Changes of Short Vowels in Early New English
As compared to the Great Vowel Shift other vowel changes of the NE period seem few and insignificant. Yet they clarify certain points in modern spelling and account for the modern system of vowels.
The short vowels in Early NE were on the whole more stable than the long vowels: only two short vowels out of five underwent certain alterations: [a] and [u].
1. ME [a] is reflected as [æ] in NE,
e.g. ME that [θat]>NE that
ME man [man] > NE man.
The more obvious change of the ME [a] came about when it was preceded by the semivowel [w]; probably under the influence of this labialised sound the vowel developed into [כ]:
OE wæs >ME was [was] >NE was
OE wæter > ME water ['water] > NE water.
2) The other change in the set of short vowels was a case of delabialisation:
ME short [u] lost its labial character and became [^], e.g.
ME hut [hut] > NE hut;
ME comen ['kumэn] > NE come, but
ME pullen [pulэn] > NE pull;
ME putten [putэn] > NE put.
3. Growth of Long Monophthongs and Diphthongs in Early New English due to Vocalisation of Consonants
1. The history of English vowels would be incomplete if we didn’t mention the development of new long monophthongs and diphthongs, resulting from the vocalisation of some consonants.
Two voiceless fricatives, [x] and [x’], were vocalized towards the end of the ME period.
The palatal fricative [x’] changed to [j] some time during the 15th c. Thus, words like night,since the age of Chaucer have passed through the following stages:
Nix’t > nijt > ni:t > nait.
2. The most important instance of vocalisation is the development of [r], which accounts for the appearance of many new long monophthongs and diphthongs.
The sonorant [r] began to produce a certain influence upon the preceding vowels on Late ME. [r] made the preceding vowel more open and retracted:
The cluster [er] changes to [ar],
e.g.OE deorc > ME derk [derk] > Late ME [dark]; due to the contraction of the OE diphthong [eo] to [e].
OE clerec > ME clerk [klerk] > Late ME [klark] (NE clerk);
In “clerk” the spelling points to the preceding stage, when the sequence sounded as [er];
OE heorte > ME herte ['hertэ] > Late ME [hart] (NE heart). In “heart” the spelling seems to bear traces of both stages or perhaps shows another attempt to record the transition of [e] into [a] with the help of the digraph ea.
3. The vocalisation of [r] took place in the 16th or 17th c. In ME [r] was a rolled or trilled sound more like the Russian [r] than its Mod.E descendant..
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In Early NE [r] was vocalised when it stood after vowel. Losing its consonantal character [r] changed into the neutral sound [э], which was added to the preceding vowel as a glide thus forming a diphthong:
e.g. ME there [θε:re] > NE there.
Sometimes the only trace left by the loss of [r] was the compensatory lengthening of the preceding vowel,
e.g. ME arm [arm] > NE arm,
ME for [fכr] > [fכr] > [fכ:] (NE for).
If the neutral [э] produced by the vocalisation of [r] was preceded by a diphthong, it was added to the diphthong to form a sequence of sounds named “triphthong”, e.g. ME shour > NE shower [∫auэ]
u→ au (the Great Vowel Shift)
auэ r→ э
It is apparent that the vocalisation of [r] had a profound effect on the vowel system: there developed a new set of diphthongs, with э-glides: [iэ, εэ, uэ, etc.]; there arose a new central long monophthong [э:].
II. Evolution of Consonants:
1. Growth of Sibilants and Affricates.
It must be added that the affricates [t∫] and [dz] could also have come from a different source: they entered the English languages in loan-words from French, e.g. charm, gentle.
In Early ME [t∫], [dz], [∫] began to be ‘indicated by special letters and digraphs, which came into use mainly under the influence of the French scribal tradition – ch, tch, g, dg, sh, ssh, sch.
In Early NE the clusters of French origin [sj, zj, tj, dj] regularly changed regularly changed into [∫, z, t∫, dz].
Late ME NE
Plesure [plezju:r(э)] pleasure
Visioun [vizju:n] vision
Now the four sounds formed a well-balanced system of two correlated pairs:
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[∫, z], [t∫, dz].
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