Word
|
Vowel pronunciation
| | | | |
Late Middle English before the GVS
|
Modern English after the GVS
|
bite
|
/iː/
|
/aɪ/
|
meet
|
/eː/
|
/iː/
|
meat
|
/ɛː/
| |
mate
|
/aː/
|
/eɪ/
|
out
|
/uː/
|
/aʊ/
|
boot
|
/oː/
|
/uː/
|
boat
|
/ɔː/
|
/oʊ/
|
Middle English vowel system
Before the Great Vowel Shift, Middle English in Southern England had seven long vowels, /iː eː ɛː aː ɔː oː uː/. The vowels occurred in, for example
, the words bite, meet, meat, mate, boat, boot, and out, respectively
Southern Middle English vowel system
| | | | |
front
|
back
|
close
|
/iː/: bite
|
/uː/: out
|
close-mid
|
/eː/: meet
|
/oː/: boot
|
open-mid
|
/ɛː/: meat
|
/ɔː/: boat
|
The words had very different pronunciations in Middle English from their pronunciations in Modern English.
Long i in bite was pronounced as /iː/ so Middle English bite sounded like Modern English beet /biːt/.
Long e in meet was pronounced as /eː/ so Middle English meet sounded similar to Modern English mate /meɪt/
Long a in mate was pronounced as /aː/, with a vowel similar to the broad a of spa.
Long o in boot was pronounced as /oː/, similar to modern oa in General American boat /oʊ/.
After around 1300, the long vowels of Middle English began changing in pronunciation as follows:
- Diphthongisation - The two close vowels, /iː uː/, became diphthongs (vowel breaking).
- Vowel raising - The other five, /eː ɛː aː ɔː oː/, underwent an increase in tongue height (raising).
The Development of Vowel System in Middle English
- In ME and NE word stress acquired greater positions freedom and greater role in word derivation.
- Recessive tendency – stress in loan-words moved closer to the beginning of the word (e.g. in French words the stress is usually placed on the ultimate or pen-ultimate syllable, but the stress in the words of the French origin that penetrated into English has moved to the beginning of the word).
- ME vertu [ver’tju:] – NE virtue [‘vз:t∫ə]
- Rhythmic tendency – regular alternation of stressed and unstressed syllables (3 or more) that creates rhythm and has led to the appearance of the secondary stress.
- ME diso’beien – NE ,diso’bei
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