OE vowels

Word Stress

The system of word accentuation inherited from PG under­went no changes in Early OE. In OE a syllable was made prominent by an increase in the force of articulation; in other words, a dynamic or a force stress was employed. In disyllabic and polysyllabic words the accent fell on the root-morpheme or on the first syllable. Word stress was fixed; it remained on the same syllable in different grammatical forms of the word and, as a rule, did not shift in word-building either. E.g.: the forms of the Dat. case of the nouns hlaforde ['xla:vorde], cyninõe ['kyninge] used in the text and the Nom. case of the same nouns: hlaford ['xla:vord], cyning ['kyning].

If the words were derived from the same root, word stress, together with other means, served to distinguish the noun from the verb, cf.:

'and-swaru, n — and-' swarian, v (NE answer, answer)

'on- õin, n — on-' õinnan v (NE beginning, begin)

' forwyrd n — for-'weorþan v ('destruction,' 'perish')

Origin of Old English Vowels ( Changes of Stressed Vowels in Early Old English)

Sound changes, particularly vowel changes, took place in Eng­lish at every period of history. The development of vowels in Early OE consisted of the modifica­tion of separate vowels, and also of the modification of entire sets of vowels.

It should be borne in mind that the mechanism of all phonetic changes strictly conforms with the general pattern. 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.

OE vowels made a symmetrical system where short monophthongs were opposed to long ones, and short diphthong were opposed to long diphthongs

monophthongs	diphthongs
a æ e I o u y	ea eo ia io
a: æ: e: I: o: u: y:	ea: eo: ia: io:

OE vowels had regular correspondence in other GLs which can be reflected in the following table

	Gothic	OE	OHG
short monophtongs	/i/ fisks	/i/ fisk	/i/ fisc
/i/ stilan красти	/e/ stelan	/e/ stelan
/a/ dags	/æ/, /a/ dæʒ, daʒas	/a/ tac
/u/ fulls	/u/ full	/u/ ful
long monophthongs	/i:/ leiþan подорожувати	/i:/ līþan	/i:/ lēda
/e:/ slēpan	/a:/, /æ:/ Merc slēpan, WS slǣpan	/a:/ slāfan
/ai/ stains камінь	/a:/, /æ2/ (I-mut) stān, stǣ	/ei/ stein
/o:/ brōþan	/o:/ brōþor	/uo/ bruodar
/u:/ tūn селище	/u:/ tun	/u:/ zun
diphthongs	/au:/ auk	/ea:/ ēāc	/ou:/ ōūch
/iu:/ diups	/eo:/ dēōp	/io:/ tīōf

As it is seen from the table, OE shows certain phonological development of its own compared with other GLs. Thus, OE has stān and hām where Gothic has stains (stone) and haims (home).

In prehistoric OE a number of combinative sound changes had taken place after which phonemic and phonetic peculiarity of ENG increased considerably.

In general the length of OE vowels was their phonemic feature, but in few cases it could develop as a result of positional change of sounds.

1. the dropping of nasals: m, n were dropped before h, f, s, θ which caused lengthening of the preceeding vowel by compensation

// Goth uns – OE ūs; fimf – fīf

2. contraction: dropping of /h/ in the intervocal position

// *fohan ® fōn; *hohan ® hōn

Quite often contraction might produce a long diphthong

// *slahan ® *sleahan ® sēān; *sehan ® *seohan ® sēān; *tihan ® *teohan ®tēōn

3. nasalisation: narrowing of a vowel before the following nasal, which characteristic of Wers Saxon dialect

// land ® lond; mann ® monn (also lånd, månn as graphical variants)

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