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System of vowels.

Changes of stressed vowels in Early Old English.

The development of vowels in Early OE consisted of the modification of separate vowels, and also of the modification of entire sets of vowels. The change begins with growing variation in pronunciation, which manifests itself in the appearance of numerousallophones: after the stage of increased variation, some allophones prevail over the others and a replacement takes place.

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 palatalization 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:].

Diphthongs.

If the sounds in PG were not diphthongs but sequences of two separate phonemes, the changes should be defined asphonologisation of vowel sequences. This will mean that these changes increased the number of vowel phonemes in the language. Moreover, they introduced new distinctive features into the vowel system by setting up vowels with diphthongal glides; henceforth, monophthongs were opposed to diphthongs.

Palatal mutation.

Mutation is the change of one vowel to another through the influence of a vowel in the succeeding syllable. The most notable - 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. Due to the reduction of final syllables the conditions which caused palatal mutation had disappeared in most words by the age of writing; these sounds were weakened to [e] or were altogether lost.

Breaking. Formation of a short diphthong from a simple short vowel when it is followed by a specific consonant cluster. a – ea.

Palatal Mutation (i-umlaut). Narrowing of the vowel in the stressed position syllable under the influence of i or j of the following syllable.

Back, or Velar Mutation. Back vowels o/u (sometimes a) influencing the preceding syllable caused the formation of diphthongs. The process was not universal (in west saxon literary language it occurred only before the sounds r, I, p, b, f, m).

Diphthongization after Palatal Consonants. Diphthongs resulted diphthongization after palatal consonants sk, k and j (in spelling c, sc, 3).


Date: 2015-01-29; view: 1327


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