Lecture 11

OE Consonant System

OE Consonants

OE consonants underwent the following changes:

1. Hardening (the process when a soft consonant becomes harder)– usually initially and after nasals ([m, n])

[ð] à	[d]	rau ð r (Icelandic)	rēa d (OE) (red)
[v] à	[b]	-	-
[γ] à	[g]	g uma (Gothic)	ζ uma (OE) (man)

2. Voicing (the process when a voiceless consonant becomes voiced in certain positions) – intervocally and between a vowel and a voiced consonant or sonorant

[f, q, h, s] à [v, ð, g, z] e.g. wul f os (Gothic) – wul f [v] as (OE) (wolves)

3. Rhotacism (a process when [z] turns into [r])

e.g. mai z a (Gothic) – mā r a (OE) (more)

4. Gemination (a process of doubling a consonant) – after a short vowel, usually happened as a result of palatal mutation (e.g. fu ll an (OE) (fill), se tt an (OE) (set), etc.).

5. Palatalisation of Consonants (a process when hard vowels become soft) – before a front vowel and sometimes also after a front vowel

[g, γ, k, h] à [g’, γ’, k’, h’] e.g. c [k’] ild (OE) (child); ecζ [gg’] (OE) (edge), etc.

6. Loss of Consonants:

· sonorants before fricatives (e.g. fi m f (Gothic) – fīf (OE) (five));

· fricatives between vowels and some plosives (e.g. s æ ζ de (early OE) – s æ de (late OE) (said));

· loss of [j] – as a result of palatal mutation (see examples above);

· loss of [w] (e.g. case-forms of nouns: s æ (Nominative) – s æ w e (Dative) (OE) (sea).

See table 9 on p. 90 in “История английского языка” by Т.А. Расторгуева (copies).

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