Other Phonological Changes in Late ME (Vowel and Consonant) (vocalization of 'r', 'x', etc).

 major vowel changes in NE. great vowel shift. Vocalization of [r].

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.

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

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]).

Consonants

• consonants of Middle English very similar to those of Present Day English but lacking [ŋ] as in hung, and [ž] as in measure, as well as sounds like the flap [ɾ] and the glottal stop [ʔ]
   
• addition of phonemic voiced fricatives: [v], [ð], [z]; effect of French loanwords: vetch/fetch, view/few, vile/file (new sounds are circled in the chart below) :

• many simplifications of consonant sounds, e.g. loss of long consonants, consonants in clusters, final consonants: 
   
  • OE mann > ME man
  • OE hlæfdige > ME ladi ("lady")
  • OE hnecca > ME necke ("neck")
  • OE hræfn > ME raven
  • OE ic > ME i ("I")
  • OE -lic > ME -ly (e.g. OE rihtlice > ME rihtly ("rightly")
  • OE cuman > Modern English come (the n remains in some past participles of strong verbs: seen, gone, taken);
  • OE min > ME mi ("my")
  • OE sweostor > sister, (sometimes the [w] is retained in spelling: sword, two; sometimes still pronounced: swallow, twin, swim)
  • OE ælc, swilc, hwilc, micel > each, such, which, much (sometimes the [l] remained: filch)
  • OE hit > ME it
     

    Vowels

    vowels in Middle English were, overall, similar to those of Old English, except for the loss of OE y and æ so that y was unrounded to [I] and [æ] raised toward [ɛ] or lowered toward [ɑ].

    addition of new phonemic sound (mid central vowel), represented in linguistics by the symbol called schwa: [ə], the schwa sound occurs in unstressed syllables and its appearance is related to the ultimate loss of most inflections

    the Middle English vowels existed, as in Old English, in long and short varieties:

    

    Some examples:

    day [dɑi]

    cause [kɑusə]

    soule [sɔulə]

    hous [hus]

    fruit [fruit]

    French loanwords added new diphthongs, e.g. Old French point, noyse, boillir, embuié > ME point, noise, boillen, boi ("point," "noise," "boil," "boy")

    vowel length:

  • vowels lengthenings: 
     
    • short vowels lengthened when they occurred in open syllables, i.e. when the syllable ended in a vowel: OE gatu, hopa, nama > ME gāte, hōpe, nāme ("gate," "hope," "name"). 
       
    • in general, a vowel in a closed syllable (i.e. a syllable ending in consonant and followed by another consonant) shortened or stayed short: OE sōfte, scēaphirde > ME softe, scepherde ("soft,""shepherd"); but there were exceptions: OE gast, crist > ME gōst, Chrīst ("ghost," "Christ"); OE climban, feld > ME clīmbe, fēld ("climb," "field").
       
  • in a long word (if two or more unstressed syllables followed the stressed one), the vowel of the stressed syllable was shortened: Christ (long vowel)/Christmas (short vowel)[ME Christesmesse], break (long vowel)/breakfast (short vowel)[ME brekefast]
     
  • some remnants of distinctions caused by lengthening or shortening of vowels in open and closed syllables: five/fifteen, wise/wisdom; in weak verbs, the dental ending closed syllables: hide/hid, keep/kept, sleep/slept, hear/heard