ThemeV: The Old Engish grammar

Lecture IV
Theme: Old English Phonetics
Plans:

1. 
   Old English vowels.
   
   1. 
      splitting of [a] and [a:]:
      
   2. 
      development of monophthongs;
      
   3. 
      breaking and diphthongization;
      
   4. 
      palatal mutation.
      
2. 
   Old English consonants:
   
   1. 
      hardening;
      
   2. 
      rhotacism;
      

c) voicing and devoicing.
Literature
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2. Линский В.Я. Сборник упражнений по истории английского языка. –Л.: ЛГУ, 1983. –
164 с.
3. Резник Р.В., Сорокина Т.А., Резник И.В. История английского языка (на английском
языке). –2-е изд. –М.: Флинта: Наука, 2003. –496 с.
4. Fisiak J. A Short Grammar of Middle English. –Warszawa: PWN, 1970. –139 с.
5. Ilyish B. History of the English language. –Л.: Просвещение, 1973. –332 с.
6. Ilyish B. The Structures of Modern English. –Л.: Просвещение, 1965. –378 с.
7. Mortan A. L. A People’s History of England. –NY: International Publishers, 1974. –590 p.
8. Rastorguyeva T.A. A History of English. –M.: Vysšaja škola, 1983. –347 pp.
9. Zaitseva S. D. Early Britain. –M.: Просвещение, 1975. –254 с.

1. Sound changes, particularly vowel changes, took place in English at every period of history.

The PG short [a] and the long [a:], which had risen in West and North Germanic, underwent similar alteration in Early OE: they fronted and, in the process of fronting, they split into several sounds.
The principal regular direction of the change [a] into [ ] and [a:] into [ :] is often referred to as the fronting or palatalisation of [a, a:].

Splitting of [a] and [a:] in Early OE

PG OE	Other OG languages	OE	NE
a into a o, a a	Gt pata Gt mann(a) Gt magan	pat mon magan	that man may
a: into a o:	OHG dar OHG mano	par mona	there moon

The PG diphthongs [ei, ai, iu, au] underwent regular independent changes in Early OE, they took place in all phonetic conditions. The diphthongs with the i – glide were monophthongised into [i:] and [a:], respectively; the diphthongs in u were reflected as long diphthongs [io:], [eo:] and [ea:].

Development of monophthongs

PG OE	Gothic	OE	NE
a+i a:	stains	stan	stone
e+i i:	meins	min	mine, my
a+u ea:	auso	eare	ear
e+u eo:	kiusan	ceosan	choose
i+u io:	diups	deop, diop	deep

The tendency of assimilative vowel change, characteristic of later PG and of OG languages. Under the influence of succeeding and preceding consonants some Early OE monophthongs developed into diphthongs.
If a front vowel stood before a velar consonant there developed a short glide between them, as the organs of speech prepared themselves for the transition from one sound to the other. The glide together with the original monophthong formed diphthong.
Breaking produced a new set of vowels in OE the short diphthongs [ea] and [eo] could enter the system as counterparts of the long [ea:] and [eo:] which had developed from PG prototypes.

Breaking and diphthongization

	Conditions	Early OE	OE	Other OE languages	WG	NE
Breaking	1. Before l+l or l+other consonants