Quantitative vowel changes in Early ME
In Later OE and in Early ME vowel length began to depend on phonetic conditions. The earliest of positional quantitative changes was the readjustment of quantity before some consonant clusters:
1) Short vowels were lengthened before two consonants – a sonorant and a plosive; consequently, all vowels occurring in this position remained or became long, e.g. OE wild – ME wild [wi:ld] – NE wild.
2) All other groups of two or more consonants produced the reverse effect: they made the preceding long vowels short, and henceforth all vowels in this position became or remained short, e.g. OEcēpte > ME kepte [΄keptə] – NE kept.
3) Short vowels became long in open syllables, e.g. OE nama > ME name [na:mə] – NE name. In spite of some restrictions no lengthening occurred in polysyllabic words and before some suffixes, OE bodiз > ME body [΄bodi] – NE body.
Qualitative vowel changes.
Development of monophthongs
The OE close labialized vowels [y] and [y:] disappeared in Early ME, merging with various sounds in different dialectal areas. The vowels [y] and [y:] existed in OE dialects up to the 10th c., when they were replaced by [e], [e:] in Kentish and confused with [ie] and [ie:] or [i] and [i:] in WS. In Early ME the dialectal differences grew. In some areas OE [y], [y:] developed into [e], [e:], in others they changed to [i], [i:]; in the South-West and in the West Midlands the two vowels were for some time preserved as [y], [y:], but later were moved backward and merged with [u], [u:], e.g. OE fyllan – ME (Kentish) fellen, (West Midland and South Western) fullen, (East Midland and Northern) fillen – NEfill. In Early ME the long OE [a:] was narrowed to [o:]. This was and early instance of the growing tendency of all long monophthongs to become closer, so [a:] became [o:] in all the dialects except the Northern group, e.g. OE stān – ME (Northern) stan(e), (other dialects) stoon, stone – NE stone. The short OE [æ] was replaced in ME by the back vowel [a], e.g. OE þǽt > ME that [Өat] > NEthat.
Development of diphthongs
OE possessed a well developed system of diphthongs: falling diphthongs with a closer nucleus and more open glide arranged in two symmetrical sets – long and short: [ea:], [eo:], [ie:] and [ea], [eo], [ie]. Towards the end of the OE period some of the diphthongs merged with monophthongs: all diphthongs were monophthongised before [xt], [x’t] and after [sk’]; the diphthongs [ie:], [ie] in Late WS fused with [y:], [y] or [i:], [i]. In Early ME the remaining diphthongs were also contracted to monophthongs: the long [ea:] coalesced (united) with the reflex of OE [ǽ:] – ME [ε:]; the short [ea] ceased to be distinguished from OE [æ] and became [a] in ME; the diphthongs [eo:], [eo] – as well as their dialectal variants [io:], [io] – fell together with the monophthongs [e:], [e], [i:], [i]. As a result of these changes the vowel system lost two sets of diphthongs, long and short. In the meantime anew set of diphthongs developed from some sequences of vowels and consonants due to the vocalization of OE [j] and [γ], that is to their change into vowels. In Early ME the sounds [j] and [γ] between and after vowels changed into [i] and [u] and formed diphthongs together with the preceding vowels, e.g. OE dæз > ME day [dai]. These changes gave rise to two sets of diphthongs: with i-glides and u-glides. The same types of diphthongs appeared also from other sources: the glide -udeveloped from OE [w] as in OE snāw, which became ME snow [snou], and before [x] and [l] as in Late ME smaul and taughte.
|
|
|
Old English verbal system: weak verbs.
built their principal forms by inserting a special dental suffix between the root and ending.
| Weak verbs are: | an innovation of Germanic |
| the newest development in terms of German verbs | |
| the most open group, with most new or innovated verbs after Germanic falling into this category |
The number of weak verbs in OE by far exceeded that of strong verbs.
The verbs of Class I usually were i-stems, originally contained the element [-i/-j] between the root and the endings. The verbs of Class II were built with the help of the stem-suffix -ō, or -ōj and are known as ō-stems. Class III was made up of a few survivals of the PG third and fourth classes of weak verbs, mostly -ǽj-stems.
OE weak verbs are relatively younger than the strong verbs. They reflect a later stage in the development of Germanic languages. They were an open class in OE, as new verbs that entered the language generally formed their forms on analogy with weak verbs. That is why the number of weak verbs in OE is much more than that of strong verbs.
|
|
|
Weak verbs had 3 principal forms: the Inf., the Past tense and Part 2. They formed their Past and Part2 by means of the dental suffix -d or -t. (but not vowel interchange as in strong verbs)
All the weak verbs are subdivided into 3 classes. The difference between them lies in 1) the ending of the Inf.; 2) the sonority of the suffix and 3) the sounds preceding the suffix.
The verbs of Class I are traditionally divided into 2 groups: regular and irregular verbs. In regular verbs the root vowel was mutated in all the 3 principal forms. The sign of irregularity of the weak verbs in OE was mutation only in the 1-st principal form (the Inf).
The verbs of Class II originally had the suffix oj(oi)and are known as ō-stems .
Class III verbs were made up of a few survivals of the PG æj(ai)-stems. In OE this suffix is no longer found. The suffix of the Past T. and Part2 is joined on to the root.
Дата добавления: 2018-05-12; просмотров: 721; Мы поможем в написании вашей работы! |
Мы поможем в написании ваших работ!