UNIT 3. PHONETIC SYSTEM IN OLD ENGLISH
§ 1. Vowels
The system of OE vowels consisted of 7 short single phonemes and 4
diphthongs.
Short vowels:
i, e, æ
(sounded as MnE
a
in the word
cat
),
a,
o, u, y
(pronounced
[u]).
Long vowels:
ā, æ, ē, ī, ō, ū, ӯ
.
Short diphthongs:
ea, eo, ie, io.
Long diphthongs:
ēa, ēo, īe, īo
(that is in most cases a variant of
ēo
).
The Old English diphthongs were generally falling, that means that the stress
fell mostly on the first element of the diphthong and decreased to the end.
In the course of the language evolution in the OE period the vowel system
underwent numerous changes; as the result, there appeared new phonemes and their
variants.
The most important processes that influenced the vocalic system are given
below.
1)
OE Breaking
or Fracture
(преломление гласных)
Old English fracture is diphthongization of Early OE short vowels
a, æ
and
e
before certain consonant clusters.
Thus
a
before the cluster «
r
+ consonant», «
l
+ consonant», «
h
+ consonant»,
and before
h-final
turned into the diphthong
ea
: e.g. Gothic
kalds >
OE
ceald
(cold);
O.Icel
. armr >
OE
earm
(arm); OHG
nah >
OE
neah
(near); etc.
The short
e
turned into
eo
before the clusters «
r
+ consonant», «
lc
,
lh
,
h
+
consonant» and
h-final
: e.g. OHG
erda >
OE
eorþe
(earth);
selh .> seolh
(seal).
The phonetic essence of fracture is that the front vowel is partially assimilated to
the following hard consonant by forming a glide, which combines with the vowel to
form a diphthong.
Fracture was carried out most consistently in the West Saxon dialect. In other
dialects, for example, Mercian, fracture in many cases did not occur; then the vowel
æ
became
a
, and the resulting forms were
arm, kald,
etc.
Достарыңызбен бөлісу: |
