Independent changes.Development of monophthongs

The PG short [a] and the long [a:], which had arisen in West and North Germanic, underwent similar alterations in Early OE: they were fronted, and in the process of fronting, they split into several sounds. The principal regular direction of the change – [a] > [æ] and [a:] > [æ:] – is often referred to as the fronting or palatalisation of [a, a:]. The other directions can be interpreted as positional deviations or restrictions to this trend: short [a] could change to [o] or [ā] and long [a:] became [o:] before a nasal; the preservation of the short [a] was caused by a back vowel in the next syllable.

Development of diphthongs

The PG diphthongs – [ei, ai, iu, eu, au] – underwent regular independent changes in Early OE; they took place in all phonetic conditions irrespective of environment. The diphthongs with the i-glide were monophthongised into [i:] and [a:], respectively; the diphthongs in –u were reflected as long diphthongs [io:], [eo:] and [ea:].

Assimilative vowel changes: Breaking and Diphthongization

The tendency to assimilative vowel change, characteristic of later PG and of the OG languages, accounts for many modifications of vowels in Early OE. Under the influence of succeeding and preceding consonants some Early OE monophthongs developed into diphthongs. If a front vowel stood before a velar consonant there developed a short glide between them, as the organs of speech prepared themselves for the transition from one sound to the other. The glide, together with the original monophthong formed a diphthong. The front vowels [i], [e] and the newly developed [æ], changed into diphthongs with a back glide when they stood before [h], before long (doubled) [ll] or [l] plus another consonant, and before [r] plus other consonants, e.g.: [e] > [eo] in OE deorc, NE dark. The change is known as breaking or fracture. Breaking produced a new set of vowels in OE – the short diphthongs [ea] and [eo]; they could enter the system as counterparts of the long [ea:], [eo:], which had developed from PG prototypes. Breaking was unevenly spread among the OE dialects: it was more characteristic of West Saxon than of the Anglian dialects. Diphthongisation of vowels could also be caused by preceding consonants: a glide arose after palatal consonants as a sort of transition to the succeeding vowel. After the palatal consonants [k’], [sk’] and [j] short and long [e] and [æ] turned into diphthongs with a more front close vowel as their first element, e.g. OE scæmu > sceamu (NE shame). In the resulting diphthong the initial [i] or [e] must have been unstressed but later the stress shifted to the first element, which turned into the nucleus of the diphthong, to conform with the structure of OE diphthongs. This process is known as “diphthongisation after palatal consonants”.

Palatal mutation

Mutation is the change of one vowel to another through the influence of a vowel in the succeeding syllable. The most important series of vowel mutations, shared in varying degrees by all OE languages (except Gothic), is known as “i-Umlaut” or “palatal mutation”. Palatal mutation is the fronting and raising of vowels through the influence of [i] or [j] in the immediately following syllable. The vowel was fronted and made narrower so as to approach the articulation of [i]. Due to the reduction of final syllables the conditions which caused palatal mutation, that is [i] or [j], had disappeared in most words by the age of writing; these sounds were weakened to [e] or were altogether lost. The labialized front vowels [y] and [y:] arose through palatal mutation from [u] and [u:], respectively, and turned into new phonemes, when the conditions that caused them had disappeared (cf. mūs and mўs). The diphthongs [ie, ie:] were largely due to palatal mutation and became phonemic in the same way, though soon they were confused with [y, y:]. Palatal mutation led to the growth of new vowel interchanges and to the increased variability of the root-morphemes: owing to palatal mutation many related words and grammatical forms acquired new root-vowel interchanges. We find variants of morphemes with an interchange of root-vowels in the grammatical forms mūs, mўs (NE mouse, mice), bōc, bēc (NE book, books), since the plural was originally built by adding –iz. (Traces of palatal mutation are preserved in many modern words and forms, e.g. mouse – mice, foot – feet, blood – bleed; despite later phonetic changes, the original cause of the inner change is i-umlaut).

