The Lengthening and Shortening of vowels

Vowels.

New Spelling Conventions.

Middle English. Phonetic changes.

LECTURE XII.

The Norman Conquest (1066-1200) made the change from OE to ME, introduced new spelling conventions, which gave English quite a new look. A number of consonant symbols were introduced, new vowels were indicated by combinations of symbols.

cw	qw [kw]	queen, quick
sc	ss, sch, sh [∫]	fiss, fisch, fish
cg	i, j, g, [ჳ]	iuge, juge, (judge)
c (velar)	k, c [k]	kinn (kin), col (cool)
c (palatal)	ch [t∫]	chinn (chin), child
ð (voiced)	th [ð]	that, thus
þ (voiceless)	th [þ]	thridde (third)
f (voiced)	v [v]	harvest (harvest)
y	u [i]	busi (busy)
ē, ēō	ee, ie [ē]	seen, field
ā	oa [ō]	goat, road, bone
ō	oo, o [ō]	food, moon
ū	ow, ou [ū]	hous (house), how, now
æ, ēā	ea [e]	east, sea, meat

The spelling of ME was neither phonetic nor fixed. The certain spellings gradually became conventional, but the pronunciation slowly changed. Changes in the consonants were rather insignificant: some voiced consonants became voiceless, and vice versa, and consonants were occasionally lost.

Most of the short vowels, unless lengthened, passed over into ME unaltered. The OE diphthongs were all simplified, and all diphthongs in ME are new formations. The quality of OE vowels did not change much in passing into ME, but their quantity or length altered considerably.

In the Middle English period a great change affected the entire system of vowel phonemes. But before speaking about these changes, we shall summarize the essential characteristics of the OE vowel system.

OE had both short and long vowel phonemes and each of them could occur in any phonetic environment. That means they were absolutely independent phonetic units (or phonemes).

As a result of important changes coming into the vowel system in the 10^th -12^th centuries, the Middle English system of vowel s was basically different. While in OE quantity (that is length/shortness) was a distinctive phonetic feature, in Middle English (by the 13^th century) this is no longer so. Quantity of vowels becomes dependent on their environment (on what sound follows).

The situation in Middle English is this: in some phonetic environments only short vowels can appear, while in other phonetic environments only long vowels can appear. The quantity (length/shortness) of a vowel is predetermined by the environment.

The change from OE to ME saw a number of important dependent, or combinative, changes, i.e. changes in pronunciation that took place only in certain phonetic contexts (the 13^th century). One of the most important of these, was the lengthening of short vowels in open syllables in two-syllabled words. An open syllable is one that ends with a vowel. When a single consonant occurs between vowels in English (e.g. kepen “keep” => ke-pen), the consonant normally belongs to the second syllable, and the first syllable is therefore an open one. When, however, there are two consonants between the vowels (e.g. kepte “kept” => kep-te), the first consonant normally belongs to the first syllable, which therefore is a closed one preventing the lengthening from taking place.

Lengthening affected the vowels a, e and o: OE talu > ME tāle (tale), OE macian > ME māken (make), OE specan > ME spēken (speak), OE hopian > ME hōpen (hope).

The narrow vowels i and u were not only lengthened in open syllables, but widened: i > ē; u > ō: OE wikes > ME wēkes (weeks), OE dures > ME dōres (door).

The shortening of OE long vowels in closed syllables can be seen in such forms as ME fēdan (feed) – fedde (fed) (OE fēden – fēdde). wīsdōm (wisdom) – wisdom.

The vowels are shortened before two consonants, but remain long in other environments. However, long vowels remain long before the “lengthening” consonant groups ld, nd, mb: OE ME

1) wēnan (to think) wēnen

wēnde (thougth) wēnde

2) hēran (to hear) hēren

hērde (heard) hērde

Long vowels also remained long before such a consonant cluster as -st:

OE ME

læsta (least) lēst

ēasran (“from the East”) ēsten

On the other hand, in some words the vowel was shortened. They were the forms without ending, st -was final: OE brēost – ME brest “breast”, fўst – fist, dūst – dust.

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