3.5.1. Unstressed Vowels

The weakening of unstressed vowels, which was typical of all the Germanic languages and continued during the OE period, became much more intensive in ME, especially in the Northern dialects, owing to the Scandinavian influence.

Since both OE and OSc belonged to the Germanic group of languages they had many features in common which facilitated the process of communication. It often occurred that the root of a word and its meaning were nearly the same in both languages, while its ending differed.

Cf. nouns: Osc sun-r – OE sun-u (son) Osc syn-ir –OE sun-a (sons), Osc dag-ar – OE dag-as (days); adjectives: Osc gōd-r – OE gōd (good); verbs: Osc bind-a – OE bind-an (bind).

Such words were, naturallly freely used by representatives of both peoples in their conversations. Only the endings were some hindrance. Luinguists are of the opinion that such cases accelerated the weakening of unstressed endings.

Most unstressed vowels were levelled and reduced to a sound of the [ə] type, written e, in some dialects – u and i, e.g.

OE standan > ME standen (stand), OE sunu > ME sone (son), OE seofon > ME seven (seven).

The leveling of endings is so peculiar a feature of the Middle English period that Henry Sweet called it the period of levelled endings. Many of such levelled endings were lost during the later part of the Middle English period.

The unstressed OE [i] often remained unchanged in ME endings: OE Englisc > ME English.

In certain phonetic conditions, especially between [r] or [l] and [w] there appeared new unstressed vowels: OE borʒian > ME borwen> borowen (borrow); OE folʒian > ME folwen > folowen (follow).

Unstressed long vowels were shortened in ME suffixes, e.g. OE -dōm:

OE frēodōm > ME freedom; OE cyninʒdōm > ME kingdom; OE wīsdōm > ME wisdom

The same process took place in French loan-words when the shift of the stress left the original long vowel unstressed, e.g.

honour [ho΄nu: r > ΄honu: r > ΄honur]

The unstressed m and n coincided in final position with the resulting n and later they were lost.

Cf. Dative plural: OE stānum < stān (stone) – ME stǭne(n); OE fiscum < fisc (fish) – ME fishe(n); OE horsum < hors (horse) – ME horse(n)

The unstressed final n was pronounced if followed by a word beginning with a vowel; if the next word began with a consonant it disappeared. This rule is confirmed: (1) by the use of the unstressed OE numeral ān (one), which in ME turned into an, the indefinite article (an apple but a book) and (2) by the use of the personal pronouns in the genitive case mī(n) < īc and þi(n) < þū (mӯn eye but mӯ book). In the predicative function the pronominal –n was preserved, e.g. tis ’min (it’s mine). Compare the use of conjoint (before nouns) and absolute forms (as predicatives) in ModE: my book, the book is mine.

As the two variants fluctuated in some words –n was preserved, in others it was lost, e.g. the infinitive lost the ending –en, while the noun oxen < OE oxan preserved it.

The final n was fixed in Past Participle of some strong verbs, e.g.

given, taken, torn.

It disappeared if there was a nasal in the root of the word, e.g.

come, begin, drunk, won.

In unaccented prefixes OE [o] and [u] mostly remained unchanged, [æ] and [ā] became [a], [e] usually became [i], e.g.

OE forʒyfan > ME foryiven (forgive); OE fulfyllan > ME fulfillen (fulfill); OE ārisan > ME arisen (arise); OE beforan > ME biforen (before).

OE preposition tō changed into ME to.