Summary of The Great Vowel Shift: Phonological and Sociolinguistic Aspects
The Great Vowel Shift: Phonological & Sociolinguistic Aspects
Introduction
Historical English phonology examines how the sound system of English has changed over time. This material focuses on phonological changes in vowel quality and quantity from Old English (OE) through Middle English (ME) into Early Modern English (EModE), with clear explanations, examples, and comparisons you can use for study and application.
Definition: Historical phonology is the study of systematic sound changes in a language over time and how those changes affect its phonemic structure.
1. Overview: What changed and why it matters
- Changes in vowel quality and vowel length were central to the development of modern English pronunciation.
- Many changes were systematic (affecting sets of sounds together) and influenced subsequent orthography and dialect variation.
2. Vowel quality vs. vowel quantity (length)
2.1 Vowel quality
- Vowel quality describes the position of the tongue and shape of the lips (e.g., /a/, /e/, /i/, /o/, /u/).
- Some OE long vowels retained their quality into ME (examples below). Others shifted in a patterned way.
Definition: Vowel quality is the characteristic sound produced by a vowel depending on tongue height, frontness, and lip rounding.
2.2 Vowel quantity (length)
- Vowel quantity refers to whether a vowel is short or long (phonemic length).
- In late OE and early ME, many OE long vowels were shortened before certain consonant clusters or doubled consonants; this affected later developments.
Definition: Vowel quantity is the temporal length of vowel articulation; in many periods of English, length distinguished different phonemes.
3. Specific developments from OE to ME
3.1 Minimal change in accented syllable vowel quality
- From OE to ME, accented-syllable vowel qualities changed little overall, but some important shifts occurred.
- Example: OE long a to ME o in certain words: OE barn → ME bɔːn (bone), OE bɑːt → ME bɔːt (boat).
3.2 The OE long æ and its outcomes
- OE long æ in spelling represented more than one phonetic reality:
- In some West Germanic contexts it represented /aː/.
- Outside West Saxon it could be a close /eː/ and remain /eː/ in ME (e.g., OE ded → ME ded; OE slepan → ME slepen).
- In many words OE /æ/ came from i-umlaut of /a/ and appears as a more open vowel that becomes /eː/ in ME (OE clæne → ME clene; OE dælan → ME delen).
- Result: the two historical values converged, giving ME words like deed, clean.
3.3 Preservation of some long vowels
- Several OE long vowels kept their original quality into ME:
- OE med → ME mede; win → wine; boc → bok; hus → hus.
3.4 Diphthong development
- OE diphthongs were largely simplified in ME.
- Most ME diphthongs are new formations resulting from a simple vowel + a following /i/ or /w/ that vocalized.
3.5 Quantity changes that affected later shifts
- Many OE long vowels were shortened in late OE or early ME when followed by a double consonant or certain consonant clusters.
- Examples: OE great → ME gretter; OE axian → ME asken; OE bacan → ME baken; OE etan → ME eten.
- Though seemingly minor, these quantity changes set up conditions for later phonological developments.
4. Chain-like system-wide vowel movement
- Large-scale shifts often behave like chain movements in the vowel space: when one set of vowels moves, others adjust to maintain contrasts.
- Linguists describe such patterns using terms like "push chain" and "drag chain" to capture whether the movement forced others to shift or created vacancies that others filled.
Definition: A chain shift is a sequence of interrelated sound changes where movement of one phoneme systematically triggers movement of others to preserve distinctiveness in the phonological system.
5. A sample chart of shifting outcomes (ME → EModE period)
- The f
Zaregistruj se pro celé shrnutíAlready have an account? Sign in
Historical English Phonology
Klíčové pojmy: Differentiate vowel quality (tongue/lips) from vowel quantity (length), OE long æ had multiple historical values that converged in ME, Several OE long vowels preserved their quality into ME (e.g., med→mede, win→wine), OE diphthongs were simplified; most ME diphthongs are new formations, Many OE long vowels were shortened before doubled consonants or clusters, Chain shifts describe coordinated system-wide movements of vowels, Push chain vs drag chain: movements can force or draw other shifts, Later monophthongization and raising refined vowels toward modern values, Historical phonology aids philology, dialect study, and pronunciation reconstruction, I-umlaut fronted vowels and contributed to vowel alternations in ME