IN ME the following changes occurred (14th c)
The number of short vowels decreased, instead of 7 we find 5 (y-i, æ – a) these vowels merged.
The main process that took place in long vowels was narrowing (ē → e: æ (long)→e: ŏ→o: ā→o:) . The origin of a: it developed from short a in pen stressed syllables.
UNSTRESSED VOWELS IN MIDDLE ENGLISH AND EARLY NEW ENGLISH
In ME and NE the main direction of the evolution of unstressed vowels was the same as before; even in the pre-written period unstressed vowels had lost many of their former distinctions, namely their differences in quantity as well as some of their differences in quality The tendency towards phonetic reduction operated in all the subsequent periods of history and was particularly strong in unstressed final syllables in ME.
In Early ME the pronunciation of unstressed syllables became increasingly indistinct. As compared to OE, which distinguished five short vowels in unstressed position Late ME had only two vowels in unaccented syllables: [Ə] and [i ], which are never directly contrasted; this means that phonemic contrasts in unstressed vowels had beer, practically lost.
The occurrence of only two vowels, neutral vowel and [i] in unstressed final syllables is regarded as an important mark of ME, distinguishing it on the one hand from OE with its greater variety of unstressed vowels, and on the other hand from NE.
It should be remembered though that while the OE unstressed vowels were thus reduced and lost, new unstressed vowels appeared in borrowed words or developed from stressed ones, as a result of various changes, e.g. the shifting of word stress in ME and NE, vocalisation of [r]. These developments show that the gap between the stressed and unstressed vowels has narrowed, so that in ME and NE we can no longer subdivide the vowels into two distinct sub-systems— that of stressed and unstressed vowels).
QUANTITATIVE VOWEL CHANGES IN EARLY MIDDLE ENGLISH
At the end of OE and in the immediately succeeding centuries accented vowels underwent a number of quantitative changes which affected the employment and the phonological status of short and long vowels in the language. At that time vowel length was for the most part an inherited feature: ОE short vowels had developed from PG short vowels, while long ones went back to long vowels or bi-phonemic vowel sequences.
SHORTENING: (In early ME 12-13c) all long vowels became short if followed by 2 or more consonants: fīfti- fifty
LENGTHENING: In the 12th or 13th c. Short vowels became long in open syllables. This lengthening mainly affected the more open of the short vowels e,o,a before clusters [ld, nd, mb]; in 2-syllable words, only to [e, o, a] in open stressed syllable (open- ōpen)
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. Full vowels began to change to neutral and then it was weakened to zero. In unstressed position only two vowels were left – [Ə] and [i]. They had never been contrasted. E.g. ME tale [‘ta:l Ə], body [‘bodi]
In NE sound (Ə) was dropped at the end of the words but the letter e was left in spelling to show the length of the preceding vowel. This change brought our many monosyllabic words and caused great changes in grammar (loss of inflections-English became an analytical lang)
QUALITATIVE VOWEL CHANGES IN EARLY MIDDLE ENGLISH
As compared with quantitative changes, qualitative vowel changes in Early ME were less important. They affected several monophthongs and displayed considerable dialectal diversity. On the whole they were independent of phonetic environment.
The OE close labialised vowels [y] and [y:] disappeared in Early ME, merging with various sounds in different dialectal areas. The vowels lyl and ly:l existed in OE dialects up to the 10th c, when they were replaced by [i] and[i:]
The main process that took place in long vowels was NARROWING (ē → e: æ (long)→e: ŏ→o: ā→o:) . The origin of a: it developed from short a in open stressed syllables.
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; the tendency was intensified in Late ME when all long vowels changed in that direction, [a:] became (э:1
The short OE [æ] was replaced in ME by the back vowel [a] In OE [æ] was either a separate phoneme or one of a group of allophones distinguished in writing [е, a, a, ea 1 All these sounds were reflected in ME as [a] except the nasalised [a] which became [o]
LENGTHENING IN NE DUE TO THE VOCALIZATION OF R.
After short vowels:
ME: o+r=o: (NE): for-fo:
ME: a+r=a: (NE): bar-ba:
ME: I,e,u+r=e: (NE): fur-fe:
ME: Ə +r= Ə (NE): brother-brathe
After long vowels:
i:+r=aie: fire-faie
e:+r= ie: beer-bie
a+r=ee: bear-bee
o:+r=o: floor -floor
