Lecture I theme I: Subject and aims of the History of English

The Great Vowel Shift

ME (Intermediate stage) NE	ME	NE
i: ai	time [‘ti:mə]	time
e: i:	kepen [‘ke:pən]	keep
e: i:	street [stre:t]	street
a: ei	maken [ma:kən]	make
o: ou	stone [sto:n]	stone
o: u:	moon [mo:n]	moon
u: au	mous [mu:s]	mouse
au o:	drawen [‘drauən]	draw

It must be noted that some of the diphthongs which arose during the Great Vowel Shift could also appear from sources. The diphthong [ou] was preserved from ME without modification; [ei] could descent from ME [ai] which had merged into one diphthong. Those were the diphthongs with i-and –u glides going back to Early ME vowel and consonant changes. It is important to note that the Great Vowel Shift was not followed by any regular spelling changes: as seen from the examples the modification in the pronunciation of words was not reflected in their written forms. During the shift even the names of some English letters were changed for they contained long vowels.

The names of some English letters before and after the shift:

ME: A [a:], E [e:], O[o:], I [i:], B [be:], K [ka:];

NE: A [ei], E [i:], O [ou], I [ai], B [bi:], K [kei].

As compared to the Great Vowel Shift other vowel changes of the NE seem few and insignificant. Yet, like all the sound changes of that time, they account for the modern system of vowels and clarify certain points in modern spelling. The short vowels in Early New were on the whole more stable than the long vowels: only two short vowels out of five underwent certain alterations: [a] and [u].

In addition to the main sources of long monophthongs and diphthongs in Early NE, such as the Great Vowel Shift and the vocalization of the sonorant [r], there were a few other instances of the growth of long vowels from short ones in some phonetic conditions. These lengthenings resemble Early ME quantitative vowel changes before consonant groups; only this time the consonant sequences which brought about the lengthening were different: [ss], [ft] and [nt]; the sequences mainly affected the vowel [a].

The main qualitative and quantitative changes of vowels between the 11^th and 18^th c. are summarized.

	Early ME	Early NE
Lengthening	before ld, nd, mb