All Old English vowel phonemes can be traced back to Common Germanic vowel phonemes. Old English monophthongs are, as rule, a further development of some Common Germanic monophthongs.
For example:
Old English from Common Germanic
[æ] [a]
dæз dags
[i] [i]
bindan bindan
[o] [u]
coren cusan, etc.
Some Old English monophthongs developed from Common Germanic diphthongs:
Old English from Common Germanic (Gothic)
[ā] [ai]
rās rais
Old English long diphthongs are a result of some further development of Common Germanic diphthongs, though in the course of history the quality of the diphthong may have undergone a change:
Old English from Common Germanic (Gothic)
cēosan (choose) kiusan
cēas (chose) kaus
Old English short diphthongs originated from monophthongs:
Old English from Common Germanic
eald (old) *ald
heorte (heart) *herte
Changes in Old English vowel phonemes
The changes that took place in the prehistoric period of the development of the English language and which explain the difference between Old English and Common Germanic vowels of two types: assimilative changes and independent (non-assimilative) changes.
Independent changes do not depend upon the environment in which the given sound was found. They cannot be explained but they are merely stated.
Common Germanic Old English
ai > ā
a > æ, etc.
Assimilative changes are explained by the phonetic position of the sound in the word and the change can and must be explained. Among the many phonetic assimilative changes which took place in the prehistoric period of the development of the English language and which account for the discrepancy between the Old English and the Common Germanic vowel system the most important are breaking and palatal mutation.
Breaking
The process of breaking took place in the 6th century. It affected two vowels – [æ] and [e] when they were followed by the consonants [r], [i], [h] generally followed by another consonant.
The resulting vowel was a diphthong (hence the name “breaking” – a monophthong “was broken” into a diphthong), consequently the process may be summed up as diphthongization of short vowels [æ] and [e] before certain consonant clusters.
For example:
æ > ea before r + consonant ærm > earm (arm)
l + consonant æld > eald (old)
h + consonant æhta > eahta (eight)
h final sæh > seah (saw)
e > ea before r + consonant herte > heorte (heart)
lc + consonant melcan > meolcan (milk)
lh + consonant selh > seolh (sael)
h final feh > feoh (cattle)
The development of vowels in Early OE consisted of the modification of separate vowels, and also of the modification of entire sets of vowels. The change begins with growing variation in pronunciation, which manifests itself in the appearance of numerous allophones: after the stage of increased variation, some allophones prevail over the others and a replacement takes place. It may result in the splitting of phonemes and their numerical growth, which fills in the “empty boxes” of the system or introduces new distinctive features. It may also lead to the merging of old phonemes, as their new prevailing allophones can fall together.
The vocalic system in OE included 2 subsystems: monophthongs, diphthongs. All vowels existed in the pairs: ææдолг, a ā, e ē, o ō, i ī , u ū, y y долг (У готтов не было ā, ææдолг, ō) В виде пар существовали и дифтонги: ea eaдолг, eo eoдолг, ie ieдолг. The major factor in OE was a category of quantity vowels. It means, that all OE vowels, including diphthongs, could be both long and short. It it the system of vowels on the beginning of OE. The new system came with Anglo-Saxon tribes (жоанная): In most cases these new processes represent result of influence of the next sounds and called the COMBINATORY CHANGES.
1.Influence of the next consonant–Breaking (diph thongization) Short vowel were diphthong-sed before consonant. The short vowels æ и е, a. Short vowels æ and е were diph-nized: æ turn into ea before combinations r + согл, l + согл, h + согл, and before h on the end of a word: wearþ,healp,eahta,seah e.g.: [e] > [eo] in OE deorc, NE dark.
e turn into eo before combinations r + согл, l + velar concordant c and h, before h on the end of a word: weorþan,meolcan,feoh
The essence of breaking consists that front vowel assimilates with the subsequent firm consonants by development of a sound of glide, which forms a diphthong. The glide, together with the original monophthong formed a diphthong.
Palatalization
After the palatal consonants [k’], [sk’] and [j] short and long [e] and [æ] turned into diphthongs with a more front close vowel as their first element, e.g. OE scæmu > sceamu (NE shame). In the resulting diphthong the initial [i] or [e] must have been unstressed but later the stress shifted to the first element, which turned into the nucleus of the diphthong, to conform with the structure of OE diphthongs. This process is known as “diphthongisation after palatal consonants”. It observes in Wessex dialect. æ - ea sceal , cearu. æдолг - ea долг scēāwian, зēāfon. a - ea scacan- sceacan. o - eo sceort, ceort. e - ie scield, з iefan
Contraction –(стяжение) The vowels contracted into 1 when they were separated by h and H disappeared. e+a=eo (sehan – seon. i+a=eo (tihan- teon). a+a=ea (slehan – slean). o+a=o долг (fohan – fon)
Mutation -перегласовка
Mutation is the change of one vowel to another through the influence of a vowel in the succeeding syllable. 2 types: i-Umlaut mutation (palatal mutation) and Back mutation (guttural)-гортанный.
1) i-Umlaut - under its influence vowel moves ahead or narrowed.
æ – e sætjan – settan, a-e talu – tellan, o-e ofost – efstan, ō –ē dōm – dēman, u - y fullian - fyllan , u - y cuþ- cŷþþan. Changes in diphthongs: ea – ie, ea долг – ie долг, eo – ie, eo долг – ie долг.
