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| § 2. Vowels
In the ME period great changes affected the entire system of vowel phonemes. One of the most remarkable peculiarities in OE phonetics was the fact that both short and long vowel phonemes could occur in any phonetic environment. As a result of important changes coming into the vowel system in the 10 th – 12 th c, the ME vowel system was basically different. In Early ME the pronunciation of unstressed syllables became increasingly indistinct. As compared to OE, which distinguishes five short vowels in unstressed position ([e/i], [a] and [o/u]), Late ME had only two vowels in unaccented syllables: [ə] and [i], e.g. OE talu – ME tale [΄ta:lə] – NE tale , OE bodi ʒ – ME body [΄bodi] – NE body . The final [ə] disappeared in Late ME though it continued to be spelt as -e . When the ending –e survived only in spelling, it was understood as a means of showing the length of the vowel in the preceding syllable and was added to words which did not have this ending before, e.g. OE stān, rād – ME stone, rode [´stone], [´rode] – NE stone, rode. Quantitative vowel changes in Early ME In Late OE and in Early ME vowel length began to depend on phonetic conditions. The earliest of positional quantitative changes was the readjustment of quantity before some consonant clusters. Some of the changes are given below: 1) Short vowels were lengthened before two consonants – a sonorant and a plosive; consequently, all vowels occurring in this position remained or became long, e.g. OE wild [wild]– ME wild [wi:ld] – NE wild . 2) All other groups of two or more consonants produced the reverse effect: they made the preceding long vowels short, and henceforth all vowels in this position became or remained short, e.g. OE cēpte > ME kepte [΄keptə] – NE kept . 40 3) Short vowels became long in open syllables, e.g. OE nama > ME name [na:mə] – NE name . Qualitative vowel changes As compared with quantitative changes, qualitative vowel changes in ME were less important. They affected several monophthongs and displayed a considerable dialectal diversity. On the whole they were independent of phonetic environment. 1) The OE close labialized vowels [y] and [y:] (sounds close to German [ü]) disappeared in Early ME, merging with various sounds in different dialectal areas. In Early ME in some areas OE [y], [y:] developed into [e], [e:], in others they changed to [i], [i:]; in the South-West and in the West Midland the two vowels were for some time preserved as [y], [y:], but later were moved backward and merged with [u], [u:], e.g. OE fyllan – ME (Kentish) fellen, (West Midland and South Western) fullen , (East Midland and Northern) fillen – NE fill. 2) In Early ME the long OE [a:] was narrowed to [o:]. This was an early instance of the growing tendency of all long monophthongs to become closer, so [a:] became [o:] in all the dialects except the Northern group, e.g. OE stān – ME (Northern) stan(e), (other dialects) stoon, stone – NE stone . 3) The short OE [æ] was replaced in ME by the back vowel [a], e.g. OE þǣt > ME that [ðat] > NE that . Development of new diphthongs ME period is also remarkable for the appearance of new diphthongs which were five in number: [ai], [ei], [au], [ou], [eu ]. Monophthongization of OE diphthongs All OE diphthongs were monophthongized in ME. ea > a (e.g. OE eald > ME ald > MnE old) ēa > ē (e.g. OE ēast > ME est > MnE east) eo > e (e.g. OE heorte > ME herte > MnE heart) ēo > ē (e.g. OE cēosan > ME chesen > MnE choose) жүктеу/скачать 1,38 Mb. Достарыңызбен бөлісу:
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