Mamun -university roman -german philology english department

I.2 Monophthongs in modern english
OE Vowels (monophthongs)
The OE vowel system shows 7 points of short and long vowels.
ī ĭ y (short and long) ŭū
ēĕ ōŏ
æ (short and l) ăā
The peculiarity of OE vowels: it showed full symmetry.
Length of vowels was phonological, that is to say it could distingyish different words: gōd (=good NE) and gŏd (god NE)
In ME the following changes occurred (14th c)
Short: Long:
i u i: u:
e o e: o:
a e: o:
a:
The number of short vowels decreased, instead of 7 we find 5 (y-i, æ – a) these vowels merged.
The main process that took place in long vowels was narrowing (ē → e: æ (long)→e: ŏ→o: ā→o:) . The origin of a: it developed from short a in pen stressed syllables.
Changes of Unstressed Vowels in Early Old English
The development of vowels in unstressed syllables, final syllables in particular, was basically different Whereas in stressed position the number of vowels had grown (as compared with the PG system), due to the appearance of new Qualitative differences, the number of vowels distinguished in unstressed position had been reduced. In unstressed syllables, especially final, long vowels were shortened, and thus the opposition of vowels — long to short — was neutralised. It must also be mentioned that some short vowels in final unstressed syllables were dropped.
Unstressed Vowels IN MIDDLE ENGLISH AND EARLY NEW ENGLISH
In ME and NE the main direction of the evolution of unstressed vowels was the same as before; even in the pre-written period un­stressed vowels had lost many of their former distinctions, namely their differences in quantity as well as some of their differences in quality The tendency towards phonetic reduction operated in all the subsequent periods of history and was particularly strong in unstressed final syllables in ME.
In Early ME the pronunciation of unstressed syllables became increasingly indistinct. As compared to OE, which distinguished five short vowels in unstressed position Late ME had only two vowels in unaccented syl­lables: [d ] and [i ], which are never directly contrasted; this means that phonemic contrasts in unstressed vowels had beer, practically lost. The occurrence of only two vowels, schwa vowel and [i] in unstressed final syllables is regarded as an important mark of ME, distinguishing it on the one hand from OE with its greater variety of unstressed vowels, and on the other hand from NE.
It should be remembered though that while the OE unstressed vowels were thus reduced and lost, new unstressed vowels appeared in borrowed words or developed from stressed ones, as a result of various changes, e.g. the shifting of word stress in ME and NE, vocalisation of [r]. These developments show that the gap between the stressed and unstressed vowels has narrowed, so that in ME and NE we can no longer subdivide the vowels into two distinct sub-systems— that of stressed and unstressed vowels).
QUANTITATIVE VOWEL CHANGES IN EARLY MIDDLE ENGLISH
At the end of OE and in the immediately succeeding centu­ries accented vowels underwent a number of quantitative changes which affected the employment and the phonological status of short and long vowels in the language. At that time vowel length was for the most part an inherited feature: ОE short vowels had developed from PG short vowels, while long ones went back to long vowels or bi-phonemic vowel sequences.
Shortening: In early ME 12-13c) all long vowels became short if followed by 2 or more consonants: ce(long)pan (OE) – ke:pen(ME)-keep
Lengthening: In the 12th or 13th c. Short vowels became long in open syllables. This lengthening mainly affected the more open of the short vowels e,o,a before clusters [ld, nd, mb]; in 2-syllable words, only to [e, o, a] in open stressed syllable
Reduction – weakening and disappearance of unstressed vowels. As far as the stress was mainly on the root the vowels in prefixes and suffixes got weak and underwent reduction. Full vowels began to change to schwa and then it was weakened to zero. In unstressed position only two vowels were left – [shwa] and [i]. They had never been contrasted. E.g. ME tale [‘ta:l shwa], body [‘bodi]
In NE sound (schwa) was dropped at the end of the words but the letter e was left in spelling to show the length of the preceding vowel. This change brought our many monosyllabic words and caused great changes in grammar (loss of inflections-English became an analytical lang)