The OE consonant system. Major consonant changes in the history of English

1. The back plosive consonants:

[k’] → [t∫] (11^th cent); [gg’] → [dg]. Eg: [k’ild] > [t∫i:ld].

2. Back fricatives:

a. voiced: [x] – velar;

b. voiceless: [x’] – palatalized. Eg: [nix’t] → niht → night.

3. In ME [gg’] was vocalized → appearance of early ME diphthongs (xx’ disappeared in the 15^th cent.).

4. Allophones – if 2 sounds don’t occur in the same position:

initial mid final

s z s

f v F

Ө Ә Ө

Eg: second – risan – læs

furst – ofor - wif

Өeof - oӘres - pæӨ

But later they developed into separate phonemes.

5. Sibilized – свистящие [∫, sk’]:

Eg: fisk – fish.

6. The loss of nasals before fricatives:

Eg: fimf (OE)> fif (five);

The most important changes: simplification of initial, mid and final clusters (early NE):

1. initial: Eg: k – know; wr – write; g – gnat;

2. mid: sth – listen; stl – whistle;

3. final: mb – climb; mn – autumn;

[r] was vocalized in the 17^th cent. Eg: far, bird.

Intrusive [r] – that’s not found in the word but it’s pronounced.

Major vowel changes in ME, monophthongs.

1. 13^th cent. – lengthing in northern area [e, a, o] became long and wide: Eg: năma > nāme in open syllable.

2. leng-g before 2 homoganic cons-s and sonorant and a plosive [mb, nd, ld]. It didn’t take place when cluster was followed by another consonant. Eg: cild [kīld] but cildru [kildru].

3. [y, y:] → e. e: in Kentish

I, i: in Wessex;

4. rounding a>o, exept the northern dialect: Eg: stane > stone (NE);

5. 11^th cent – monophthongization of OE diphthongs: æ˘ˉa>ā˘, ē˘ Eg: stream > strēm

eō˘>ē˘

6. the GVS, 14^th cent.

i: → ai time ME – time

e: → i: field ME – field

ε: → i: east ME – east

a: → ei table ME – table

כּ: → ou soo – so

o: → u: goos – goose

u: → au mous – mouse

au → כּ: cause – couse

25. The OE adj and its further development in ME and N E.

OE adj possess 3 categories:

1. gender (m, f, n);

2. number (sg, pl);

3. case (5).

Main features of the adj:

1. repeated the grammatical categories of noun that they modify;

2. 2 types of declension

a. strong (a, l, o - stems of noun; call, manig – always str.);

b. weak (n – stems, i, l, c, a – “same” – always weak);

3. 3 degrees of comparison:

a. positive

b. comparative (-ra);

c. superlative (-est/ -ost);

Suppletive forms:

gōd – beltra – bet(e)st;

lүˉtel - læˉssa - læˉst

micel – māra - mæˉst (much)

R – лучший – лучше

4. 5 cases (Nom, Gen., Dat, Accus, Instr. (lүˉtte werede – малым войском).

In ME it became unchangeable part of speech (except for the degree of comparison). The first category to disappear waas gender, the Inst case fused with Dat. But at the end of 13^th cent cases were lost.

In ME the degrees of comparison could be build in the same way, only the suffix had been weakened to –er; -est.

The alteration of riit vowels in Early NE survived in old, elder, eldest where the difference in meaning from older – oldest made distinction. Also in father/ further.