The subject of history of English

26. Middle English Phonology

The first change in the phonological system to be mentioned is the levelling of sounds - vowels in the unstressed syllables. Middle sounds in polysyllabic words tend to change various sounds to one neutral sound shwa, marked as e. The paradigm was simplified; at the same time in verbs various endings also merged into a single sound form - wrītan, writen, writon - writen; wrītað, wrīteð- to writeth. Final sounds m and n are on the way to being lost altogether: carum, stanum - care, stone.

In the unstressed syllables of the verb forms most frequent is the case that it was preserved in the forms of the participle, and tended to be lost in the infinitive; but even in the participles it was lost if the root of the word already had a nasal sound (binden - bound - bounden - later simply bound).

The same phenomenon is seen in the numeral an (one) that became an indefinite article (a) in present-day-English, and in possessive pronouns mine and thine that have forms my and thy if they are not followed by a noun that begins with a vowel.

In some phonetic environment only short vowels are possible; in the other the vowels are invariably long. First, a long vowel before two consonants is shortened; the exception here are the clusters mb, ld, nd or when the two consonants belonged to the second syllable of the word. (mǣste, lǣst — most; least)

Individual vowels The most significant change was monophthongization of Old English diphthongs: short ea – æ – a(heard – hard); short eo – e(feoll – fell); short ie – I or e(nieht – niht(night)). Long diphthongs: ēa – æ: - ɛ: (ēast - ɛ:st(east)); ēo – e: (dēop – deep).

Individual sounds: æ – a(ðæt – that); ǣ - ɛ: (dǣl – deal); ēā, ǣ - ɛ: open; ea, æ – (short).

long ā turned into long ͻ: (hām - hͻ:me). Long and short y turned into i(dyde – dide(did)). The system of vowels contained short I, e closed, ɛ open, a, o, u which developed: i – from OE(I – HIT – IT), e(eo – heorte – herte), a(a – abbod – abbot; æ – ðæt – that), o(a(o) - lanʒ - long), u(u – sunu – son). New diphthongs appeared in ME as a result of the changes in the consonant system of the language: k’ – [tʃ] marked by ch; sk’ - [ʃ] marked by sh; ʒ’ - [j]; cʒ - [dʒ]. h in the beginning of such clusters as hr, hl, hn, hw was lost(hrinʒ - ring). The sound γ(marked by ʒ) turned into w: aʒ - aw, æʒ - ai, ay; eʒ - ei, ey. ʒ+vowel – long vowels: iʒ, yʒ - i;(ryʒe – rie, rye); uʒ - u: (buʒan – bowen). In combination with liquids new diphthongs appeared: lʒ, rʒ - lw, rw [oʋ] and [aʋ] : sorʒian – sorwen, sorrow.