Back mutation vs. OE Breaking

Back-mutation:

· Is considerably later

· Affects only short vowels

· Is much more sporadic

Mutation before h

Sometimes a vowel undergoes a phonetic change to the I-mutation in the words that contain no i or j with no grounds to suppose that such i or j was used in the prehistoric times.

e.g. * næht > neaht (OE Breaking) > nieht, niht, nyht

Contraction (absorption)

When on the loss of the intervocalic -h-, two vowels came to stand side by side in a sequence, the second of the two soon disappeared,

· leaving no trace at all, if the stressed vowel was long: POE *fōhan > OE fōn 'catch'

· Making the preceding stressed vowel a long diphthong, if it was short:

ah + v = eah + v = ēa

OE * slahan > slēan

eh / ih + v = ēo

OE *sehan > sēon

Quantitative Vowel changes in Old English
Quantitative vowel changes:

· Lengthening

· Shortening

Lengthening

OE short vowels were lengthened:

1. When they stood in open stressed syllables constituting separate words (Foot - final lengthening)

OE swā 'so' < PG *swa (Goth. swa)

2. Pre-cluster lengthening (around th 9th century)^ in mono- and dysyllabic words before clusters of a liquid or nasal followed by a voiced consonant (nd, mb, ld)

EO cild >cīld; OE ȝrund > ȝrūnd

NOTE: the lengthening did not take place when a third consonant followed such a cluster, as in cildru or in unstressed position, as in and, under.

3. Compensatory lengthening

a. As a result of the Ingveonic loss of nasals the preceeding vowel was probably nasalised and lengthened:

OE ūs < PG uns; OE fīf < Goth fimf

4. Loss of ȝ before dentals: in the position before dentals [n d ƀ l] OE ȝ was often lost, with a simultaneous lengthening of the preceeding vowel:

OE reȝn - rēn 'rain'

OE sæd(e) - sǣd(e) 'said'

Shortening

Long vowels were normally shortened in OE:

1. Before groups of three consonants (Pre-Cluster Shortening I - about the 7th c.)

Ȝōd 'good' + spell 'news' > ȝospell

Blōd + *isðjan >

2. Trisyllabic shortening I: at about the same time, long vowels also shortened before clusters of two consonants in stressed antepenultimate syllable:

Enleofam 'eleven' < */æ:nl-/

3. Before geminates, cf.:

Blīƀs and bliss, wīfman and wimman

The Old English Consonant System
The consonant phonemes of classical OE (excluding geminates):

	Labial	Dental	Palatal	Velar
Voiceless stops	/p/	/t/		/k/
Voiced stops	/b/	/d/		/g/
Fricatives	/f/	/Ɵ/		/x/
Sibilants (шиплячі)		/s/	/ʃ/
Affricates		/tʃ, dȝ/
Nasals	/m/	/n/
Liquids, approximates		/l, r/	/j/	/w/

Sound changes that affected consonants:

1. Palatalization

2. Voicing of fricatives

3. Ingveonic loss of nasals

4. Metathesis

5. Simplifications of geminates

6. Simplification of consonant clusters

7. Loss of /g'/ before dentals

Palatalization:

The process by which the velar consonant is fronted is called palatalization.

In prehistoric OE this phonetic process affected all the Germanic velar consonants: /k/, /g/, and the fricatives /x/ and /γ/.

A front vowel (I, ī, e, æ)

Velar consonant + or

Palatal consonant (j)

*[k] > [k'] > [tʃ]: ceosan, ceap, tæcan (choose, cheap, teach)

*[ g] > [g'] > [dȝ]: ecȝ, brycȝ, senȝan (edge, bridge, senge)

*[x] > [x'] > [x']: riht

*[γ] > [j] > [j]: ȝieldan, ȝeolu, ȝearn, dæȝes

*[sk] > [s'k'] > [ʃ]: scinan, sceal, fisc, wyscan

The affricate development is usually called assibilation.

RESULT: the new phonemes /ʃ, tʃ, dȝ/ were introduced, as well as [x'], the allophone of /x/. The incidence and distribution of /j/ was also extended drastically.

Voicing of fricatives:

Classical OE: voiced fricative are allophones of /f, Ɵ, h, s/. Their appearance resulted from:

First: Verner's Law:

[v] + [ß] must have been allophones of /b/, /x/ and /γ/ preserved initial contrast. *[ð] had already become [d]

Second:

· Voiceless fricatives become voiced when surrounded by voiced segments (typically vowels)

· This change fails if the fricative is initial in a stressed syllable (befæstan 'apply' keeps [f])

[f] > [v]: drīfan (voicing), drāf (unchanged), drifon (VL), drifen (VL)

[Ɵ] > [ð]: snīƀan (voicing), snāƀ (unchanged), snidon (VL), sniden (VL)

[s] > [z]: rīsan (voicing), rās (unchanged), rison (VL), risen (VL)

Note 1: OE spelling never shows these changes

Note 2: as [x] had already become [h] or been lost medially it was never affected by voicing

Two further developments:

· Devoicing: voiced fricatives in final positions became unvoiced: *burȝ > burh and *stæb > stæf 'letter'

· The voiced velar fricative became the stop [g] initially as in ȝōd 'good'

Дата добавления: 2015-08-03