Lecture 1 First Consonant Shift (Grimm’s Law) ie g aspirated Voiced voiced stops stops bh > b

PERIODIZATION of the ENGLISH LANGUAGE HISTORY


OLD ENGLISH from 7^th down to 1050 - the period of “full endings”
Transition Period from 1050 to 1150
MIDDLE ENGLISH from 1150 to 1500 – the period of “levelled endings”
EARLY MODERN ENGLISH from 1500 to 1660
MODERN ENGLISH from 1700 till the present – the period of “lost endings” (H.Sweet)


OLD ENGLISH VOWEL SYSTEM

Front short vowels: i, e, y, æ Back short vowels: a, o, u Short diphthongs: ea, eo, ie, io

Front long vowels: ī, ē, y, æ Back long vowels: ā, ō, ū, å Long diphthongs: ēa, ēo, īe, īo


FRONT MUTATION (i-umlaut)
a > e (*framian > fremman виконувати)
æ > e (*tælian > telan говорити)
ā > æ (*lārian > læran вчити)
o > e (*ofstian > efstan поспішати)
ō > ē (*dōmian > dēman припускати, думати)
u > y (*fullian > fyllan заповнювати)
ū > y (cūþian > cyþan повідомляти)


Diphthongs:
ea > ie (*hleahian > hliehhan сміятися)
ēa > īe (*hēarian > hīeran слухати)
eo > ie (*āfeorrian > āfierran знищувати, прибирати)
ēo > īe (*3etrēowi > 3etrīewe вірний)


BACK MUTATION (u-umlaut)
i > io (hira > hiora їхній, silufr > siolufr срібло)
e > eo (herot > heorot олень, hefon > heofon небеса)
a > ea (saru > searu лати)


BREAKING (FRACTURE)
e > ea before “r+cons.”, “l+cons.”, “h+cons.”, “h” in the final syllable (*ærm > earm, * æld > eald, * æhta > eahta)
e > eo before “r+cons.”, “h+cons.”, “lc, lh,”, “h” in the final syllable (*herte > heorte, *melcan > meolcan)


CONTRACTION of VOWEL GROUPS
1. “ah + vowel” > ēa (*slahan > slēan вбивати)
2. “eh + vowel”, “ih + vowel” > ēo (*sehan > sēon бачити *tihan > tēon звинувачувати)
3. “oh + vowel > ō (*fohan > fōn хапати)
4. ē and ō could absorb the following vowel (*sæē > sæ морю)

Influence of PALATALIZATION

OE front vowels could be diphthongized when preceded by palatal consonants 3, c, and other vowels – by cluster sc:
e > ie (*3efan > 3iefan давати)
æ > ea (*3æf > 3eaf дав)
æ > ēa ( *3æfon > 3ēafon дав)
a > ea (*scacan > sceacan трусити)
o > eo (*scort > sceort короткий)
.Vowel lengthening
In the 9^th century short vowels were lengthened before the clusters nd, mb, ld, rd:
OE: bindan > bīndan (to bind)
climban > clīmban (to climb)
cild > cīld (child)
If nd, mb, ld, rd were followed by a third consonant the lengthening didn’t take place:
OE: cild > cīld (child), but cildru (children)


Changes in unstressed syllables
Unstressed long vowels were gradually shortened in all Germanic languages. In English this process began in early OE, when all long vowels became short and diphthongs were monophthongized in an unstressed position.


Changes of OE consonants
Old English script normally uses 16 consonant symbols which in modern editions are usually reproduced as b, c, d, f, g, h, l, m, n, p, r, s, t, w, þ, ð.

1. 
   voicing and unvoicing of fricatives
   

OE had no symbol v: thus symbol f was used to represent both /f/ and /v/. The reason is that in OE /f/ and /v/ were members of the same phoneme. When this phoneme occurred within a word (that is not initially or finally) before a voiced sound, and wasn’t doubled or in intervocal position, it was pronounced /v/. E.g. seofon “seven”. In all other positions it was pronounced as /f/.
There were two other such pairs in OE. There was a symbol s, but not a symbol z, and for similar reason /s/ and /z/ were members of the same phoneme and the rules for their distribution were exactly the same as for /f/ and /v/. So /s/ occurred in hūs, stānas, while /z/ occurred in nosu, bōsm.
The third pair is /ө/ and /ð/. To represent these sounds scribes used runic symbols: the runic symbol þ, called “thorn”, and the symbol ð, called “eth”. They also didn’t use one of these symbols for the voiceless sound and the other – for the voiced one, but used them indiscriminately.
In all above cases, Old English had a single phoneme consisting of a pair of a voiced and voiceless allophones, where Modern English has two separate phonemes. The OE arrangement was not inherited from PG, but arose from prehistoric English by processes of assimilation.

2.