19. Middle English consonants. Middle English syntax.

Reduction to /ə/ and eventual loss of short vowels in unstressed syllables

       (lexical words: nama -> name, mete -> meat, nosu > nose, sunu -> son)

o      function of silent <-e>?

       grammar words:

o      folc(e), niht(e): dative falls in with nominative, accusative

o      riht(e), freondlic(e): adverb falls in with adjective

o      lufodon, lufoden: preterite indicative and subjunctive plural fall together

 

Loss (inconsistent) of unstressed final consonants following a vowel

o      infinitive: helpan -> helpen -> help

o      affixes: ānlic -> only

o      pronouns: ic -> I, þin -> thi(n)

o      article: án -> a(n)

o      strong past participles: -en often stays, e.g. written, taken

 These are among some quantitative sound changes:

o      loss

o      lengthening

o      shortening

Middle English: Consonants

 New phonemes: voiced fricatives /ð/, /v/, /z/

 The situation in OE

o      voiced fricatives were just allophones of voiceless fricatives

o      fricatives were voiceless unless they were between voiced sounds

       [ð]: oðer

       [v]: hlāford, hēafod, hæfde

       [z]: frēosan, ceōsan, hūsian

 

A number of factors promoted the phonemicization of voiced fricatives:

o      loanwords from French: vine (fine), view (few), veal (feel)

o      but French lacks interdental fricatives or (with a few exceptions) word-initial /z/

o      dialect mixing:

o      (fox), vixen: southern English dialects

o      loss of final (vowels in) unstressed syllables

o      OE hūsian [z] -> -> ME house, hous /z/ (cf noun hous /s/)

o      “voiced consonants require less energy to pronounce”: previously unvoiced fricatives became voiced in words receiving little or no stress in a sentence, like function words:

o      e.g. [f] of  ->                 /v/

o      e.g. [s] in wæs, his ->   /z/

o      e.g. [θ] in þæt  ->          /ð/

Changes in distribution of consonants

 More systematic changes

o      loss of ‘long’ consonants: OE man ‘one’, mann ‘man’

o      OE /h/:

o      word-initial [h]

       lost in clusters: OE hræfn, hlāford, hlūd

       (some evidence of ‘h-dropping’ word-initially)

       in words from French and Latin:

o      e.g. oste ‘host’, onour ‘honour’

       written language can retard/block/reverse sound change

       in native words: e.g. OE hit ‘it’;

o      (adde ‘had’; herthe ‘earth’)

 o      postvocalic [ç] or [x]

       still around in ME: light and laugh

       (ultimate fates: to zero or /f/)

o      OE /g/:

o      allophone [γ] (near l/r or between back vowels) vocalized to [u] or semivowel [w]:

       OE swelgan, sorg, boga

o      allophone [j] (near front vowels) vocalized to [i]:

       OE genoh -> ME inough

       OE mægden -> maiden, OE sægde -> said

 More sporadic changes:

       in lightly stressed words, voicing of fricatives: that, was

       loss of unstressed final consonants: OE ānlic -> only

       loss of /w/ after /s/ or /t/ and (especially) before rounded vowels

       OE swylc, swā

       OE twā, sweord

       but kept in twin, swim