English consonants proved to be more stable than vowels. Nevertheless, new sets of consonants started to appear.
Sibilants and Affricates
Sibilants a type of fricatives, narrower and sharper than all other fricatives ([f, v, q, ð, h]) [s, z, ∫, ζ].
Affricates sounds consisting of a plosive immediately followed by a fricative [t∫, dζ].
In OE there were only 2 sibilants [s, z]. [∫] appeared in ME and [ζ] in NE.
Affricates [t∫, dζ] appeared both in ME and in NE.
Middle English
New consonants developed from palatal plosives [k], [g] and the cluster [sk]:
| OE Sounds | ME Sounds | In Writing | OE | ME |
| [k] à | [t∫] | tch, ch | cild [kild] | child [t∫ild] |
| [g] à | [dζ] | g, dg | ecge [eggə] | edge [edζə] |
| [sk] à | [∫] | sh, ssh, sch | fisc [fisk] | fish [fi∫] |
New English
Palatalisation as a result of reduction of unstressed vowels several consonants merged into one:
| ME Sounds | NE Sounds | ME | NE |
| [sj] à | [∫] | commissioun [komisjon] | commission [kəmi∫ən] |
| [zj] à | [ζ] | pleasure [pləzjurə] | pleasure [pleζə] |
| [tj] à | [t∫] | nature [natjurə] | nature [neit∫ə] |
| [dj] à | [dζ] | procedure [,prosədjurə] | procedure [prəsidζə] |
There were some exceptions though, e.g. mature, duty, due, suit, statue, tune, etc.
Fricatives
Voicing occurredin the 16th c. (NE) to fricatives:
in functional words and auxiliaries that are never stressed;
when preceded by an unstressed and followed by a stressed vowel.
| ME Sounds | NE Sounds | ME | NE |
| [s] à | [z] | possess [pəses] | possess [pəzes] |
| [q] à | [ð] | this [qis] ,the [qə], there [qεə] | this [ðis] ,the [ðə], there [ðεə] |
| [f] à | [v] | of [of] | of [ov] |
| [ks] à | [gz] | anxiety [,ənksaiəti] | anxiety [,əngzaiəti] |
| [t∫] à | [dζ] | knowledge [kno:lət∫ə] | knowledge [no:lidζ] |
Loss of Some Consonants
In NE some consonants were vocalised or gave birth to diphthongs and triphthongs.
[r] was vocalised at the end of the word in the 16th -17th c. (see Lecture 11);
[j] disappeared as a result of palatalisation (see palatalisation in Lecture 12); [j] remained only initially (e.g. year, yard, etc.);
[, ] were lost (e.g. ME taughte [tau tə] NE taught [to:t], ME night [ni t] NE night [neit]
[kn] à [n] (e.g. ME know [knou] NE know [nou]);
[gn] à [n] (e.g. ME gnat [gnat] NE gnat [næt]);
H/w: 1. Ex. 10-14, 17 on p. 219 in by .. (copies).
|
|
|
Lecture 13
Historical Background of Modern English Spelling
OE Spelling
based on phonetic principle;
employed Latin characters;
one letter = one sound;
Exceptions: ζ, f, s, ð (1 letter = 2 or more sounds).
ME Spelling
based on conventional principle;
more ambiguous and less stable (printing was not introduced yet and the manuscripts contained numerous variants of spelling practically each scribe had its own way to spell the words);
digraphs (2 letters = 1 sound) appear + 1 letter = several sounds, several letters/combinations of letters = 1 sound (these were the deviations from phonetic principle):
| 1 letter = several sounds | several letters/combinations of letters = 1 sound | ||
| letter | sounds | letters | sound |
| o | [o], [u], [o:], [ǿ] | g, dg, j | [dζ] |
| c | [s], [k] | k, c, q | [k] |
| g | [g], [dζ] | ||
| u | [u], [v] |
NE Spelling
based on conventional principle was preserved;
new digraphs appeared (indicated borrowings from other languages) ph, ps, ch;
spelling became fixed.
There reasons for such stabilisation were as follows:
Introduction of Printing (1475) (see Lecture 9) à one obligatory standard!
Normalisation of the language (17th 18th c.) (see Lecture 9)à one obligatory standard!
ModE Spelling
Modern English spelling reflects pronunciation of the 14th 15th c.
See also Table 12 on p. 216-218 in by .. .
Lecture 14
Old English Morphology
Old English was a synthetic language, i.e. there were a lot of inflections.
