Phonetic Changes in the Early New English Period

The changes in the sound system of the period were significant. The process of the levelling of endings continued, there were positional and assimilative changes of short vowels, and a significant change in the whole system of long vowels, called the Great Vowel Shift. During the period the process of simplification of consonant clusters and loss of consonants in certain positions continued. The changes were numerous

The unstressed e was lost. The process of levelling of endings led to total disappearance of the neutral sound ə marked by letter e in the endings (it was preserved and even pronounced more distinctly like [i] only when two identical consonants were found in the root and in the endings), though in spelling the letter might be preserved: no vowel is found in kept, slept, crossed, played; walls, pens, bones, stones - butut is preserved in stresses, dresses; wanted, parted; watches, judges; wicked and crooked.

The whole syllables might be lost in the Early New English pronunciation of long words. In some words this loss was fixed in spelling, like in chapter (ME chapiter), palsy (ME parlesie), fancy (ME fantasie); some other words preserved the lost syllables in spelling, e.g: colonel, business, medicine.

The sound e before r changed into a:. This change in many cases (but not always) was reflected in spelling:

ME- NE

sterre – star

herte - heart

bern — barn

sterven — starve, kerven — carve, merveil — marvel, clerc — clerk sergant – sergeant.

Some place-names changed the pronunciation (Derby, Berkley Berkshire, Hertford) though this change is not reflected in their spelling.It is due to this change that the alphabetic reading of the letter r [er] began to be pronounced as [ar].

From the 15 th century all long vowels that existed in Middle English changed their quality. This change was a fundamental one, changing the entire vocalic system, and the essence of it is as follows. All long vowels narrowed and the narrowest of them turned into diphthongs. The shift resulted in the following changes: i: into ai: time, like, rise, side

i: into i: meet, see, keen, deep; in borrowed words chief, receive, seize;

ε (e: open) — into e: closed, then into i: east, clean, speak, sea;

a: into ei (through the stage ǽ, ǽi): take, make, name, grave, pave, sane;

o: open, from Old English a into ou: stone, bone, home, oak, go, moan;

o closed (from Old and Middle English о in native words as well in the borrowings) into u: tool, moon, stool, do, root, room;

u: into au: house, mouse, out, noun, down, how.

The changes were gradual, of course, and in Shakespearean times the
vowels were somewhere halfway to its present-day stage. The change from ε : to i: had the intermediate stage [e:]. This explains why the rhyme in
sonnets is not exact in present-day system of reading:

The intermediate stages of the development of u: were [əu] -[aeu] and finally [au]. Consequently, a became ə: - əi: -ei; and i: - ei -əi - ai.

The Great Vowel Shift affected all long vowels in native as well as rowed before it words; table and chamber, doubt and fine, appeal developed in full accordance with the development of the English sound system. Some borrowed words preserve [i:] or [u:] in the open syllable (routine 1670-80) if they were borrowed from French in the later period; some other though taken during this process still resisted the change and only partially assimilated: police 1520-30, machine 1540-50. Latin borrowings that were taken from written sources, however, usually have a vowel that was changed in the course of the shift.

The diphthongs that arose as a result of the Great Vowel Shift did not enrich the phonological system of the language; such diphthongs had already existed in Middle English. They arose in the process of vocalization of Ʒ:wey (from we Ʒ) had the same diphthong that appeared in wake sayde (from səƷ de) in Middle English' had the sound' that appeared in side, but later the diphthong developed into a short monopthong.

Depending on the following consonant, r in particular, there were somewhat different variants of vowels that appeared in the Great Vowel Shift. If the long vowel was followed by r- the following variants appeared:

are —> [eir] fare; compare with fate

ear —> [ier] fear [eir] bear

eer—> [ier] steer (but steep)

ir —> [aier] tire (but time)

or —> [o:r] boar (but boat)

oopen —> [uer] moor (but moon)

u:—> [auer] power (but house, now)

Short vowels were changed, too, but the changes here are not that systematic. The vowels changed depending on their environment. Short afound in closed syllables generally changed intoæ: that; man; hat; cat; rat; pan; can; stand; back etc.

