vocalised at the end of the word in the 16^th -17^th c. (see Lecture 11); 2) [j] disappeared as a result of palatalisation (see palatalisation in Lecture 12); [j] remained only initially (e.g. year, yard, etc.); 3)[х, х’] were lost (e.g. ME taughte [‘tauхtə] – NE taught [to:t], ME night [niх’t] – NE night [neit]; 4) [kn]  [n] (e.g. ME know [knou] – NE know [nou]); 5)[gn]  [n] (e.g. ME gnat [gnat] – NE gnat [næt]);

Vocalisation of [r]:It occurred in the 16^th – 17^th c. Sound [r] became vocalised (changed to [ə] (schwa)) when stood after vowels at the end of the word. Consequences: 1)new diphthongs appeared: [εə], [iə], [uə]; 2)the vowels before [r] were lengthened (e.g. arm [a:m], for [fo:], etc.); 3)triphthongs appeared: [aiə], [auə] (e.g. shower [‘∫auə], shire [‘∫aiə]).

Grimm’s law: The first Germanic consonant shifts took place in the V-II cent. BC. Jacobs Grimm’s Law. According to Grimm, he classified consonant correspondences between indoeuropean and germanic languages. There are 3 acts of this law:

4. IE plosive (stops) p, t, k correspond to G voiceless fricatives f, Ө, h. Eg: пламя – flame, пена – foam, колода – holt.

5. IE voiced plosives b, d, g, →G voiceless fricatives p, t, k. Eg: яблоко - apple, дерево – tree, ego(lat) – ic (OE).

6. IE aspirated voiced plosives bh, dh, gh →to voiced plosives without aspiration. Eg: bhrāta(sanscr.) – brother, rudhira – red, ghostis – guest.

The second consonant shift was Carl Verner’s law. According to C.Verner all the common Germanic consonants became voiced in intervocalic position if the preceding vowel was unstressed. p-f > v t-Ө > đ, d k-x > j, g

s-s > z/r Devoicing took place in early common germanic when the stress was not yet fixed on the root. A variety of Verner’s law is rhotacism (greek letter rho). [s] →[z]→[r] we find traces of this phenomenon in form of the verb to be →was – were, is – are; ist – sind – war. II consonant shift occurred in dialects of southern germanic. Eg: еда – eat – essen.