- •L. Tsvet History of the English Language
- •Preface
- •General characteristics
- •1. The history of English as a subject
- •2. Britain under the Romans. Celtic tribes
- •3. The Anglo-Saxon invasion
- •4. Periods of the history of English
- •5. The heptarchy
- •6. The Scandinavians in Britain.
- •Phonological system
- •Correlation of Old English and Gothic Vowels
- •4. The system of consonants.
- •5. Changes in the system of consonants.
- •Morphology. Parts of speech
- •Personal Pronouns
- •Declension of Personal Pronouns
- •1. Verbal categories.
- •2. Strong verbs.
- •Conjugation of oe Strong Verbs
- •3. Weak verbs.
- •The conjugation of the oe verbs dōn and willan
- •Syntax and word stock
- •1. Oe sentence and word order
- •2. Etymology of oe vocabulary
- •1. Borrowings into proto-West-Germanic
- •3. Oe word-formation
- •General characteristics
- •The Scandinavian invasion.
- •The Norman French conquest.
- •Bilingual situation in the country.
- •Prevalence of English over French.
- •Me orthography.
- •Middle english phonetical system
- •Vocalism.
- •Consonantism.
- •Formation of new diphthongs.
- •Morphology
- •3. The Adjective
- •Weak verbs in Middle English
- •Conjugation
- •The Passive Voice.
- •Evolution of the literary english language
- •The reader
- •Beowolf
- •XXII. The Pursuit
- •Alfred the great
- •Wulfstan’s narrative
- •From ohtere’s account of his first vouage
- •Geoffrey chaucer
- •The canterbery tales
- •Symbols
- •Literature
Middle english phonetical system
Vocalism.
Quantitative changes.
Qualitative changes.
Monophthongisation of OE diphthongs.
Reduction of unstressed vowels.
Consonantism.
Formation of new diphthongs.
Vocalism.
In Middle English the phonetic system is subjected to various and important changes. A new principle is regarded responsible for some of them: the quantity (length or shortness) of the vowel becomes dependant on definite phonetic conditions (arrangement).
By the end of OE short vowels before homorganic groups ‘ld, nd, mb’ lengthened as it was mentioned above: e.g.
-
findan
fīnden
cild
chīld
feld
fēld
The vowel doesn’t lengthen if there is a third consonant: e.g.
child children
wild wilderness
The second change of quantity took place at the very beginning of middle English, the beginning of the 11 c. Some vowels followed by a group of consonants shortened: e.g. cēpte – kepte, but cēpan - kēpen, where shortening did not take place. The same goes for such words as NE – slept, but sleep; swept, but sweep; theft, but thief; wisdom, but wise (where the root-vowel did not shortened because it was accompanied by a single consonant). It is said that the shortening took place before any consonant group which was not homorganic. But “sand”, “land” retained short a.
In the 13 c. vowels lengthened in an open syllable. This lengthening concerned short a, e, o. E.g.
OE |
ME |
OE |
ME |
OE |
ME |
caru talu |
cāre tāle |
macian nama smocian |
māken nāme smōken |
stelan specan |
stēlen spēcen |
Qualitative changes – changes of the nature of vowels.
The phoneme ā changed into ō: e.g.
OE |
ME |
hām |
home |
stān |
stone |
bān |
bone |
cnāwan |
knowen |
rād |
road |
hāl |
whole |
Cf. NE raid and hail came into literary English from the Northern dialect, where ā had not changed into ō.
The phoneme x changed into R e.g.
OE
glxd
ME
glad
OE
mxn
ME
man
þxt
that
wxs
was
xppel
apple
cxt
cat
The phoneme x changed into ē: e.g.
OE
ME
slxpan
slepen
lxtan
leten
y changed into i in the East Midland and Northern dialect; delabialisation took place.
y changed into e in Kent; there was delabialisation combined with certain opening.
y changed into ū or u in the South West and West Midland; labialization was kept, e.g.
OE |
ME |
hwylc |
which |
brycZ |
bridge |
byrZean |
bury |
myriZ |
merry |
swylc |
such |
mycel |
much |
In the word ‘busy’ spelling is from West Midland, pronunciation is from East Midland. In the word ‘bury’ spelling is from West Midland, pronunciation is Kentish.
Monophthongisation of OE diphthongs. OE diphthongs became monophthongised in Middle English: ea – a. E.g.
OE |
ME |
eal |
al |
eald |
ald - āld - ōld |
teald |
tald – tāld - tōld |
(a ā before homorganic groups, later ā ō)
ēa e (open), e.g.
OE |
ME |
bēam |
bēm “tree” (in spelling it is ‘ea’) |
strēam |
strēm |
ēast |
ēst |
brēad |
brēd |
dēad |
dēd |
ēo ē (closed), e.g.
dēop |
dēp (in spelling it is often ‘ee’) |
dēor |
dēr |
cēosan |
chēsen |
eo – e, e.g.
heorte |
herte |
seolfor |
selver |
heofon |
heven |
Reduction of unstressed vowels. Unstressed vowels in suffixes reduced: o/a → e [q]; e.g.
OE |
ME |
stānas |
stōnes |
bindan |
binden |
fodor |
father |
This change went side by side with the changes in ME flexional system. Middle English vowels were as follows:
-
ī
ū
i
u
ē
ō
e
o
ę
ō
a
(long ā disappeared)
6 long vowels
5 short vowels.