Writings in Middle English
Е. О. Кущ
ТЕКСТИ (конспект) лекцій з дисципліни
Історія англійської мови. Середньоанглійський
та новоанглійський періоди
для студентів спеціальності 6.030500 “Філологія”
Тексти (конспект) лекцій з дисципліни “Історія англійської мови. Середньоанглійський та новоанглійський періоди” для студентів усіх форм навчання спеціальності 6.030500 “Філологія” /Укл.: доцент, к.філ.н., Е.О. Кущ. - Запоріжжя: ЗНТУ, 2013. – 60 с.
Укладач: Е.О. Кущ, доцент, к.філ.н.
Рецензент: Г.Б. Підгорна, доцент, к.філ.н.
Відповідальний
за випуск: Е.О. Кущ, доцент, к.філ.н.
Затверджено
на засіданні кафедри “Теорії і практики перекладу”
Протокол № 2
від “18” вересня 2013 р.
CONTENTS
1. General characteristics of the Middle English Period....................4
2. Writings in Middle English……………………………………..12
3. Phonetic Changes in Middle English…………………………...14
4. Middle English Morphology. Middle English Noun ...................20
5. The Article....................................................................................22
6. Middle English Adjective.............................................................23
7. Middle English Verb...................................................................23
8. Middle English Vocabulary..........................................................28
9. Middle English Syntax …………………………………………30
10. General Characteristics of the Early New English
Period...........................................................................................31
11. Phonetic Changes in the Early New English Period..................39
12. Early New English Grammar. Nouns and Adjectives................42
13 The Verb in Early New English ……………………………….44
14. Early New English Syntax and Vocabulary...............................50
15. Expansion of English…………………………………………..54
1. General characteristics of the Middle English Period
Traditionally it is considered that the Middle English period begins from the year 1066, the most significant event in English history, the event that changed the official, prevalently Germanic language of the population into a colloquial tongue, an adulterated with numerous borrowings and utterly spoiled and pigionized vernacular, which had to lead continuously and strenuously struggle to survive, and when it at last re-emerged as an official state language it was changed beyond recognition. Much can be said about the reasons and the processes that took place in this period, and historical background, of course, is of paramount importance to understand why it happened. A brief survey of historic events of the period is needed, to get a better understanding of the linguistic consequences of these events.
The event that preceded the Norman conquest and paved the way to it was the Scandinavian invasion. This event is probably less memorable, yet it prepared the ground for further changes in the society as well as in the language. Scandinavians (then simply Danes, for Swedish, Norse, Danish in those times simply were not yet discerned within the language commonly known as Old Norse) were old rivals of the English, and were troubling Anglo-Saxons ever since their settlement on the Isles. They occasionally raided into their territory, looted the monasteries, and in many respects interfered with the life of the local population. Through the so-called Wedmore peace treaty King Alfred of Wessex in 878 yielded a considerable part of the country to economic control of the Danes so that the latter could come and levy taxes from the population; the territory was called Danelaw and in the long run this rather shameful treaty contributed to the peaceful and happy life of the Southern part of the country, and the majority of written monuments of Anglo-Saxon culture are dated back to those happy years.
Chronicles, translations of Latin works on geography, the beginnings of grammar, numerous religious texts and finally the very text of the most significant epic poem, Beowulf, are dated back to the years of King Alfred and the Danelaw. The ^andinavians, for their part, not only came to collect money but comprehended that the very territory of the islands was much more suitable for living and economic activity and moved and settled there. They mixed with the local population, and without much effort penetrated into that community which was to become the basis for the English nation. Their languages were similar, so mutual understanding was not specifically difficult, only some simplification was needed as is usual when languages differ in particulars. These particulars, i.e. endings and other unnecessary details might be omitted without significant effort. Yet as time passed, the English kings were less and less apt to recognise the Wedmore accords, and the Scandinavians, that had already tasted the advantages of these territories grew more intent on getting still more, and the onslaughts were resumed. They resulted in the 1013 Scandinavian invasion of King Sweyn, and the additional almost 30 years of Scandinavian rule. King Sweyn started the process, and in 1016 his son Canute (or Knut) became the ruler of England. The invasion was not utterly ferocious; of course there were victims and many people were killed, but seeing that there was no prospect for further resistance, king Aethelred fled to Normandy, and the whole country was controlled by the Scandinavians. The invaders came with their families, intermarried and intermixed with the local population, and finally were absorbed ethnically and linguistically by if, the relations between the languages were considerably equal, and the influence of the Scandinavian on the English language was moderate.
