IV. Phonetic Changes. Vowels.
In the ME period a great change affected the entire system of vowel phonemes. To fully understand the importance of the change, we must briefly summarize the essential characteristics of OE vowel system.
OE had both short and long vowel phonemes, and each of these were absolutely independent phonemic unit. As a result of important changes coming into the vowel system in10-12th centuries, the ME vowel system was basically different. While, in OE, quantity (that is length /shortness) was a distinctive phonemic feature, in ME (by the 13th century) this is no longer so. Quantify of vowels becomes dependent on their environment - to be exact, on what follows.
A long vowel occurring before two consonants isshortened.
| OE | ME | ||
| cēpan | (infinitive) | “ keep” | kepen |
| cēpte | (Past Tense) | “ kept” | kepte |
| fēdan | (infinitive) | " feed" | fldlen |
| fēdde | (Past Tense) | fed | fedde |
However, long vowels remain long before the 'lengthening" consonant groups kl nd, md
wēnan think wēnen
wēnde wēnde
hērde hērde
But if the cluster was followed by another consonant there were no lengthening. The substantive "cild" (child) had its vowel lengthened and has yielded MnE [t∫aild], but its plural form “cildru” preserved its [i] short and yielded MnE [t∫ildrən].
OE short "a" remains unchanged in ME. But before a nasal developed different by indifferently dialects. In West Midland "o" was preserved: mon (man) con (can). In other dialectswe find "a" - man, can. OE short "æ"developed into short "a"
æрреl > appel; wæs > was:
But in the West Midland and Kentish dialect OE "æ" changed into "e", hence the variants " gled ","ерраl ".
OE short "y" developed differently in different dialects. In Northern and East Midland it changed into short "i", but inWest Midland and Southwestern short y"" remained unchanged. In Kentish it became "e"
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AllOE diphthongs were monophtongized in the direction of first ele-
ment eo→e
OE deop → ME deep.
Generally modern orthography was established in the12th, 13th centuries and didn'tchange dramatically. But the pronunciation has changed dramatically andthe English spelling is called historical.
Inthe unstressed position all the vowels became neutral because in the Germanic languages the stress falls on the first root vowel. A number of grammatical endings became homonimous. ME is called the English of reduced or leveled endings. OE isthe English of full endings. As a result of ending becoming neutral the rhythm of the English speech has changed . it resulted in the changing of the quantity of vowels in stressed position.
V. Types of ME Literary Documents
1. ME literature is extremely rich and varied. We find here the most different kinds and genres represented, both in verse and inprose.
There was in the 13th century, the religious poem Ormulun, named after its author the monk Orm, who at great length retells in a popular style events of Bible and Gospel history, addressing his narration to his brother, also a monk.
Aboutthe same time another monk, Layamon, composed a long poem, «Brut», about the early history of Britain. This was partly a translation, or paraphrase, of Wace’s Anglo-Normal poem Brut, and Layamon also used some other sources. The origins of the Britons are traced back to Troy and theflight of some Trojans after itsfall.
2. There are several historical chronicles, such as Robert of Gloucester's Rhymed Chronicle, Barbour’sBruce,etc.
Invaluable documents of the spoken language of the time are the various collections of Miracle Plays, such as the Towneley Plays, the York PIqystand the Chester Plays.
And of course we must mention the famous Vision Conerning Piers the Plowman by William Langlade (or Langley), a 14th- century picture of the social conditions in thecountry, invaluable also as a historical document
And we close this enumeration by the two great names of John Cower, author of the long poem Confessio Amantis (besides Latin and French works), and the greatest of all, Geoffrey Chaucer, author of Troilus and Criseyde; The Canterbury Tales, and a number of other poems.
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As far as prose goes, there is perhaps less variety and no prose fiction in the true sense of the word. The two prose pieces of The Canterbury Tales are not really stories but rather religious or philosophical treatises.
As an important prose document we must note Ranulphus Higden's Polychronicon, translated by John Travis with added passages from other saucers. This is a history book containing much useful information about the England of his time, with a most valuable passage on the dialects of the 14th century.
In the 15th century, towards the ME period, we come across the first prose fiction in English. Here we have Sir Thomas Mallory’s Morte d'Arthur, a long prose work summing up a number of legends about king Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table, and at about the same time prose translations made by William Caxton, the first English printer.
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