Monophthongs in the history of English
The Development of Vowel System in Middle English and New English
Word Stress/Accent:In ME and NE word stress acquired greater positions freedom and greater role in word derivation. Recessive tendency –stress in loan-words moved closer to the beginning of the word (e.g. in French words the stress is usually placed on the ultimate or pen-ultimate syllable, but the stress in the words of the French origin that penetrated into English has moved to the beginning of the word).E.g. ME vertu [ver’tju:] – NE virtue [‘vз:t∫ə] Rhythmic tendency – regular alternation of stressed and unstressed syllables (3 or more) that creates rhythm and has led to the appearance of the secondary stress. E.g. ME diso’beien – NE ,diso’bei VowelsEnglish vowels proved to be more changeable than consonants. Long vowels proved to be more changeable than short ones.
Middle EnglishThe changes that occurred to vowels in ME were as follows:
1)Quantitative: 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. In unstressed position only two vowels were left – [ə] and [i]. They had never been contrasted. In NE sound [ə] (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. Shortening –all long vowels became short before consonant clusters (NB!! except [ld, nd, mb] –before these clusters vowels remained long or if a vowel was short it became long). Lengthening (12th – 13th c.) –short vowels became long: 1)before clusters [ld, nd, mb]; 2)in 2-syllable words, only to [e, o, a]in open stressed syllable.
2)Qualitative:The system of vowels in ME were no longer symmetrical as it was in OE. Short Vowels: 1)[y]changed to [i]e.g. OE hyll – ME hill (hill); 2)[æ]changed to [a]e.g. OE wæs – ME was (was). Long Vowels: 1)[ỹ]changed to [ī]; 2)[ǽ]fell together with [έ]; 3)[ā]changed to [ō]e.g. OE stān – ME sto[o:]ne(stone). OE diphthongs turned into monophthongs: ĭě/īē ài, ĕŏ/ēō àe, ĕă/ēā à æ.
New diphthongs appeared due to vocalisation of [j], [γ]and [w]. These consonants turned into vowels ([i], [u]and [u] respectively) and became the glides of the new diphthongs.
New English: Great Vowel Shift – the change that happened in the 14th – 16th c.and affected all long monophthongs + diphthong [au]. As a result these vowels were: 1)diphthongized; 2)narrowed (became more closed); 3)both diphthongized and narrowed. This shift was not followed by spelling changes, i.e. it was not reflected in written form. Thus the Great Vowel Shift explains many modern rules of reading. There were exceptions though, e.g. put, pull, etc. Vocalisation of [r]:It occurred in the 16th – 17th c. Sound [r] became vocalised (changed to [ə] (schwa)) when stood after vowels at the end of the word. Consequences: 1)new diphthongs appeared: [εə], [iə], [uə]; 2)the vowels before [r] were lengthened (e.g. arm [a:m], for [fo:], etc.); 3)triphthongs appeared: [aiə], [auə] (e.g. shower [‘∫auə], shire [‘∫aiə]).