Parts of Speech
In OE 9 parts of speech had already been distinguished:
| changeable | 1. Noun | Nominal Categories: Number, Case, Gender, Degrees of Comparison, Determination |
| 2. Adjective | ||
| 3. Pronoun | ||
| 4. Numeral | ||
| 5. Verb | Verbal Categories: Tense, Mood, Person, Number, Voice, Aspect, Order, Posteriority | |
| unchangeable | 6. Adverb(only Degrees of Comparison) | - |
| 7. Prepositions | - | |
| 8. Conjunctions | - | |
| 9. Interjections | - |
Below all notional parts of speech will be discussed, their categories described and the meanings of these categories stated as related to the Old English Period
Noun
Number Singular (Sg) and Plural (Pl).
Gender Masculine (M), Feminine (F), Neuter (N).
Case Nominative (Nom) (agent), Genitive (Gen) (attribute), Dative (Dat) (instrument, indirect/prepositional object), Accusative (Acc) (recipient, direct/prepositionless object).
System of Declensions
Prior to reading this point, see PG word-structure, Lecture 4.
In OE there were 25 declensions of nouns. All nouns were grouped into declensions according to:
stem-suffix;
Gender.
We will mention only the most numerous declensions/stems here:
| Strong Vocalic Stems | Weak Consonantal Stems | ||
| Stem-suffix | Gender | Stem-suffix | Gender |
| a-stem | M, N | n-stem | M, N, F |
| o-stem | F | r, s, nd-stems | M, N, F |
| i-stem | M, N, F | root-stem | M, F |
| u-stem | M, F |
These stems will be discussed more precisely in Lecture 15.
|
|
|
Adjectives
Number Singular (Sg) and Plural (Pl).
Gender Masculine (M), Feminine (F), Neuter (N).
Case Nominative (Nom), Genitive (Gen), Dative (Dat), Accusative (Acc) + Instrumental (Instr).
Instrumental Case was used to express instrumental meaning but only in the adjective while the noun stood in Dative Case:
by/with + Adjective (Instr) + Noun (Dat)
Degrees of Comparison positive, comparative, superlative.
Determination (Definiteness/Indefiniteness) today this category has to do with the Article but in OE there were no articles and definiteness/indefiniteness was expressed with the help of inflections of the Adjective, i.e. the inflections of the Adjective helped to determine whether a noun was definite or indefinite.
In OE there existed the weak and strong declensions of the Adjective. They will be discussed more precisely in Lecture 16.
Pronoun
Classification:
1. Personal (Noun-Pronouns (had some categories of the Noun and resembled the Noun in syntactic function)).
They had the following categories:
Person 1st, 2nd, 3rd;
Number Singular (Sg), Plural (Pl) + Dual (1st, 2nd pers. (we both, you both) when only two persons were meant);
Gender Masculine (M), Feminine (F), Neuter (N) only in 3rd person!;
Case Nominative (Nom), Genitive (Gen), Dative (Dat), Accusative (Acc).
2. Demonstrative (Adjective-Pronouns (had some categories of the Adjective and resembled the Adjective in syntactic function)).
They had the following categories:
Number Singular (Sg) and Plural (Pl);
Gender Masculine (M), Feminine (F), Neuter (N);
Case Nominative (Nom), Genitive (Gen), Dative (Dat), Accusative (Acc) +
Instrumental (Instr).
3. Interrogative unchangeable.
4. Indefinite unchangeable.
Personal and Demonstrative Pronouns will be discussed more precisely in Lecture 17.
Numeral
Classification:
1. Cardinal ān (one), twēζen (two), þrēō (three) had the categories of Gender and Case. All the other cardinal numerals were unchangeable.
2. Ordinal were unchangeable.
Verbs
Classification:
Finite
They had the following categories:
Tense Present and Past (NB no Future! future actions were expressed by the Present Tense forms);
Mood Indicative, Imperative, Superlative;
Person 1st, 2nd, 3rd;
Number Singular (Sg) and Plural (Pl);
Conjugation strong and weak.
2. Non-finite:
v Infinitive resembled the Noun and had the category of:
Case Nominative (Nom) and Dative (Dat)
e.g. Nom beran (uninflected) Dat to beren ne (inflected, indicated direction or purpose);
v Participles 1, 2 resembledthe Verb, the Noun and the Adjective and had the following categories:
Tense Present (Participle 1) and Past (Participle 2);
Number Singular (Sg) and Plural (Pl);
Gender Masculine (M), Feminine (F), Neuter (N);
Case Nominative (Nom), Genitive (Gen), Dative (Dat), Accusative (Acc);
Voice Active (Part. 1, 2) and Passive (Part 2).
Finite and Non-finite Verbs will be discussed more precisely in Lecture 18.
Preterite-Present Verbs
There were 12 of these verbs and most of them later turned into Modal Verbs. They will be discussed more precisely in Lecture 18.
Anomalous Verbs
They were irregular verbs that combined the features of the weak and strong verbs. There were 4 of them willan (will), bēon (to be), ζān (to go), dōn (to do). They will be discussed more precisely in Lecture 18.
Lecture 15
