Middle English and New English

THE PHONEIC SYSTEM

Chronological Divisions in Middle English

Early Middle English, starts after 1066 and covers the 12th, 13th and half of the I4th . It was a time of great changes at all the levels of the language, especially in lexis and grammar, caused by foreign influences Scandinavian and French. Late (Classical) Middle English, the period from the later 14th . till the end of the 15th is the age of Chaucer. It was the time of the restoration of English to the position of the state and literary language and the time of literary flourishing.

ME SPELLING
Spelling was created in ME under the influence of French. It preserves its principal features in modern times.

ME SPELLING
1. The runic letters were lost. 2. New letters: K, Q, W, V, J 3. New spelling devices: digraphs (ou, gh, th, ch, sh, dg, qu, wh) doubling of the letters to show the length of the root syllable: stoon final e (for the same purpose): stone

Word Stress in ME and Early NE

Word stress acquired greater positional freedom in word derivation but not in formbuilding. Changes in word stress are mostly connected with the phonetic assimilation of thousands of loan-words adopted during the ME period.

Sound Changes in ME and Early NE

CHANGES IN THE VOWEL SYSTEM

IN THE UNSTRESSED POSITION

in OE

5 short vowels o/u a e/i

 reduced to the neutral sound

ME VOWELS IN THE UNSTRESSED POSITION

[] or [i]

OE ME talu tale bodig body effect upon the system of grammatical endings:
many homogeneous suffixes, many homonymous forms

Homonymy in the Nominal System

OE ME
fishes

NE
fishes

Nom.pl Gen.sg

fiscas

fisces

fishes

fishs

Verbal System
OE wrtan wrt ME wrten wrt NE write wrote writon writen writen writen written

Middle English

a period of levelled endings

H.Sweet

Vowels under Stress

prevailing type of qualitative vowel changes: OE ME assimilative largely independent

Typical features of Germanic languages There was a tendency for long monophthongs to become closer. A reverse tendency for short monophthongs - to become more open.

Changes of Long Monophthongs

OE ME OE ME
pronunciation spelling

> stn stn stone > slpan slpn sleepen > fr fr fire 3 long monophthongs became closer. The rest remained unchanged.

Changes of Short Monophthongs

2 short monophthongs in ME were changed: OE ME OE ME >a t that y>i fyrst first

Dialectal Differences
The direction of qualitative vowel changes was different in different Early ME dialects: OE ME NE fyllan Kentish fellen fill West Midland fullen East Midland fillen

Dialectal Differences
Most NE forms descend from the East Midland dialect. However, some modern words have traces of other dialects: NE bury (OE byrian) the letter u is a trace of the Western form the sound [e] is traced to the South-East (Kent)

Development of Diphthongs
All OE diphthongs were lost (became monophthongs) at the end of the OE period: eo: > e: deo:p deep ea: > e: rea:d reed red eo > e seofon seven ea > a eald ald

Development of ME Diphthongs
Instead there appeared new ME diphthongs. They rose due to vocalization of the palatal fricative j after / and e, the velar fricative after a / and o.

Development of ME Diphthongs

+j > ai +j > ei e+j > ei a+ >a + >o o+ >o

OE d gr we draan an boa

ME dai grei wei drawen owen bowe

NE day grey way draw own bow

Development of ME Diphthongs
Thus there appeared new diphthongs in the system in ME: ai, ei, au, ou The diphthongs were rising unlike in OE (falling): the glide was closer than the nucleus.

QUANTITATIVE CHANGES
QUANTITY OF VOWELS IN OE : a phonemic feature, the basis of correlation in the vowel system Short vowels were opposed to long ones, though identical in quality. an inherited feature OE long vowels had developed from CG long vowels or combinations of vowels, short usually went back to CG short vowels.

QUANTITY OF VOWELS in Late OE and ME

Many vowels became short and long depending on the phonetic condition and irrespective of their origin.

First Lengthening of Vowels 9th c. Late OE

All vowels before mb, nd, ld became long: OE ME bindan bnden [i:] climban clmben cild chld hund hound [u:]

Second Lengthening of Vowels 12-13th c.

