Consonants

Levelling of Unstressed Vowels.

Middle English Diphthongs.

Monophthongization of OE diphthongs.

All OE diphthongs were monophthongized in Middle English: OE ea > ME e/a - eald - ald (old), healf - half, eahta -eghte (eight), ēa > ę: strēam stręm, hlēapan-lępen (leap), eo > e: heorte -herte (heart), streorra-sterre (star), ēo > ē: dēop dēp (deep), deep - dēor dēr, deer, cēosan chēsen (choose), io > eo; siolfor-seolfor > selver (silver).

New diphthongs arise in ME. They were basically different from the OE diphthongs originating from groups consisting of a vowel and either a palatal ჳ [j] or a velar ჳ [γ] fricative. They were vocalized and together with the preceding vowels yielded diphthongs of a new type. The palatal consonant yielded diphthongs in -i, and the velar one yielded diphthongs in -w. All these diphthongs were short. The diphthongs in –i were ai, ay, ei: dæჳ - dai:day”, wæჳ - wei “way”; diphthongs in –w were aw, ow: dragan – drawen “to draw”, āgen – ōwen “own”.

Very close to the rise of ME diphthongs can be placed the rise of long front vowels and long back vowels as a result of vocalizing OE palatal and velar consonants: tīgele – tīle “brick”, fūgol – foul “bird”.

An important change characteristic of the Middle English period affected the unstressed vowels. All unstressed vowels were as a rule weakened and reduced to a neutral vowel [ə], which was denoted by the level e. Thus, for example, the infinitive suffix -an was reduced to -en: findan > fīnden, tellan > tellen, In a small way, sunu > sune, sone (son), stānas > stōnes

This weakening of unstressed vowels is closely connected with developments in declension and conjunction.

From the phonetic point of view this change indicates a decided separation of unstressed vowel phoneme system from that of the stressed vowels. Thus, while in OE there was no difference between the number of vowel phonemes in stressed and unstressed syllables, in the Middle English there arises a very significant difference in this respect.

OE palatal c, which occurred initially before front vowels, for example, before i, and after i, developed into the affricate [tʃ]: child > chīld, hwilc > which, tæcan > tęchen

The OE cluster sc changed into [ʃ]: scip > ship, fisc > fish.

The OE long consonant denoted by the spelling cʒ developed into the voiced affricate [ʤ]: brycʒ > bridge.

Other ME consonants did not differ from OE corresponding consonants. The number of consonant phonemes increased in ME. The sounds [f] and [v], which in OE had been allophones of one phoneme, dependent on the environment, became separate phonemes, no longer dependent on the environment. The same must be said about the sounds [s] and [z].

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