- •Subject and Aims of the History of English. Its Ties with Other Disciplines. Germanic Language in the System of Indo-European Family of Languages
- •1. History of English in the systemic conception of English
- •1.1. The aims and the purpose of the study of the subject
- •1.2. Connection of the subject with other disciplines
- •2. Sources of Language History
- •2.1. Writings in early English
- •3. General notes on the language study
- •3.1 The definition of the language
- •3.2 The functions of the language
- •3.3 The structure of the language
- •3.4 The language classification principles
- •3.5 Synchrony and diachrony in the language study
- •4. The comparative-historical method
- •4.1 The stages of the comparative-historical method
- •4.2 The principles of the comparative-historical method
- •4.3 The drawbacks of the comparative-historical method
- •5. The Germanic group of languages
- •The Formation of the English National Language. Periods in the History of the English Language
- •1. Territorial dialects of the period of the Anglo-Saxon invasion
- •2. The dialects of the period of the Norman Conquest
- •3. The development of the dialect of London into a national language
- •Periods in the History of the English Language
- •1. Henry Sweet and his division of the history of English
- •2. Historical periodization as offered by b. Khaimovich
- •3. T. Rastorguyeva’s periodization of the English language
- •4. The division of the history of English as suggested by V. Arakin
- •5. The periods of the development of English as offered by a. Markman and e. Steinberg
- •6. David Burnley’s periodization of the history of English
- •Common Linguistic Features of Germanic Languages
- •1. Phonetic peculiarities of the Germanic languages
- •1.1. The First Consonant Shift
- •1.2. Vowels
- •1.3. The doubling of consonants
- •1.4. Rhotacism
- •1.5. Germanic fracture (or breaking)
- •1.6. The second consonant shift
- •2. Some common grammatical features of Germanic languages
- •2.1. Form-building Means
- •2.1.1. Ablaut
- •2.1.2. Word-structure
- •2.1.3. Types of Stems
- •2.1.4. Strong and Weak Verbs
- •3. Germanic Vocabulary
- •Phonetic Changes in the Old English Period
- •The Main Features of Old, Middle, and Modern English
- •2. Old English Phonetics
- •2.1. Oe Consonants
- •2.2. Vowels
- •2.2.1. Changes of stressed vowels
- •2.2.2. Changes of unstressed vowels
- •Changes in the Middle English Orthography and Phonology
- •1. Changes in the Orthographic System
- •2. Major Changes in the Sound System
- •2.1. The Consonants
- •2.2. Consonant Changes from Old to Middle English
- •2.3. Vowels in Stressed Syllables
- •2.4. Vowels in Unstressed Syllables
- •2.5. The Formation of Middle English Diphthongs
- •The Old English Morphology
- •1. The Old English Noun.
- •2. The Old English Pronoun
- •3. The Old English Adjective
- •4. The Old English Adverb
- •5. The Numeral in Old English
- •6. The Old English Verb.
- •The Middle English Morphology
- •1. Middle English as a Period of Great Change.
- •2. The Middle English Noun.
- •3. Articles.
- •4. The me Adjective.
- •5. The me Adverb
- •6. The me Pronoun
- •7. The me Verb
- •7.1. Strong and weak verbs
- •The New English Morphology and Changes in the System of English Syntax
- •1. New English Morphology
- •2. Old English Syntax.
- •3. Middle English Syntax
- •4. New English Syntax
2.2. Consonant Changes from Old to Middle English
In the following table the first group of examples represents forms which lost initial h- preceding a resonant (l, n and r); the second set shows the loss of a final consonant; the third shows the simplification of the cluster /sw/, while the last pair reflects the voicing of voiceless consonants in some dialects:
Old English Middle English Meaning
2.3. Vowels in Stressed Syllables
There was also little change in the vowels in stressed or accented syllables. Most of the short vowels, unless lengthened, passed unchanged into ME. But short æ was lowered to [a] and y was unrounded to i (OE cræft > ME craft; OE brycg > brigge, bridge). The other short vowels a, e, i, o, u remained unchanged, as in OE catte > cat; bedde > bed; scip > ship; folc > folk; full > ful.
Amongst the long vowels, the most important change was the raising and rounding of long a > o: OE ban > ME bon (‘bone’), bat > bot (‘boat’). [y:] was unrounded to [i:]: OE bryd > bride, fyr > fir (‘fire’).
Long e in ME represented two sounds:
(1) Long e (long a in West Germanic) appears as long e in ME, unchanged from OE (except in West Saxon): slepan > slepen.
(2) In many words æ was a sound resulting from the i-umlaut of a. This was a more open vowel, appearing in ME as e (OE clæne > clene, dælen > delen (‘deal’).
Other OE vowels preserved their quality in ME: medu > mede (‘mead’); fif > fif (‘five’); bok > bok (‘book’); hus > hus (‘house’).
OE diphthongs were all simplified and all the diphthongs of ME are new formations resulting chiefly from the combination of a simple vowel with the following consonant ([j] or [w]), which vocalized. Though the quality did not change in ME, the quantity of OE vowels underwent considerable change. OE long vowels were shortened late in the OE period or early in ME when followed by a double consonant or by most combinations of consonants. The changes are not noticeable in spelling, but they are very significant, since they determine the development of these vowels in later stages.
2.4. Vowels in Unstressed Syllables
The general obscuring of unstressed syllables in ME is a most significant sound change, since it is one of the fundamental causes of the loss of inflection. Before the end of OE, every unstressed /a/, /e/, /o/ and /u/ tended to become an <e> in spelling, presumably pronounced as /ə/ (schwa): OE oxa > ME oxe; OE foda > ME fode. Unstressed /i/, on the other hand, remained unchanged. When /ə/ was final in ME it was eventually lost, hence the modern forms ox, food; often the <e> was retained in spelling, though it was not pronounced. Certain endings in which /ə/ was followed by a consonant, especially the possessive and plural –es and preterite –ed, regularly syncopated, so that here, too, /ə/ is lost (e.g. botes > boats). Exceptions are sounds ending in a sibilant, e.g. busses, vases, etc., or verbs ending in an alveolar sound (wedded, wetted), where [ə] or [i] is still encountered in modern forms.