OE Vowels. Development of Vowels in Unstressed Syllables in OE.

Vowels

The OE vowel system carefully distinguished between long and short vowels. Distinguishing between long and short vowels can be difficult at first. Scottish speakers may notice a quantitative distinction in their pronunciations of the stressed vowels in GREED and AGREED; many English speakers might compare their pronunciation of GRID with GREED (although the quality as well as the quantity of these latter vowels differ). Many teachers of the subject regard the distinction between short and long vowels as unimportant for the beginning student, but it is useful to know about them when you move to more advanced philological work. Thus, although you will not be required to insert length-marks in the Exercises, length-marks are given throughout.

Some examples of the difference of meaning length of vowels can make in OE are: God GOD and gōd GOOD, wendon TURNED and wēndon BELIEVED, āwacian TO AWAKEN and āwācian TO GROW WEAK.

All vowels should be pronounced in OE. Most scholars agree that there were no 'silent' vowels, like 'E' in Present-Day English (PDE) LIFE.

OE, like PDE, distinguished between stressed (ie. 'more prominent') and unstressed (ie. 'less prominent') syllables; unlike PDE, however, the vowels of unstressed syllables seem to have remained markedly distinguished in quality for much of the OE period. In PDE, 'A' in ALONG, 'E' in THE BOOK, 'O' in TO BE are frequently all pronounced the same, ie. [ə] or [ʌ]; but because OE was an inflected language (see Syntax), it is important to distinguish between, eg., eorles NOBLE'S ['eərləs] and eorlas NOBLES ['eərlɑs]. In later OE, unstressed vowels were no longer distinguished in quality, and were probably all pronounced as [ɜ] or [ɪ]. In this book, the suggested pronunciation distinguishes unstressed vowels, but [ɜ] or [ɪ] are entirely acceptable if preferred.

The symbols for monophthong vowels in OE were y, i, e, æ, a, o and u; all could be pronounced either long or short, and there seem to have been no qualitative distinctions between long and short vowels (cf. the Modern Scots distinction between GREED and AGREED cited in 8. above). These symbols largely correspond with those of the IPA, except that a, a were probably pronounced [ɑ(:)], as in modern German Mann MAN. There were also three sets of diphthongs, all of which could be long or short: ea, eo, ie. (There is some debate about the pronunciation and diphthongal status of these three digraphs, but this manual is not the place to pursue this argument.)

Since OE times, sound-changes have intervened to disturb the relationship between spelling and pronunciation. The details need not concern us here, but they mean that the long vowels in such words as the following were pronounced differently from the vowels in the PDE words descended from them:

wīs [wi:s], cf. PDE WISE; mētan [me:tɑn], cf. PDE MEET; hū [hu:], cf. PDE HOW; fōd [fo:d], cf. PDE FOOD.

Some scholars hold that there was a qualitative as well as a quantitative distinction between short and long vowels, so that 'short' i, e, o, u were pronounced [ɪ,ɛ, ɔ] and [ʊ] respectively, as in PDE [ʃɪp], [pɛt], [tɔp], [pʊt] etc. In this course, such qualitative distinctions between short and long vowels are not made, but may of course be adopted if preferred. The scholarly debate is essentially one between "phonemic" and "phonetic" analysis of OE pronunciation; the argument is not pursued here.

Most people find y, both long and short, the hardest vowel to pronounce. Try saying the vowel in MEAN, and then round your lips as you say it - without moving your tongue. It is the same sound as the 'u' in modern French 'tu' YOU (sg.).

Most scholars agree that OE had three diphthongs, symbolised by the digraphs ea, eo and ie; all could be pronounced either long or short. Most consider ea to represent [æ(:)ə], eo to represent [e(:)ə], and ie to represent [i(:)ə].

Date: 2015-12-24; view: 1173