Back mutation – U-Umlaut it is caused by back vowels (a, o, u). In Wessex dialect take place only before consonants r, l, p, f, m. a-ea saru – searu, i- io hira – hioru, e-eo herot – heorot. The words which begin with wi – mutation occurred without dependence from the subsequent concordant: widu – wiodu
U-umlaut was optiona(facultative) and i-umlaut was the main (системообразующ).
Development of monophthongs
The PG short [a] and the long [a:], which had arisen in West and North Germanic, underwent similar alterations in Early OE: they were fronted, and in the process of fronting, they split into several sounds. The principal regular direction of the change – [a] > [æ] and [a:] > [æ:] – is often referred to as the fronting or palatalisation of [a, a:]. The other directions can be interpreted as positional deviations or restrictions to this trend: short [a] could change to [o] or [ā] and long [a:] became [o:] before a nasal; the preservation of the short [a] was caused by a back vowel in the next syllable.
Development of diphthongs
The PG diphthongs – [ei, ai, iu, eu, au] – underwent regular independent changes in Early OE; they took place in all phonetic conditions irrespective of environment. The diphthongs with the i-glide were monophthongised into [i:] and [a:], respectively; the diphthongs in –u were reflected as long diphthongs [io:], [eo:] and [ea:].
Phonetic processes in Old English (the system of vowels)
Changes of stressed vowels in Early Old English
The development of vowels in Early OE consisted of the modification of separate vowels, and also of the modification of entire sets of vowels. The change begins with growing variation in pronunciation, which manifests itself in the appearance of numerous allophones: after the stage of increased variation, some allophones prevail over the others and a replacement takes place. It may result in the splitting of phonemes and their numerical growth, which fills in the “empty boxes” of the system or introduces new distinctive features. It may also lead to the merging of old phonemes, as their new prevailing allophones can fall together.
Independent changes.Development of monophthongs
The PG short [a] and the long [a:], which had arisen in West and North Germanic, underwent similar alterations in Early OE: they were fronted, and in the process of fronting, they split into several sounds. The principal regular direction of the change – [a] > [æ] and [a:] > [æ:] – is often referred to as the fronting or palatalisation of [a, a:]. The other directions can be interpreted as positional deviations or restrictions to this trend: short [a] could change to [o] or [ā] and long [a:] became [o:] before a nasal; the preservation of the short [a] was caused by a back vowel in the next syllable.
Development of diphthongs
The PG diphthongs – [ei, ai, iu, eu, au] – underwent regular independent changes in Early OE; they took place in all phonetic conditions irrespective of environment. The diphthongs with the i-glide were monophthongised into [i:] and [a:], respectively; the diphthongs in –u were reflected as long diphthongs [io:], [eo:] and [ea:].
Assimilative vowel changes: Breaking and Diphthongization
The tendency to assimilative vowel change, characteristic of later PG and of the OG languages, accounts for many modifications of vowels in Early OE. Under the influence of succeeding and preceding consonants some Early OE monophthongs developed into diphthongs. If a front vowel stood before a velar consonant there developed a short glide between them, as the organs of speech prepared themselves for the transition from one sound to the other. The glide, together with the original monophthong formed a diphthong. The front vowels [i], [e] and the newly developed [æ], changed into diphthongs with a back glide when they stood before [h], before long (doubled) [ll] or [l] plus another consonant, and before [r] plus other consonants, e.g.: [e] > [eo] in OE deorc, NE dark. The change is known as breaking or fracture. Breaking produced a new set of vowels in OE – the short diphthongs [ea] and [eo]; they could enter the system as counterparts of the long [ea:], [eo:], which had developed from PG prototypes. Breaking was unevenly spread among the OE dialects: it was more characteristic of West Saxon than of the Anglian dialects. Diphthongisation of vowels could also be caused by preceding consonants: a glide arose after palatal consonants as a sort of transition to the succeeding vowel. After the palatal consonants [k’], [sk’] and [j] short and long [e] and [æ] turned into diphthongs with a more front close vowel as their first element, e.g. OE scæmu > sceamu (NE shame). In the resulting diphthong the initial [i] or [e] must have been unstressed but later the stress shifted to the first element, which turned into the nucleus of the diphthong, to conform with the structure of OE diphthongs. This process is known as “diphthongisation after palatal consonants”.
Palatal mutation
Mutation is the change of one vowel to another through the influence of a vowel in the succeeding syllable. The most important series of vowel mutations, shared in varying degrees by all OE languages (except Gothic), is known as “i-Umlaut” or “palatal mutation”. Palatal mutation is the fronting and raising of vowels through the influence of [i] or [j] in the immediately following syllable. The vowel was fronted and made narrower so as to approach the articulation of [i]. Due to the reduction of final syllables the conditions which caused palatal mutation, that is [i] or [j], had disappeared in most words by the age of writing; these sounds were weakened to [e] or were altogether lost. The labialized front vowels [y] and [y:] arose through palatal mutation from [u] and [u:], respectively, and turned into new phonemes, when the conditions that caused them had disappeared (cf. mūs and mўs). The diphthongs [ie, ie:] were largely due to palatal mutation and became phonemic in the same way, though soon they were confused with [y, y:]. Palatal mutation led to the growth of new vowel interchanges and to the increased variability of the root-morphemes: owing to palatal mutation many related words and grammatical forms acquired new root-vowel interchanges. We find variants of morphemes with an interchange of root-vowels in the grammatical forms mūs, mўs (NE mouse, mice), bōc, bēc (NE book, books), since the plural was originally built by adding –iz. (Traces of palatal mutation are preserved in many modern words and forms, e.g. mouse – mice, foot – feet, blood – bleed; despite later phonetic changes, the original cause of the inner change is i-umlaut).
