The changes that occurred to vowels in ME were as follows:
1. Quantitative:
Reduction weakening and disappearance of unstressed vowels. As far as the stress was mainly on the root the vowels in prefixes and suffixes got weak and underwent reduction. In unstressed position only two vowels were left [ə] and [i]. They had never been contrasted.
E.g. ME tale [ta:lə], body [bodi]
In NE sound [ə] (schwa) was dropped at the end of the words but the letter e was left in spelling to show the length of the preceding vowel.
Shortening all long vowels became short before consonant clusters (NB!! except [ld, nd, mb] before these clusters vowels remained long or if a vowel was short it became long)
E.g.
| Other Consonant Clusters | |
| OE | ME |
| fīftiζ | fifty (fifty) |
| fēdde | fedde (fed) |
| wīsdom | wisdom (wisdom) |
Lengthening (12th 13th c.) short vowels became long:
· before clusters [ld, nd, mb];
· in 2-syllable words, only to [e, o, a]in open stressed syllable
E.g.
| Clusters [ld, nd, mb] | 2-syllable words | ||
| OE | ME | OE | ME |
| cild | chīld (child) | mete | mēte (meat) |
| findan | fīnden (find) | open | ōpen (open) |
| climban | clīmben (climb) | talu | tāle (tale) |
2. Qualitative:
The system of vowels in ME were no longer symmetrical as it was in OE