18. ME & NE adjective and pronounADJ greatest inflectional losses; totally uninflected by end of ME period; loss of case, gender, and number distinctions;distinction strong/weak preserved only in monosyllabic adjectives ending in consonant: singular blind (strong)/blinde (weak), plural blinde(strong)/blinde(weak); causes in loss of unstressed endings, rising use of definite and indefinite articles;some French loans with -s in plural when adjective follows noun: houres inequales, plages principalis, sterres fixes, dayes naturales; cf. dyverse langages, celestialle bodies, principale divisiouns;comparative OE -ra>ME -re, then -er (by metathesis), superlative OE -ost, -est>ME -est; beginnings of periphrastic comparison (French influence): swetter/more swete, more swetter, moste clennest, more and moste as intensifiers;ME continued OE use of adjectives as nouns, also done in French; also use of 'one' to support adjective (e.g. "the mekeste oone") Personal Pronouns preservation of gender, number, case, and person categories; merger of dative and accusative into single object case; dual number disappeared; gender became biological instead of grammatical;use of 2nd person plural (ye) to address one person as polite form (French influence), eventual loss of singular forms in 18th c.First-person singualr: ich/I; loss of unstressed alveo-palatal c led to first person singular form 'I' (pronounced as the 'i' in K/i/d); 'me' object case; min(e) and mi before word beginning with vowel and consonant respectively.First person plural: we; 'us' object case; ure/our possessive forms; emergence of absolute pronominal forms (ours, cf. hers, yours, theirs).Second person singular: pu, thou; th>t after verb, wiltou (wilt thou), seiste (sayest thou).Second person plural: ye; change in stress of diphthong in object case OE eow> ME you , your for possessive; ye sometimes used for you;Third person singular: he, him, his; 3rd person sing., feminine, heo/sche, hire, alveopalatal s appeared first in North and East Midlands, allowed distinction from masculine; 3rd person sing. neuter hit/it, accusative form of the neuter, (h)it, prevailed over the dative him. Third person plural, he, hem, here; then borrowing of pronouns from Old Norse (nom. peir, dat. peim, gen. peira> thei, them, their) to prevent confusion with other forms, especially in the singular and feminine.Demonstrative pronouns development of indeclinable definite article (the); only one singular and one plural form for each of the two OE demonstratives (that and this); singular based on OE neuter forms; plural of pæt, pa>po(s)> those, plural of pis, pise.Interrogative pronouns accusative merged with dative into object case whom; instrumental hwy became interrogative adverb why; masc./fem.: who, whom, whos, neuter: what, what/whom, whos; phonological loss of w in who; which and whether also used as interrogative pronouns in ME Other pronouns indeclinable pat as all-purpose relative pronoun; then by 14th c. interrogative pronouns began to be used as relatives (influence of French and Latin); 'which' was the most frequent interrogative used as relative; non-expression of a relative which would be subject of subordinate clause (he sente after a cherle was in the town); personal pronouns used as reflexives, beginning of reflexives with -self (regarded as noun hence pronouns in the possessive); declining use of 'man' as indefinite pronoun, appearance of 'you' as indefinite, also 'one' and 'they' toward the end of ME. Adj dropped in MnE the ending –e, which had signaled the plural and the weak declension in ME. Thus MnE adj no longer agree with their substantives in number. This was essential for the syntactic structure of the language. In ME there appeared alongside synthetic degrees of comparison, phrases consisting of the words more and most and the adj. In MnE the two types were differentiated: suffixes of degrees are used for monosyllabic and some dissyllabic adj, while the phrases are limited to the other dissyllabic and to polysyllabic ones.The ME forms of personal p. underwent little change in the MnE period. The tendency to use the pronoun ye in addressing one person arose in ME. In the 16^th century distinction between nominative ye and objective you began to disappear. In the 17^th c. ye became archaic. By the end of the century hit disappeared altogether (only it now). The new its appeared in 17^th c. Reflexive pronouns developed in MnE from the corresponding ME forms. In MnE demonstrative p. acquired the following forms: this, these, that, those. MnE interrogative p.: who, whose, what, which. The pronouns either, each, such, some any, none were preserved in MnE. Besides, the compound pronouns somebody, nobody developed a two-case system.

19. OE phonetics: consonants (voicing of fricatives, rhotasism, palatilizatin, metathesis, loss of consonants in certain position).

Date: 2015-12-17; view: 914