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Changes in the phonetic system in New English
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2.1. Vowels in the unstressed position
Vowels in the unstressed position already reduced in Middle English to the vowel of the [a] type are dropped in New English if they are found in the endings of words, for example:
Old English Middle English New English
nama name name [neim]
wrītan writen write [rait]
sunu sone son [sɅn]
The vowel in the endings is sometimes preserved — mainly for phonetic reason:
wanted, dresses
— without the intermediate vowel it would be very difficult to pronounce the endings of such words.
Vowels under stress
2.2.1. Qualitative changes — Changes of monophthongs
All long monophthongs in New English (XV:—XVII century) underwent a change that is called The Great Vowel Shift.
Due to this change the vowels became more narrow and more front. Thus:
Middle English New English
[ā] > [ei] make make
[ē] > [i:] see see
[ǭ] > [ou] ston stone
[ō] > [u:] roote root
moon moon
Two long close vowels: [ū] and [ī] at first also became more narrow and gave diphthongs of the [uw] or [ij] type. But those diphthongs were unstable because of the similarity between the glide and the nucleus.
Consequently the process of the dissimilation of the elements of the new diphthongs took place and eventually the vowels [ī] and [ū] gave us the diphthongs [ai] and [au], respectively. For instance:
Middle English New English
[ū] > [au] hous house
[ī] > [ai] time time
Influence of the consonant "r" upon the Great Vowel Shift
When a long vowel was followed in a word by the consonant "r" the given consonant did not prevent the Great Vowel Shift, but
the resulting vowel is more open, than the resulting vowel in such cases when the long vowel undergoing the Shift was followed by a consonant other than "r';. For example:
[ei] but [ɛə] fate but fare
[i:] but [iə] steep but steer
[ai] but [aiə] time but tire
[u:] but [uə] moon but moor
[au] but [auə] house but hour
As a result of the Great Vowel Shift new sounds did not appear, but the already existing sounds appeared under new conditions. For instance:
The sound existed The sound appeared before the Shift after the Shift
[ei] wey make
[u:] hous moon
[i:J time see, etc.
Two short monophthongs changed their quality in new English (XVII century), the monophthong [a] becoming [ae] and the monophthong [u] becoming [a]. For instance:
Middle English New English
[a]>[æ] that that
[u] > [Ʌ] cut cut
However, these processes depended to a certain extent upon the preceding sound. When the sound [a] was preceded by [w] it changed into [o]. Compare:
Middle English New English
[a] > [æ] that that
[a] > [ɔ] was was
(but: wax [wæks).
Where the sound [u] was preceded by the consonants [p], [b] or [f], the change of [u] into [Ʌ] generally did not take place, hence:
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bull, butcher, pull, push, full, etc.
But sometimes even the preceding consonant did not prevent the change, for instance:
Middle English New English
[u] > [Ʌ] but [but] but [bɅt]
— Changes of diphthongs
Two out of the four Middle English diphthongs changed in New English, the diphthong [ai] becoming [ei] and the diphthong [au] contracted to [ɔ:] For example:
Middle English New English
[ai] > [ei] dai day
[au]> [ɔ:] lawe law
Quantitative changes
Among many cases of quantitative changes of vowels in New English one should pay particular attention to the lengthening of the vowel, when it was followed by the consonant [r]. Short vowels followed by the consonant [r] became long after the disappearance of the given consonant at the end of the word or before another consonant:
Middle English New English
[a] > [a:] farm farm
[o] > [ɔ:l hors horse
When the consonant [r] stood after the vowels [e], [i], [u], the resulting vowel was different from the initial vowel not only in quantity but also in quality. Compare:
her
fir [3:]
fur
or [h] before [t]: might, night, light.
Consonants
The changes that affected consonants in New English are not very numerous. They are as follows.
1) Appearance of a new consonant in the system of English phonemes — [Ʒ] and the development of the consonants [d3] and [tʃ] from palatal consonants.
Thus Middle English [sj], [zj], [tj], [dj] gave in New English the sounds [ʃ], [Ʒ], [tʃ], [dƷ]. For example:
[sj] > [ʃ] Asia, ocean
[zj] > [Ʒ] measure, treasure
[tj] > [tʃ] nature, culture, century
[dj] > [dƷ] soldier
Note should be taken that the above-mentioned change took place in borrowed words, whereas the sounds [tʃ], [dƷ], [ʃ]"] which appeared in Middle English developed in native words.
2. Certain consonants disappeared at the end of the word or before another consonant, the most important change of the kind affecting the consonant [r]:
farm, form, horse, etc. (see above, quantitative changes of vowels).
3. The fricative consonants [s], [Ɵ] and [f] were voiced after unstressed vowels or in words having no sentence stress — the so-called "Verner's Law in New English":
possess, observe, exhibition; dogs, cats; the, this, that, there, then, though, etc.
Summary — New English
The changes that affected the vowel and the consonant system in New English were great and numerous.
Vowels — Qualitative changes:
1. Disappearance of vowels in the unstressed position at the end of the word.
2. Changes of all long vowels — the Great Vowel Shift.
3. Changes of two short vowels: [a] > [æ] or [ɔ] and [u] > [Ʌ].
Vowels — Quantitative changes:
4. Changes of two diphthongs: [ai] > [ei], [au] > [ɔ:].
5. Lengthening of vowels before [r] — due to the vocalisation of consonants.
Consonants:
6. Appearance of the consonant [Ʒ] and the consonants [tʃ], [dƷ] in new positions.
7. Disappearance or vocalisation of the consonant [r].
8. Voicing of consonants — Verner's Law in New English.
9. Positional disappearance:
r vocalised at the end of the word: far
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w before r write
k before n knight
h before t light
3. Changes in alphabet and spelling in Middle and New English
As we remember, the Old English spelling system was mainly phonetic.1 However, the 13th and 14th centuries witnessed many changes in the English language, including its alphabet and spelling. As a result of these modifications the written form of the word became much closer to what we have nowadays.
