Lengthening of vowels

Diphtongs

Monophtongs

a>e framian > fremman ‘perform’

sandian > sendan ‘send’

namnian > nemnan ‘name’

æ > e tælian > tellan ‘tell’

sælian > sellan ‘give’

sætian > settan ‘set’

ā > ǣ lārian > lǣran ‘teach’

hālian > hǣlan ‘heal’

o > e ofstian > efstan ‘hurry’

ō > ē dōmian > dēman ‘judge’

wōpian > wēpan ‘weep’

u > y fullian > fyllan ‘fill’

ū > ȳ cūƥian > cȳƥan ‘announce’

ea > ie hleahian > hliehhan ‘laugh’. This ie often becomes i, y: hlihhan, hlyhhan;

ēā > īē hēārian > hīēran ‘hear’. This ie often becomes ī, ȳ: hīrran, hȳran;

eo > ie afeorrian > afierran ‘remove’. This ie also often becomes i, y: afirran, afyrran;

ēō > īē 3etrēōwi > 3etrīēwe ‘true’. This īē is also often becomes i, y, 3etrīwe, getrȳwe;

Sometimes eo > io, and this io develops back into eo: 3eƥēode > 3eƥīode, 3eƥēode ‘language’.

Back umlaut is very characteristic of OE. A different kind of mutation was caused by a back vowel (u, o, a) of the following syllable. The essence of back mutation is this. The articulation of the back vowel is anticipated in the preceding front vowel, which accordingly develops into a diphthong. Back mutation did not spread equally to all OE dialects. In the West-Saxon literary language it only occurs before liquids and labial consonants (r, l, p, b, f, m). Back mutation may be illustrated by the following examples:

i > io hira > hiora ‘their’, silufr > siolufr ‘silver’, lifast > liofast ‘livest’, sifon > siofon ‘seven’. This io often develops into eo: heora, seolufr, etc;

e > eo herot > heorot ‘hart’, hefon > heofon ‘heaven’, efor > eofor ‘boar’;

a > ea saru > searu ‘armour’.

Fracture is the process of diphtongizing of short vowels under the influence of some consonant clusters. It is the vowels a and e that undergo fracture;

a > ea before the clusters “r+consonant”, “1+consonant”, “h+consonant”, and before the final h: ærm > earm ‘arm’, æld > eald ‘old’, æhta > eahta ‘eight’;

e > eo before the clusters “r+consonant”, “1c, 1h, h+consonant” and h final: herte > heorte ‘heart’, melcan > meolcan ‘milk’, feh > feoh ‘cattle’.

The phonetic essence of fracture is that the front vowel is partially assimilated to the following hard consonant by forming a glide, which combines with the vowel to form a diphthong. Fracture is the most characteristic of the West Saxon dialect. In other dialects, such as Mercian, fracture in many cases does not occur; then the vowel æ becomes a, and the resulting forms are arm, ald, ahta, sah.

Vowels standing before some consonant groups showed the tendency of lengthening. The consonant groups which caused the lengthening of vowels are the following: nd bindan > bīndan ‘bind’, bunden > būnden ‘bound’, ld cild > cīld ‘a child’, mb climban > clīmban ‘climb’.

If the cluster was followed by another consonant, lengthening did not take place, as in cildru ‘children’.

Дата добавления: 2014-01-07