Lecture Word Stock of Middle English Period. Phonetic peculiarities of Middle English
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Word Stock of Middle English Period (1)
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- Middle English Vowel Changes.
- Shortening and Lengthening of Vowels.
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Lecture 8. Word Stock of Middle English Period. Phonetic peculiarities of Middle English 1. Middle English Vowel Chfnges. 2. Middle English Consonant Changes. 3. Rise of New Dipthongs and Related Phenomena. 4. More Phonetic Changes. French Sounds. 5. Letters and Sound Vowels in Middle English. Middle English Vowel Changes. In the ME period a great change affected the entire system of vowel phonemes. To fully understand the importance of this change, we must briefly summarize the essential characteristics of the OE vowel system. OE had both short and long vowel phonemes, and each these could occur in any phonetic environment, that is they were absolutely independent phonemic units. As a result of important changes coming into the vowel system in the 10th- 12th centuries, the ME vowel system was basically different. While, in OE, quantity (that is langth/ shortness) was a distinctive phonemic feature, in ME (by the 13th century) this is no longer so. Quantity of vowels becomes dependent on their environment- to be exact, on what follows. With a few exceptions (see below, ¸319) the situation in ME is briefly this: in other phonetic environments only short vowels can appear, while in other phonetic environments only long vowels can appear. The quantity (langth/ shortness) of a vowel is with those few exceptions still to be considered unambiguously predetermined by the environment. Thus quantity ceases being a phonemically relevant feature and becomes a merely phonetic peculiarity of a vowel sound. Now we will consider the various items of this development, which come under separate headings. .Shortening and Lengthening of Vowels. A long vowel occurring two consonants (including a doubled, i.e. long, consonant) is shortened. Compare the following examples: OE cëpan (Infinitive) cëpte (Past Tense) fëdan (Infinitive) fëdde (Past Tense) wis ‘wise’ wisdöm ME ‘keep’ këpen ‘kept’ kepte ‘feed’ fëden fedde wis ‘wisdom’ wisdom The vowels are shorened before two consonants, but remain long in other environments. However, long vowels remain long before the “lengthening” consonant groups ld, nd, mb, i.e. those consisting of two voiced consonants articulated by the same organ of speech ( these were lengthened in Late OE, cf. ¸107), e.g.) e.g. wënan (Infinitive) wënde (Past Tense) hëran (Infinitive) hërde (Past Tense) ‘think’ wënen wënde ‘hear’ hëren hërde Long consonants also remained long before such consonant clusters as belonged to the following syllable. This mainly affects the group st as in the words OE læsta ëastan mæsta, mästa ME ‘least lęst ‘from the East’ ęsten ‘largest’ möst, mast From such forms as these the long vowel could also penetrate into forms with final -st: -mëst, mäst, lëst, läst. On the other hand, in the words brëst >brest ‘breast’, blæst>blast ‘blast’,fÿst> fist, düst> dust the vowel was shortened, that is, the from without endingtook the upper hand. A long vowel is also shortened before one consonant in some threesyllable words: läferce> laferce> larke ‘lark’, häl3dæ3> haliday ‘holiday’, süþerne> suþerne ‘southern’. Download 1.01 Mb. Do'stlaringiz bilan baham: 
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