prezentatsia2 history of english

8/13/2019 Prezentatsia2 History of English

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Middle English and New

English

THE PHONEIC SYSTEM


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Chronological Divisions

in Middle English

Early Middle English, starts after 1066 and covers

the 12th, 13th and half of the I4th . It was a time of

great changes at all the levels of the language,

especially in lexis and grammar, caused by foreigninfluences Scandinavian and French.

Late (Classical) Middle English,the period from the

later 14th . till the end of the 15th is the age of

Chaucer. It wasthe time of the restoration of English

to the position of the state and literary language and

the time of literary flourishing.


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ME SPELLING

Spelling was created in ME under the

influence of French.

It preserves its principal features in

modern times.


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ME SPELLING

1. The runic letters were lost.

2. New letters: K, Q, W, V, J

3. New spelling devices: digraphs (ou, gh, th, ch, sh, dg , qu , wh)

doubling of the letters to show the

length of the root syllable: stoon final e (for the same purpose): stone


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Word Stress in ME and Early NE

Word stress acquired greater positional

freedom in word derivation but not in form-

building.

Changes in word stress are mostly connected

with the phonetic assimilation of thousands of

loan-words adopted during the ME period.


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Sound Changes in

ME and Early NE


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CHANGES IN

THE VOWEL SYSTEM

IN THE UNSTRESSED POSITION

in OE

5 short vowels

o / u a e / i


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ME

VOWELS IN THE UNSTRESSED

POSITION reduced to the neutral sound [] or [i]OE ME

talu tale

bodig body

effect upon the system of grammatical

endings:

many homogeneous suffixes,

many homonymous forms


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Homonymy in the Nominal

System

OE ME NE

Nom.pl fiscas fishes fishes Gen.sg fisces fishes fishs


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Verbal System

OE wrtan wrt writon writen

ME wrten wrt writen writen

NE write wrote written


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Middle English

a period of levelled endings

H.Sweet


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Vowels under Stress

prevailing type of qualitative vowel

changes:

OE ME

assimilative largely

independent


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Typical features of

Germanic languages

There was a tendency for long

monophthongs to becomecloser.

A reverse tendency for short

monophthongs - to become

more open.


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Changes of LongMonophthongs

OE ME OE ME

pronunciation spelling

> stn stn stone> slpan slpn sleepen > fr fr fire

3 long monophthongs became closer.

The rest remained unchanged.


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Changes of Short Monophthongs

2 short monophthongs in ME were

changed:

OE ME OE ME

> a t that

y > i fyrst first


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Dialectal Differences

Most NE forms descend from the East

Midland dialect.

However, some modern words have

traces of other dialects:

NE bury (OE byrian)

the letter uis a trace of the Western form the sound [e] is traced to the South-East

(Kent)


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Development of Diphthongs

AllOE diphthongs were lost (became

monophthongs) at the end of the OE

period:

eo: > e: deo:p deep

ea: > e: rea:d reed red

eo > e seofon seven ea > a eald ald


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Development of ME Diphthongs

OE ME NE

+j > ai d dai day

+j > ei gr grei grey e+j > ei we wei way

a+ >a draan drawen draw

+ >o an owen own o+ >o boa bowe bow


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QUANTITY OF VOWELS

in Late OE and ME

Many vowels became short and long

depending on the phonetic condition

and irrespective of their origin.


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First Lengthening of Vowels

9th c. Late OE

All vowels before mb, nd, ld became

long:

OE ME

bindan bnden [i:]

climban clmben

cild chld hund hound [u:]


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Second Lengthening of Vowels

12-13th c.

The vowels a, o, e were lengthened in

the open syllable:

OE ME

talu tale [ta:l]

hopian hopen [o:]

sprecan speken [e:]


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Shortening of Vowels in ME

All OE vowels were shortened before

clusters of 2 or 3 consonants

other than mb, nd, ld:

OE cpan cpte

ME keepen kept(e)

NE keep kept


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Traces of Quantitative Changes

Vowel interchange developed in many

cases between:

forms of the same word:

child /i:/ - children /i/

keepen /e:/ - kept /e/

words built from the same root:wis /i:/ - wisdom /i/


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ENGLISH CONSONANTS

more stable than the vowels

A large number of consonants haveremained unchanged since the OE

period. The OE system of consonants

contained neither sibilants (except s / z)

nor affricates. In OE some phonemes had more than

one positional phonetic variant.


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appearance of affricates and

sibilants in ME

they developed from palatal consonants or

consonant combinations:

OE ME

k' > t cild chld

cin chin

sk' > scip ship g' > d bryc bridge


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CHANGES IN

THE VOWEL SYSTEMIN THE NE PERIOD

Vowels in unstressed position are dropped

in the endings:

OE ME NE

wrtan wrten write

New English - a period of lost endingsH. Sweet


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THE GREAT VOWEL SHIFT

A SERIES OF INDEPENDENT

CHANGES

OF LONG VOWELSbetween 1417th cc.


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the narrowing of all ME long

monophthongs

the diphthongization of thenarrowest ones [i:] and [u:]


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ME NE ME NE

a: >ei maken make

o: (open)>ou stone stone o: (close)> u: roote root

: > i: see see

i: > ai time time u: > a hous(e) house


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The influence of the consonant

/R/on THE GREAT VOWEL SHIFT

When the long vowel was followed bythe consonant /r/, the resulting vowelwas more open than without the

following /r/:[ei] ~ [] fate but fare

[i:] ~ [i] steep butsteer

[ai] ~ [ai] time but tire [u:] ~ [] moon butmoor [a] ~ [a] house buthour


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the influence of the consonant /r/

upon the GVSh

3 new diphthongs:

[]

[i] []

2 thriphthongs:

[ai] [a]


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Changes of Short Vowels

isolated and inconsistent

1.a > that [at] that [t]

2. > cut [kt] cut [k t]

But: 1. When preceded by [w] a > o was ~ was

2. When preceded by p, f, b -

no change: bull, pull, full. But: but


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Changes of Diphthongs

2 of 4 (ai, ei, , a) ME diphthongschanged in NE:

ai > ei, which merged with the ME ei

ME day NE day

a > o: ME lawe > NE law


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QUANTITATIVE CHANGES

EARLY NEW ENGLISH


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Lengthening of Vowels before /r/

Short vowels followed by /r/ became long dueto the vocalization of /r/ at the end of theword or before another consonant:

a > a: farm farm

o > o: hors(e) horse

I first

E + R > : her

U fur(the quality of the resulting vowel is alsodifferent)


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Lengthening of vowels as the result of

the vocalization of other consonants

i + x > i: OE Late ME NE

niht nyght night [i]+ [x] [i]+ [j]>[i:] [ai] (GVSh)


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CHANGES OF

CONSONANTSNEW ENGLISH


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Voicing of Fricatives/s, f, , ks, /

They were voiced

after unstressed vowelsthe so-called

Verners law in New English:

possess , observe, exh ibi t

in many functional words:

the, this , that, though , o f, was, his


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Assimilation of borrowed words

Borrowed words of Romance originbore stress on the last or the last butone syllable.

Due to the recessive tendency thestress gradually shifted closer to thebeginning of the word.

The syllables became unstressed andthe sequences of sounds in them fusedinto one.


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Simplification of Consonant Clusters

the first consonant was dropped

OE ME NE

/kn/ /n/

cnwan knowen known

/gn/ /n/

ntt gnat gnat

/hw/ /w/ hwnne whan when

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