Palatalization

Вопрос 24 The OE vowel

The development of vowels in Early OE consisted of the modification of separate vowels, and also of the modification of entire sets of vowels. The change begins with growing variation in pronunciation, which manifests itself in the appearance of numerous allophones: after the stage of increased variation, some allophones prevail over the others and a replacement takes place. It may result in the splitting of phonemes and their numerical growth, which fills in the “empty boxes” of the system or introduces new distinctive features. It may also lead to the merging of old phonemes, as their new prevailing allophones can fall together.

The vocalic system in OE included 2 subsystems: monophthongs, diphthongs. All vowels existed in the pairs: ææдолг, a ā, e ē, o ō, i ī, u ū, y y долг (У готтов не было ā, ææдолг, ō) В виде пар существовали и дифтонги: ea eaдолг, eo eoдолг, ie ieдолг. The major factor in OE was a category of quantity vowels. It means, that all OE vowels, including diphthongs, could be both long and short. It it the system of vowels on the beginning of OE. The new system came with Anglo-Saxon tribes (жоанная): In most cases these new processes represent result of influence of the next sounds and called the COMBINATORY CHANGES.

1.Influence of the next consonant–Breaking ( diph thongization) Short vowel were diphthong-sed before consonant. The short vowels æ и е, a. Short vowels æ and е were diph-nized: æ turn into ea before combinations r + согл, l + согл, h + согл, and before h on the end of a word: wearþ, healp, eahta, seah e.g.: [e] > [eo] in OE deorc, NE dark.

e turn into eo before combinations r + согл, l + velar concordant c and h, before h on the end of a word: weorþan, meolcan, feoh

The essence of breaking consists that front vowel assimilates with the subsequent firm consonants by development of a sound of glide, which forms a diphthong. The glide, together with the original monophthong formed a diphthong.

Palatalization

After the palatal consonants [k’], [sk’] and [j] short and long [e] and [æ] turned into diphthongs with a more front close vowel as their first element, e.g. OE sc æmu > sceamu (NE shame). In the resulting diphthong the initial [i] or [e] must have been unstressed but later the stress shifted to the first element, which turned into the nucleus of the diphthong, to conform with the structure of OE diphthongs. This process is known as “diphthongisation after palatal consonants”. It observes in Wessex dialect. æ - ea sceal, cearu. æдолг - ea долг scēāwian, зēāfon. a - ea scacan- sceacan. o - eo sceort, ceort. e - ie scield, з iefan

Contraction –(стяжение) The vowels contracted into 1 when they were separated by h and H disappeared. e+a=eo (sehan – seon. i+a=eo (tihan- teon). a+a=ea (slehan – slean). o+a=o долг (fohan – fon)