If it was preceded by the sound w, it remained unchanged and eventually developed into o: war; want; was; warm, watch; wasp; water etc. When the same sound was followed by 1 + consonant (other that m and n) turned into long o: all; call; talk; walk; stalk.
The exceptions from the general rule are: cant; scant; pant; grand
where it turned into æ, gaunt, haunt where the sound o: appeared; in the like change, strange it turned into ei, and the syllable became open
by adding mute е.

The changes in the Early New English consonants resulted in the loss of consonants in certain positions. Thus the sound l is lost in combinations before k,m, f, v (talk, walk). Some of these words, however, preserve the sound in the American variant of the English language. The sound l was preserved in the words of Latin origin such as resolve, dissolve. It was also lost after a vowel before d in should, could, would. The sound b was dropped in combination mb when at the end of the word and not followed by another consonant; lamb, climb, t in combination mn, t in combinations stl, stn, ftm, stm and ktl.

The consonants were lost in some initial clusters: g and k in gn, kn (knee, knock, knife); w before consonant (manly r) was lost at the beginning of the words (wrinkle, wring, wrist). The sound h disappered in many unstressed syllables (save for American variant of the language where in some cases it is preserved): forehead, perhaps, shepherd. Qualitative change of consonants is illustrated by voicing fricatives when preceding vowel was unstressed: s – z (dessert, resemble); f–v (of, but adverb off is usually stressed and the sound is not voiced). The simplification of the consonant clusters that took place in the New English period are shown in the table:

Table 5

Consonant Changes in New English

Simplification of Consonant Clusters

12. Early New English Grammar. Nouns and Adjectives

The noun paradigm looks very much thesame as we have it today. Having lost thecategory of gender and much of its case forms it has the genitive case as opposed to nominative. The number of nouns taking it is reduced mainly to those denoting living beings. In fact, we may call it possessive, because it is used now mainly in the function of attribute denoting possession. However, some nouns other than those denoting persons may still take it in the 17th century.

At the same time the unification of plural endings takes place, and former relics of -en disappear, giving way to -es. So, the general rule of formation of the plural of the noun is enriched by archaic forms (like geese, feet, children etc.) - we call them grammatical archaisms; some words borrowed from Latin and used mainly in scientific texts retain their Latin plurals and may be called grammatical barbarisms datum - data (1640-50), radius - radii (1590-1600), formula - formulae (1575-85), axis - axes (1540-50). Some of these, however tend to comply with the general rule, and forms like radiuses, formulas very soon become quite common.

Various scholars note, that an interesting variation appears in the treatment of abstract nouns, which in Modern English have no plural, except by way of personification. In Shakespeare's time such nouns were regularly used in a distributive sense.

Whereas the apostrophe as a sign denoting the possessive case of a noun appeared only about 1680, and its use to mark the possessive case in plural in 1789, the nouns in the genitive case and in the plural have homonymic endings, and only the context resolves ambiguity. We may note numerous instances of the use of apostrophe in Shakespeare's plays, but there they how only the omission of e or some other sounds - that is purely a phonetic sign.

Of-phrase (the noun with the preposition of) replaces the former genitive case, but in Shakespeare's plays they may go together, as in the following: The pangs of despised love, the law's delay (Hamlet).

The adjective in Early New English lost the form of plural and weak forms and acquired its present-day qualities. The degrees of comparison are formed by means of the suffixes –er and – est, vowel mutation which was characteristic of some of them was almost lost. The forms elder/older eldest /oldest and further/farther, furthest/farthest are distinguished in use. So older forms elder, eldest are used to denote relations within a family and further /furthest are used in relation to time whereas farther/farthest to distance. In Shakespeare's times this not yet is firmly established.

The tendency to unification of the general norm sometimes brings to the general ruleeven those the comparatives and superlatives of which were traditionally in suppletive way.

The new way of forming the degrees of comparison that appeared in Middle English - that is, analytically, by placing the adverb moreand most before the adjective comes into practice. The rule that this new form is to be used only with polysyllabic and a limited number of bisyllabic adjectives was not yet established.

Double comparatives and superlatives - the instances when the adjective with a suffix is preceded by more/mostare also found. At the same time moreand mostmay also be used as comparative and superlative degrees of the adjective much -that is, they are not auxiliaries but adjectives of full semantics (equivalent to present-day greater, greatest).

The way of forming the degrees of comparison of adverbsis mainlythesame - here we also find suffixes, analytical forms and even double comparatives and double superlatives.

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