Rise of Diphthongs

OE Vowels

Phonetic Features of Old English

Lecture 10

OE sound system developed from PG sound system.

OE Word Stress/Accent:

1. fixed (can’t move either in form- or word-building and is usually placed on root or prefix);

2. dynamic (force, breath stress);

3. in Noun and Adjective stress was mainly on the prefix if there was one:

E.g. ‘misd æ d (misdeed), ‘uðζenζ (escape), ‘oreald (very old)

in Verb stress was mainly on the root even if there was a prefix:

E.g. a’risan (arise), mis’faran (go astray)

4. stress served to distinguish Noun from Verb (and still does):

E.g. ‘andswaru (N answer) – and’swarian (V answer)

‘ onζin (N beginning) – on’ζinnan (V begin)

E.g. (modern English) – ‘present – pre’sent; ‘ally – al’ly.

Unstressed vowels were weakened and dropped.

Stressed vowels underwent some changes:

· splitting – 1 phoneme split into several allophones which later become separate phonemes

e.g. à a

a à ã

à æ

· merging – separate phonemes become allophones of one phoneme and then disappear and are not distinguished any more as separate phonemes

e.g. a à

ã à a

æ à

In PG there were no diphthongs. There was just a sequence of two separate vowels. Diphthongs appeared in OE: some (usually long diphthongs) – as a result of merging of two vowels:

Sounds	Diphth.	Gothic	OE
a + u à	ea:	au so	ea re (ear)
e + u à	eo:	þ eu dans	þ ēo den (king)
(i + u)à	(io:) (dialectal variant)	d iu ps	d īo p (deep)

others (usually short diphthongs) – as a result of the influence of the succeeding and preceding consonants (breaking of [æ, e]):

Monoph.	Diphth.	Influence	Gothic	OE
æ à	ea	before l	a lls	ea ll (all)
æ à	ea	before h	a htau	ea hta (eight)
e à	eo	before r	h e rza	h eo rte (heart)
æ à	ea	after sk’/k’	sk a dus	sc ea du (shade)
æ: à	ea:	after j	j â r	ζ ēa r (year)

Palatal Mutation/i-Umlaut

Mutation – a change of one vowel to another one under the influence of a vowel in the following syllable.

Palatal mutation(or i-Umlaut) happened in the 6^th -7^th c. and was shared by all Old Germanic Languages, except Gothic (that’s why later it will be used for comparison).

Palatal mutation – fronting and raising of vowels under the influence of [i] and [j] in the following syllable (to approach the articulation of these two sounds). As a result of palatal mutation:

· [i] and [j] disappeared in the following syllable sometimes leading to the doubling of a consonant in this syllable;

· new vowels appeared in OE ([ie, y]) as a result of merging and splitting:

before palatal mutation	after palatal mutation	Gothic	OE
a à o à æ à	e	b a di	b e dd (bed)
a: à	æ:	d a ils	d æ lan (deal)
ŏ/ō à	ĕ/ē	m ō tjan	m ē tan (meet)
ŭ/ū à	ŷ/ỹ(labialised) (new!)	f u lljan	f y llan (fill)
ĕă/ēā à ĕŏ/ēō à	ĭě/īē (new!)	ea ld (early OE)	ie ldra (late OE)

Traces of i-Umlaut in Modern English:

1. irregular Plural of nouns (man – men; tooth – teeth);

2. irregular verbs and adjectives (told ←tell; sold ←sell; old – elder);

3. word-formation with sound interchange (long – length; blood – bleed).

OE Vowel System (symmetrical, i.e each short vowel had its long variant)

	Monophthongs	+	Diphthongs
Short	ĭ	ĕ	ă	ǽ	ŏ	ŭ	ŷ	ĕŏ	ĕă	ĭě
Long	ī	ē	ā	æ	ō	ū	ỹ	ēō	ēā	īē

The length of vowels was phonologically relevant (i.e. served to distinguish words):

e.g. (OE) is (is) – īs (ice); col (coal) –cōl (cool); god (god) – gōd (good), etc.

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