The vowels a, o, e were lengthened in the open syllable: OE ME talu tale [ta:l] hopian hopen [o:] sprecan speken [e:]

Shortening of Vowels in ME
All OE vowels were shortened before clusters of 2 or 3 consonants other than mb, nd, ld: OE cpan cpte ME keepen kept(e) NE keep kept

Traces of Quantitative Changes

Vowel interchange developed in many cases between: forms of the same word: child /i:/ - children /i/ keepen /e:/ - kept /e/ words built from the same root: wis /i:/ - wisdom /i/

CHANGES OF CONSONANTS
IN MIDDLE ENGLISH

ENGLISH CONSONANTS
more stable than the vowels A large number of consonants have remained unchanged since the OE period. The OE system of consonants contained neither sibilants (except s / z) nor affricates. In OE some phonemes had more than one positional phonetic variant.

appearance of affricates and sibilants in ME

they developed from palatal consonants or consonant combinations: OE ME k' > t cild chld cin chin sk' > scip ship g' > d bryc bridge

CHANGES IN THE VOWEL SYSTEM IN THE NE PERIOD

Vowels in unstressed position are dropped in the endings: OE ME NE wrtan wrten write New English - a period of lost endings H. Sweet

THE GREAT VOWEL SHIFT

A SERIES OF INDEPENDENT CHANGES OF LONG VOWELS between 14 17th cc.

THE GREAT VOWEL SHIFT

the narrowing of all ME long monophthongs the diphthongization of the narrowest ones [i:] and [u:]

THE GREAT VOWEL SHIFT

ME NE a: >ei o: (open) >ou o: (close) > u: : > i: i: > ai u: > a ME maken stone roote see time hous(e) NE make stone root see time house

Consequences of THE GREAT VOWEL SHIFT

1. no new sounds appeared in English but the already existing sounds appeared under new conditions:
/i:/ /ei/ before the Shift time wei/y after the Shift see make

2. the GVSh contributed to the gap between spelling and pronunciation as the values of some vowel letters had considerably changed.

The influence of the consonant /R/ on THE GREAT VOWEL SHIFT

When the long vowel was followed by the consonant /r/, the resulting vowel was more open than without the following /r/: [ei] ~ [] fate but fare [i:] ~ [i] steep but steer [ai] ~ [ai] time but tire [u:] ~ [] moon but moor [a] ~ [a] house but hour

the influence of the consonant /r/ upon the GVSh

3 new diphthongs: [] [i] [] 2 thriphthongs: [ai] [a]

Changes of Short Vowels isolated and inconsistent

1. a > that [at] that [t] 2. > cut [kt] cut [k t] But: 1. When preceded by [w] a > o was ~ was 2. When preceded by p, f, b no change: bull, pull, full. But: but

Changes of Diphthongs
2 of 4 (ai, ei, , a) ME diphthongs changed in NE: ai > ei, which merged with the ME ei ME day NE day a > o: ME lawe > NE law

QUANTITATIVE CHANGES
EARLY NEW ENGLISH

Lengthening of Vowels before /r/

Short vowels followed by /r/ became long due to the vocalization of /r/ at the end of the word or before another consonant: a > a: farm farm o > o: hors(e) horse I first E + R > : her U fur (the quality of the resulting vowel is also different)

Lengthening of vowels as the result of the vocalization of other consonants

i + x > i:
OE niht [i]+ [x] Late ME nyght [i]+ [j]>[i:] NE night [ai] (GVSh)

CHANGES OF CONSONANTS
NEW ENGLISH

Voicing of Fricatives /s, f, , ks, /

They were voiced after unstressed vowels the so-called Verners law in New English: possess, observe, exhibit in many functional words: the, this, that, though, of, was, his

Assimilation of borrowed words

Borrowed words of Romance origin bore stress on the last or the last but one syllable. Due to the recessive tendency the stress gradually shifted closer to the beginning of the word. The syllables became unstressed and the sequences of sounds in them fused into one.

Assimilation of borrowed words

sj > Asia, ocean zj > measure, treasure tj > t nature, century dj > soldier As a result a new consonant appeared in the system of English phonemes.

Simplification of Consonant Clusters the first consonant was dropped

OE

cnwan ntt hwnne

ME /kn/ knowen /gn/ gnat /hw/ whan

NE /n/ known /n/ gnat /w/ when