In Middle English the former Anglo-Saxon spelling tradition was replaced by that of the Norman scribes reflecting the influence of French and often mixing purely phonetic spelling with French spelling habits and traditions inherited from Old English. The scribes substituted the so-called "continental variant" of the Latin alphabet for the old "insular writing". Some letters came into disuse, replaced by new means of expressing the sounds formerly denoted by them — thus the letters b ("thorn") and p ("wen"), being of runic origin, unknown to the Norman scribes, disappeared altogether. Some letters, already existing in Old English but being not very frequent there, expanded their sphere of use — like the letter k. New letters were added — among them j, w, v and z. Many digraphs — combinations of letters to denote one sound, both vowel and consonant — appeared, mostly following the pattern of the French language.
The following letters disappeared:
ð, ƥ [ð/Ɵ] replaced by th: bat — that
Ʒ [g. jl. g Ʒod — god
or y Ʒear — year
æ [ȩ] e lætan — leten (let)
P [w] w
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1 Strictly phonetic spelling means that every sound is represented by only one distinct symbol, and no symbol represents more than one sound
The following letters were introduced:
g for [g] in god and [d Ʒ ] in singe
j for [dƷ] in words of French origin: joy, judge
k for [k] instead of c before front vowels and n:
drincan — drinken, cnawan — knowen.
v for [v] instead of f as a separate phoneme:
lufu — love [luva]
q for [k] (followed by u) in quay
or [kw] in cwen—queen to replace OE cw
z for [z] as a separate phoneme: zel (zeal)
The following digraphs appeared:
consonant digraphs:
ch for the sound [tʃ] cild — child
dg [dƷ] brycƷ — bridge
gh [χ] riƷt — right,
th [ð,Ɵ] ƥencan — thinken,
moðor — mother
sh [ʃ] scip — ship
ph [f] in words borrowed from Latin: phonetic
ch [k] in words borrowed from Latin:
chemistry
vowel digraphs — to show the length of the vowel:
ea [e] mete — meat
ee [e] fet — feet
oa [o] bat — boat
oo [o] fot — foot
ie [e:] feld — field
ou/ow [u:] hus — hous, tun — town
Until the 17lh century reform v was an allograph of u, the two letters often being interchangeable: over—ouer, love—loue.
" Although sometimes [z] is still rendered by s: losen (lose), chesen (choose).
Some changes were made for ease of reading and for a better visual image of the word:
k instead of c boc — book ' in the final position for
y i by, my better visual separation
w u now of words
Besides, y and w were considered more ornamental than i and u at the end of the word, allowing to finish it with an elegant curve.
o instead of u cumen — come close to letters
onƷunnen — bigonne consisting only of vertical
lufy — love strokes, such as
munuc — monk u/v, n, m
The New English period witnessed the establishment of the literary norm presupposing a stable system of spelling. However, the spelling finally fixed in the norm was influenced by many factors, objective and subjective in character, preserving separate elements of different epochs and showing traces of attempts to improve or rationalise it.
In New English with the revival of learning in the 16th century a new principle of spelling was introduced, later to be called etymological. It was believed that, whatever the pronunciation, the spelling should represent to the eye the form from which the word was derived, especially in words of Latin or Greek origin. Thus, the word dett borrowed from French dette was respelled as debt, for it could be traced to Latin debitum, dout borrowed from French douter — as doubt from Latin dubitare.
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However, the level of learning at that age was far from perfect, and many of the so-called etymological spellings were wrong. Here it is possible to mention such words as:
ME ake (from OE acan) respelt as ache from a wrongfully supposed connection with Greek achos;
ME tonge (from OE tunge) respelt as tongue on analogy with French langue, Latin lingua;
ME Hand (from OE igland) respelt as island from a wrongfully supposed connection with French isle, Latin insula;
ME scool borrowed in OE from Latin and always written with sc- (OE scool) respelt as school, because in Latin the sound [k] in words of Greek origin was rendered as ch;
ME delit borrowed from French delit came to be spelt with a mute dighraph -gh- on analogy with light — delight, etc.
At the same time, the major phonetic changes of the period, and first of all, the Great Vowel Shift, found practically no corresponding changes in spelling. This resulted in the present-day system where one sound can be denoted in several ways, for instance:
Ʒ — turn, colonel, herd, heard, bird, blurred, errtd, stirred,
word;
ou — note, noble, both, toad, toe, soul, dough, mow, brooch, oh, mauve, beau, depot, yeoman, sew;
one symbol can stand for different sounds:
ch — chaos, chaise, mch, choir, drachm (mute)
o — hot, cold, wolf, women, whom, son, button, lost, hero
In addition, there are many so-called "silent letters", the presence of which can be explained only historically. Among the latter there are often mentioned the following:
e (mute e) at the end of words: house, take
b after m: lamb, limb, comb
b before t: debt, doubt
ch — yacht
g before n and m: gnaw, phlegm
h — heir, hour, exhibitor
k before n: knife, knee 1 — could, yolk, palm n after m: autumn, column s — island, aisle
t after s and f and before 1 or n — listen, often, wrestle, soften
w — wrap, sword, answer
There are also double consonants used not to denote the quality or quantity of the consonant, but the quantity of the preceding vowel: bigger, redder, stopper.
All these features make the present-day English system of spelling one of the most complex and complicated in the world. As Walter Skeat, the famous specialist in the History of English, puts it, "we retain a Tudor system of symbols with a Victorian pronunciation".
Some more facts...
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