The Development of Vowel System in Middle English and New English.
| Almaty College of Communication
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Subject: English language history
Academic year: 2013-2014
Lecture 6
Theme: The Development of Vowel System in Middle English and New English.
Teacher: Zhakipbekova D.K
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The Development of Vowel System in Middle English and New English.
In ME and NE word stress acquired greater positions freedom and greater role in word derivation.
Recessive tendency – stress in loan-words moved closer to the beginning of the… E.g. ME vertu [ver’tju:] – NE virtue [‘vç:t∫ə]
Vowels
English vowels proved to be more changeable than consonants. Long vowels proved to be more changeable than short ones.
Quantitative:
Reduction – weakening and disappearance of unstressed vowels. As far as the… E.g. ME tale [‘ta:lə], body [‘bodi]
The Development of Consonant System in Middle English and New English
English consonants proved to be more stable than vowels. Nevertheless, new sets of consonants started to appear.
Sibilants and Affricates
Sibilants – a type of fricatives, narrower and sharper than all other fricatives ([f, v, q, ð, h]) – [s, z, ∫, ζ].
Affricates – sounds consisting of a plosive immediately followed by a fricative – [t∫, dζ].
In OE there were only 2 sibilants – [s, z]. [∫] appeared in ME and [ζ] – in NE.
Affricates [t∫, dζ] appeared both in ME and in NE.
There were some exceptions though, e.g. mature, duty, due, suit, statue, tune, etc.
when preceded by an unstressed and followed by a stressed vowel.
ME Sounds
NE Sounds
ME
NE
[s] à
…
[r]was vocalised at the end of the word in the 16th -17th c. ;
[j]disappeared as a result of palatalisation (see palatalisation in Lecture… [kn] à [n](e.g. ME know [knou] – NE know [nou]); [gn] à [n](e.g. ME gnat [gnat] – NE gnat…