Evolution of Word-Stress in ME and early NE

The English sounds have changed very considerably in the nine hundred years that have elapsed since the OE period. The changes have effected not only the pronunciation of separate words but even more so the entire system of phonemes and the system of word-stress.

In OE, stress usually fell on the first syllable of the word and rarely – on its second syllable. Its position was determined by phonetic, morphological and semantic factors: in verbs with prefixes stress fell on the root-morpheme, although it was not the first syllable of the word, – which means that morphological factors prevailed over phonetic ones. In some polysyllabic words, for examle nouns, the first syllable was stressed irrespective ( ) of whether it was the root or the prefix, – in other words, here phonetic factors appeared to be more important. Word-stress was fixed, since it was never moved in inflection and rarely – in derivation.

In the Middle and Early NE periods – roughly between 13^th and 16^th centuries – the system of word-stress in English was considerably altered. In Middle English texts stress is no longer the exclusive property of the root-morpheme or the first syllable; on the contrary, its position seems to be free, as we come across a great variety of differently stressed words, e.g. ME nature [na`ty:r] or [na`tjy:r], NE nature. The main innovation of the ME period was that in contrast to OE, stress could fall not only on the first syllable of the word or the root-morpheme but also on the syllables following the root-morpheme or on the second syllable of the root. Only the grammatical inflections remained unstressed the same as before.

As the loan-words were assimilated by the English language the stress was moved closer to the beginning of the word. In words of three and more syllables the changes proceeded in different ways due to the recessive ( ) tendency (in disyllabic words stress was shifted from the second to the first syllable – ME virtu [ver`tju:] > NE virtue [`v3:tjэ]), and also due to the rhythmic tendency which required a regular alternation of stressed and unstressed syllables. Thus stress could be shifted to the syllable immediately preceding in line with the recesive tendency, as in ME condicioun [kondi`sju:n] > NE condition;

ME disobeie [dizo`beiэ] > NE disibey[`diso`bei] .

Words with the stress falling on the third syllable from the end are common in Modern E (NE comfortable, concentrate, ability, evident, etc.). Etymologically they are borrowed words of the given type with the stress re-adjusted due to the rhythmic tendency.

Some alterations in the position of stress are associated not only with the phonetic tendencies but also with certain morphological factors. Thus stress was not shifted to the prefixes of many verbs borrowed or built in Middle and Early NE in spite of the recessive tendency – which conforms to the native OE morphological regularity in the word-stress (to keep verb prefixes unstressed), e.g. NE imprison, recover, mistake.

Date: 2015-02-28; view: 2347