17 Struggle between English and French. Middle English dialects.Hyperlink "http://www.Ranez.Ru/article/id/684/" The London dialect

• English began to use French words in current speech. Probably many people became bilingual and had a fair command of both languages. The struggle between French and English was bound to end in the complete victory of English. The earliest sign of the official recognition of English by the Norman kings was the famous PROCLAMATION issued by

Henry 3 in 1258 to the councilors in Parliament. It was written in 3 languages: French, Latin and English. During this period such changes were in English: there appeared prepositions and conjunctions, but the grammar was saved unchangeable. Such words as servant, prince, guard – (connected with life of royal families) were borrowed. With life of church – chapel, religion, prayer, to compress; with city life – city, merchant, painter,

tailor. The names of animals were saved, but if their meanings were used as meal – the Norman’s names were given to them (beef, pork, veal, mutton).

• The dialect division which evolved in Early ME was on the whole preserved in later periods. In the 14^th and 15^th c. we find the same grouping of local dialects: the Southern group, including Kentish and the South-Western dialects (the South-Western group was a continuation of the OE Saxon dialects), the Midland or Central (corresponding to the OE Mercian dialect – is divided into West Midland and East Midland as two main areas) and the Northern group (had developed from OE Northumbrian). And yet the relations between them were changing.

• The most important event in the changing linguistic situation was the rise of the London dialect as the prevalent written form of language. The history of the London dialect reveals the sources of the literary language in Late ME and also the main source and basis of the Literary Standard, both in its written and spoken forms. The Early ME written records made in London – beginning with the PROCLAMATION of 1258 – show that the dialect of London was fundamentally East Saxon. Later records indicate that the speech of London was becoming more fixed, with East Midland features gradually prevailing over the Southern features.

18 Me Word Stress. Vowels in Middle English

In OE stress usually fell on the first syllable of the word, rarely on its second syllable. Word stress in OE was fixed: it never moved in inflection and seldom in derivation. These changes were connected with the phonetic assimilation of thousands of loan-words adopted during the ME period. Gradually, as the loan-words were assimilated, the word stress was moved closer to the beginning of the word. It is known as the “recessive” tendency, e.g. vertu [ver´tju:] became NE virtue [və:t∫ə]. In words of three or more syllables the shift of the stress could be caused by the recessive tendency and also by the “rhythmic” tendency. Under it, a secondary stress would arise at a distance of one syllable from the original stress. Sometimes the shifting of the word stress should be attributed not only to the phonetic tendencies but also to certain morphological factors. Thus stress was not shifted to the prefixes of many verbs borrowed or built in Late ME and in Early NE, which accords with the OE rule: to keep verb prefixes unstressed, e.g. present.

Vowels in Middle English were, overall, similar to those of Old English, except for the loss of OE y and æ so that y was unrounded to i and æ raised toward [] or lowered toward [a].

-addition of new phonemic sound (mid central vowel), represented in linguistics by the symbol called schwa:

, the schwa sound occurs in unstressed syllables and its appearance is related to the ultimate loss of most inflections

Some examples:

day [dai]

cause [kaus]

hous [hus]

-loss of unstressed vowels: unstressed final -e was gradually dropped, though it was probably often pronounced; -e of inflectional endings also being lost, even when followed by consonant (as in -es, eth, ed) (e.g. breathe/breathed), exceptions: wishes, wanted; loss of -e in adverbs made them identical to adjective, hence ambiguity of plain adverbs e.g. hard, fast; final -e in French loanwords not lost because of French final stress, hence cité > "city," pureté > "purity"

French loanwords added new diphthongs, e.g. OF point, noyse > ME point, noise

-vowel length:

phonemic vowel length of OE retained in ME (but lost in Modern English)

short vowels tended to lengthen before certain consonant clusters OE climban, feld > ME climbe, feld ("climb," "field")

lengthening of short vowels in open syllables (syllables ending in a vowel), OE gatu, hopa > ME gate, hope

shortening of long vowels in stressed closed syllables, OE softe, godsibb, sceaphirde > ME softe, godsib ("soft," "gossip,"); exceptions (before -st): OE crist > ME Christ ("Christ")

in a long word (if two or more unstressed syllables followed the stressed one), the vowel of the stressed syllable was shortened (Christ/Christmas [ME Christesmesse],

-some remnants of distinctions caused by lengthening or shortening in open and closed syllables: five/fifteen, wise/wisdom; in weak verbs, the dental ending closed syllables: hide/hid, keep/kept, sleep/slept, hear/heard