Growth of Sibilants and Affricates. In OE there were no affricates and no sibilants, except [s, z]

In OE there were no affricates and no sibilants, except [s, z]. The earliest distinct sets of these sounds appeared towards the end of OE or during the Early MdE period. The new type of consonants developed from OE palatal plosives [k’, g’] (which had split from the corresponding velar plosives [k] and [g] in Early OE, and also from the consonant cluster [sk’]. The three new phonemes which arose from these sources were [tS], [dZ] and [S]. In Early MdE they began to be indicated by special letters and digraphs, which came into use mainly under the influence of the French scribal tradition – ch, tch, g, dg, sh, ssh, sch. See the table below.

Change illustrated	Examples
OE MdE	OE	MDE	MNE
[k’] [tS]   [g’] [d ʒ]     [sk’] [S]	cild tæ:can ecge brycge   fisc scēap	child techen edge bridge   fish sheep	child teach edge bridge   fish sheep

It must be added that the affricates [tS] and [d ʒ] could also come from a different source: they entered the English language in loan-words from French, eg. MdE charme, gentil. As a result of these changes and as a result of the vocalization of [γ] the consonant system in Late MdE was in some respects different from the OE system. The opposition of velar consonants to palatal [k k’, γ j] – had disappeared; instead, plosive consonants were contrasted to the new affricates and in the set of affricates [tS] was opposed to [dZ] through sonority.

Another development accounting for the appearance of sibilants and affricates in the English language is dated by Early MnE and is connected with the phonetic assimilation of lexical borrowings.

In the numerous loan-words of Roman origin adopted in MdE and Early MnE the stress fell on the ultimate or penultimate syllable: na’cion, plea’saunce. In accordance with the phonetic tendencies the stress was moved closer to the beginning of the word. The final syllables which thus became unstressed, or weakly stressed, underwent phonetic alterations: the vowels were reduced and sometimes dropped; the sounds making up the syllable became less distinct. As a result, some sequences of consonants fused into single consonants. In Early MnE the clusters [sj, zj, tj, dj] – through reciprocal assimilation in unstressed position – regularly changed into [S], [ʒ] [tS] and [dʒ]. Three of these sounds merged with the phonemes already existing in the language, while the fourth [ʒ] made a new phoneme. Now the four sounds formed a wells-balanced system of two correlated pairs. Examples are given in the table below.

Change illustrated	Examples
Late MdE	MnE	Late MdE	MNE
sj   zj   tj   dj	[S]   [ʒ]   [tS]   [dʒ]	condicioun commissioun pleasure visioun nature culture souldier procedure	condition commission pleasure vision nature culture soldier procedure

Compare these words to MnE suit, mature, duty, where the same consonant clusters were preserved in stressed syllables. In some modern English words we still find variants of pronunciation: issue [iSju:] where [j] is preserved and US variant [`issju:]; schedule (2 variants), etc. These variants may be due to Early MnE dialectal differences or else to the fact that the assimilation has not been completed and is still going on in MnE.

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