The changes that occurred to vowels in ME were as follows:
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)
| 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
| 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) |
Qualitative: The system of vowels in ME were no longer symmetrical as it was in OE
Short Vowels
[y] changed to [i] e.g. OE hyll – ME hill (hill);
[æ] changed to [a] e.g. OE wæs – ME was (was).
As a result:
| i | e | a | o | u |
Long Vowels
[ỹ] changed to [ī];
[ǽ] fell together with [έ];
[ā] changed to [ō] e.g. OE stān – ME sto[o:]ne (stone).
As a result:
| close | open | ||||
| ī | ū | ē | ō | έ | ǿ |
New Diphthongs
OE diphthongs turned into monophthongs:
| OE Diphth. | ME Sounds | OE | ME |
| ĭě/īē à | i | līehtan | lighten (lighten) |
| ĕŏ/ēō à | e | heorte | herte (heart) |
| ĕă/ēā à | æ | ēast | eest (east) |
New English
Great Vowel Shift – the change that happened in the 14th – 16th c. and affected all long monophthongs + diphthong [au]. As a result these vowels were:
diphthongized;
narrowed (became more closed);
both diphthongized and narrowed.
| ME Sounds | NE Sounds | ME | NE |
| [i:] à | [ai] | time [‘ti:mə] | time [teim] |
| [e:] à | [i:] | kepen [‘ke:pən] | keep [ki:p] |
| [a:] à | [ei] | maken [‘ma:kən] | make [meik] |
| [o:] à à | [ou] [u:] | stone [‘sto:nə] moon [mo:n] | stone [stoun] moon [mu:n] |
| [u:] à | [au] | mous [mu:s] | mouse [maus] |
| [au] à | [o:] | cause [‘kauzə] | cause [ko:z] |
This shift was not followed by spelling changes, i.e. it was not reflected in written form. Thus the Great Vowel Shift explains many modern rules of reading.
Short Vowels
| ME Sounds | NE Sounds | ME | NE |
| [a] à à | [æ] [o] after [w]!! | that [qat] man [man] was [was] water [‘watə] | that [ðæt] man [mæn] was [woz] water [‘wotə] |
| [u] à | [Λ] | hut [hut] comen [cumen] | hut [hΛt] come [cΛm] |
There were exceptions though, e.g. put, pull, etc.
Vocalisation of [r]
It occurred in the 16th – 17th c. Sound [r] became vocalised (changed to [ə] (schwa)) when stood after vowels at the end of the word.
Consequences:
new diphthongs appeared: [εə], [iə], [uə];
the vowels before [r] were lengthened (e.g. arm [a:m], for [fo:], etc.);
triphthongs appeared: [aiə], [auə] (e.g. shower [‘∫auə], shire [‘∫aiə]).