What important changes in phonetic system happened in Early ModE?

Consonants

1) [χ] was lost and the preceding short vowel became longer:

light MidE [li χt] à [li: χt], [χ]became [f] in final position: sigh, tough;

2) The consonant [d] becomes [ð] in the neighborhood of [r]:

fader à father, moder à mother;

3) Loss of [l] after low back vowel and before labial or velar consonant:

half, palm, talk;

4) Addition of phonemic velar nasal [ŋ,] and voiced alveopalatal fricative [Ʒ];

5) General loss of [r] before consonants or in final position; also regular loss

of [r] in unstressed positions or after back vowels in stressed positions:

quarter, brother, March;

6) [j] was merged with the preceding consonant after a stressed vowel, thus

causing changes in the pronunciation of consonants, for example: [dj] à [ʤ], as in

soldier.

7) Development of palatal semivowel [j] in medial positions (after the major

stress and before unstressed vowel:

tenner/tenure, pecular/peculiar;

when semivowel [j] followed s, z, t, d, the sounds merged to produce a palatal

fricative or affricate:

pressure, seizure, creature, soldier (this phenomenon is known as assibilation and

is the origin of voiced alveopalatal fricative [Ʒ]).

Short Vowels

Short vowels remained practically unchanged except the following cases:

· Loss of final unstressed -e (exceptions: judges, passes, wanted);

· [a] in general a became [æ]; but later æ > a before r: harm, scarf, hard; also

æ à a before voiceless fricatives: staff, class, path; original [a] remained however

when the fricative was followed by another vowel: classical, passage;

· a before l became lax o: all, fall, walk; also after w: want, wash, reward;

but not if the vowel preceded a velar consonant: wax, wag, quack;

· [u] changed into [ʌ] (started to be pronounced shorter and without lip-

rounding: run, mud, gull, cut, hum, cup; but not if preceded by labial and followed

by l, or palatal s, or palatal c: full, pull, push, bush, butcher;

· Influence of following r: r tended to lower vowels when following them,

fer à far, sterre à star, derk à dark, ferme à farm; often however

pronunciation reverted to higher positions: sarvant à servant, sarmon à sermon;

· Rise of long [ə:] – this new vowel appeared in the 16^th century in

connection with changes of some vowels before [r], namely it appeared from ir

(fir), ur (fur), or after w (word), er (heard);

Date: 2015-01-29; view: 912