Module 8 changes in the phonetic system in new english

Outline

1. Phonetic changes of vowels

   1. Loss of unstressed [ə]

   2. The Great Vowel Shift

   3. Other changes of stressed vowels

2. Consonants

3. Conclusions

1. Phonetic changes of vowels

   1. Loss of unstressed [ə]

Vowels in the unstressed position already reduced in ME to the vowel of the [] type were dropped in NE if they were found in the endings of words, e.g.:

OE ME NE

nama name name [neim]

wrītan writen write [rait]

sunu sone son [sn]

Loss of [ə] started in the Northern dialects. The vowel [ə] was lost when it was final and also when it was followed by a consonant, as in the plural forms of nouns, e.g. tables, hats, books, in the 3^rd p. sg. present indicative, e.g. takes, sits, needs,shines, and in the past tense and participle II in –ed, e.g. walked, lived, stopped.

The vowel in the endings is sometimes preserved – mainly for phonetic reason, e.g.: wanted, dresses; without the intermediate vowel it would be very difficult to pronounce the endings of such words.

Loss of [ə] had special consequences for the spelling: the letter e was preserved in words having a long root vowel, thus giving rise to the so-called “mute” e, which denotes length of the preceding vowel. On the analogy the letter e was added in words which had never had any unstressed vowel, as in house, stone, wrote from ME hous, ston, wrot.

2. The Great Vowel Shift

The most significant phonetic change in NE was the Great Vowel Shift, beginning in the 15^th c. During the period of the 15^th -18^th c. the long vowels became closer or were diphthongized.

The changes included in the Great Vowel Shift are shown in Table 8.1 with some intermediate stages and examples. (The development of the ME diphthong [au], which was narrowed and contracted to [:] during the same period, is added here, though it is not usually included in the Shift.)

Table 8.1

The Great Vowel Shift

Change illustrated	Examples
ME (intermediate NE stage)	ME	NE
i: ai	time ['ti:m]	time
	finden ['fi:ndn]	find
e: i:	kepen ['ke:pn]	keep
	field ['fe:ld]	field.
: e: i:	street [str:t]	street
	east [:st]	east
	stelen ['st:ln]	steal
a: ei	maken ['ma:kn]	make
	table ['ta:bl]	table
: o: ou	stone ['st:n]	stone
	open [' :pn]	open
	soo [s:]	so
o: u:	moon [mo:n]	moon
	goos [go:s]	goose
u: au	mous [mu:s]	mouse
	founden l'fu:ndn]	found
	now [nu:]	now
au :	cause ['kauz()]	cause
	drawen ['draun]	draw

As seen from the table all the vowels became closer and some of the vowels occupied the place of the next vowel in the column: thus [e:]>[i:], while the more open [:] took the place of [e:], and later moved one step further in the same direction and merged with the former [e:] in [i:]. Likewise, the long [o:] was shifted one step, to become [u:], while ME [u:] changed into [au]. Some long vowels – [u:], [i:] and [a:] – broke into diphthongs, the first element being contrasted to the second and more open sound: [au], [ai] and [ei], respectively.

The Great Vowel Shift was the most profound and comprehensive change in the history of English vowels: all long vowels, as well as some diphthongs, were "shifted", and the pronunciation of all the words with these sounds was altered.

It is important to note that the Great Vowel Shift (unlike most of the earlier phonetic changes) was not followed by any regular spelling changes: as seen from the examples the modification in the pronunciation of words was not reflected in their written forms. (The few graphic replacements made in the 16th c. failed to reflect the changes: the digraphs ie, ee, and the single e were kept for the close [e:],while the digraph ea was introduced to show the more open [:] as in steal; the further merging of [e:] and [:] in [i:] made the graphic distinction unnecessary — cf. NE steal, steel. A similar distinction between the close [o:], shown as oo, and the more open [:], shown as oa since the 16th c. proved to be more useful, as these digraphs indicate different sounds (although the gap between the spelling and the pronunciation is greater than it was: oo stands for [u:l while oa stands for [ou], cf. NE room, roam.)

During the shift even the names of some English letters were changed for they contained long vowels. Cf. the names of some English letters before and after the shift: ME: A [a:], E [e:], O [o:], I [i:], B [be:], K [ka:]

NE: A [ei], E [i:], O [ou], I [ai], B [bi:], K [kei].

As a result of the shift no new sounds appeared in the system of long vowels, i.e. no new sounds that had not existed in ME. This will be made clear by the following table:

ME NE

Sound Example Sound Example

[ei] wey [ei] make

[i:] time [i:] see

[e:] seen [e:] sea

[ai] sayde [ai] time

[ou] bowe [ou] go

[u:] hous [u:] moon

[au] drawen [au] house

However, the vowel shift is an important event in the history of the English sound system, as the distribution of long vowels was completely changed. Thus, for instance, long [i:] appears in NE in the word see, which in ME had the vowel [e:], and it does not appear in the word time, which was pronounced with an [i:] in ME.