20. What main phonetic changes occurred during the Old English period?

Vowel changes

1. Breaking (fracture) – it is the process of short vowels becoming

diphthongs before certain consonant clusters (vowels change their pronunciation

under their influence). e.g. æ > ea before combinations of

"r + consonant", "l + cons.", "h + cons.", and also before h final:

ærm  earm (arm), æld  eald (old).

2. Palatalization

This is the process when some vowel change under the influence of g, c, sc in

the beginning of the word:

e.g. e > ie (gefan > giefan (give)).

3. i-mutation. Vowel mutation (umlaut) is the change of a vowel within a

word brought about by the assimilating influence of a vowel or semivowel in a

preceding or following syllable. This interesting feature changed many of Old

English words on a very early stage of the language's history. It is caused by i (ot j)

in the next syllable, it affects all vowels, except i and e. Vowels move from their

back position to the new front one:

e.g. æ > e (tælian > tellan (tell)).

4. Back Mutation – a back vowel (u, o, a) influence the front vowel in the

preceding syllable and becomes a diphthong.

Appears before liquids and labial consonants (i.e. r, l; p, b, f, m):

(e.g.)

e > eo (hevfon > heofon (heaven))

Consonants changes

1. Voicing of fricative sounds (h, f, s, þ) appears, if a fricative is surrounded

by vowels:

wīf (a wife; unvoiced) – wīfes (wives; voiced).

2. Palatalization (pronouncing the sound with the blade of the tongue

touching the palate) appears only in Late Old English, but significantly changes the

pronunciation making it closer to today's English:

cild [kild] > [child].

3. Loss of some consonants, for example, n was lost before h, f, s, p; the

preceding vowel became lengthened.

Nearly all OE phonetic changes – fracture, mutation, palatalization – appear

to be due to one common principle, that is of assimilation.

In general, Old English phonetics suffered great changes during the whole period

from the 5th to the 11th century. Anglo-Saxons did not live in isolation from the

world – they contacted with Germanic tribes in France, with Vikings from

Scandinavia, with Celtic tribes in Britain, and all these contacts could not but

influence the language's pronunciation somehow. Besides, the internal

development of the English language after languages of Angles, Saxons and Jutes

were unified, was rather fast, and sometimes it took only half a century to change

some form of the language or replace it with another one. That is why we cannot

regard the Old English language as the state: it was the constant movement.

21. What was the etymological composition of the oe vocabulary? What languages did the loan words come there from? Composition

The OE vocabulary is mainly homogeneous, loan words are an insignificant

part of it. Among native words we can distinguish the following layers:

1. Common Indo-European words, for example: fæder (father), fōt (foot),

sittan (sit).

2. Common Germanic words, for example: earm (poor), grēne (green),

steorfan (die).

3. A few specifically English words, not found in any other languages, for

example clipian (call).

The OE vocabulary, like that of any other language, develops in two ways: by

forming new words from elements existing in the language or by borrowing words

from other languages.