Morphologically it resulted in reduction or levelling of endings which were different in the two languages (compare fiskr -fisc; dxj - dagr; jrlpan - gripa; sittan - sitia), and the loss of the category of gender whatsoever for the same words might have different genders in the two languages (compare собака, степь, боль, живопись, рукопись, корь, посуда which are feminine in Russian while their Ukrainian counterparts arc masculine: собака, степ, біль, живопис, рукопис, кір, посуд). Both languages had agreement of adjectives and pronouns with the nouns they modified, and so not to think about the endings (степ широкий чи широка, біль сильний чи сильна) unsophisticated speakers simply dropped the endings, thus extinguishing a whole category from the language.
The lexical borrowings of this period came equally in many spheres of life and sometimes they denoted some things really absent in the Old English. Perhaps winded je - window was a specific oval kind of an opening in the dwelling that only the Scandinavians knew, or feologa - fellow - that was a kind of specific relations between people when they shared common property and conducted some economic activity jointly. These were not originally found in the English society, but borrowing of the others cannot be accounted for reasonably: lagu - law; wrang - wrong; husbonda - husband, casten - to cast, taken - to take, skye - sky.
So, during the invasion such words were borrowed from the Old Nursias they, them, their; ill, ugly, ransack; skate, sky, skirt, skill, skin, scatter, egg, give, guess, guest. Old English words jiefan, jietan, sej, jiest thus were dropped and replaced by Scandinavian borrowings; such word as shirt coexists with skirt, shatter with scatter, shin with skin; but the words now are different in meaning.
Sometimes it was only new meaning from the Scandinavian that replaced the original meaning of an Old English word: dream that meant joy acquired the meaning dream in a sleep; holm, formerly ocean acquired the meaning island,changed from cultivated land to plough; deyen (to die) was borrowed and Old English verb that had meaning steorfan acquired a new meaning of to stance.So, the English language of the period that preceded the Norman conquest was significantly changed and simplified, and the drastic changes that followed fell onto the prepared linguistic soil.
As is known from history, after the Scandinavian conquest the English king joined his sister who was married to a Norman Duke in Normandy, and his son Edward the Confessor was brought up in the French environment. The English court enjoyed Norman hospitality, and Edward, who was childless constantly reminded William Duke of Normandy, that after his death the only legitimate heir to the English crown was just he, William as the next in line. When in 1042 the Anglo-Saxon barons who remained in England managed to oust the Scandinavians, according to the custom of period it was Edward who regained the rule in England, though he himself did little to do it. On his return, he brought many councillors of French origin, and the language Edward knew much better than English was French: the latter spoken in the English court even before the Normans. The Anglo-Saxon barons among whom was the powerful Earl Godwin of Wessex, however, controlled a significant part of the territory and hoped that after the Edward's death power would pass to one of them, and when Edward died in 1066, they elected Harold Godwin king of England. As soon as the news reached William, the Duke was simplyenraged, and mustered a big army by promising lands and positions to his mercenaries - only one third of his soldiers were Normans, the others were from other parts of France and Europe in general. William had the support of the Pope as well. His army crossed the English Channel and on October 14 at the battle of Hastings, 1066, routed the English army, that was smaller and had to guard the northern areas from the recently driven out Scandinavians. King Harold was killed, and William proceeded to London where the Witenagamot officially proclaimed him the King. On Christmas Day, 1066 his coronation took place in the Westminster Abbey. It took him several years to subjugate the whole country; and this process was marked by almost complete extinction of the old Anglo-Saxon nobility (he had promised lands, posts and estates to his allies, so the previous owners of these had to die or disappear). Practically all Archbishops and Barons were either killed in action, executed or emigrated leaving to the Normans whatever they had. William himself became the owner of one-third of the lands in the country, and Norman castles of the period are scattered all over England. He had some difficulties in managing the country; it was much easier for the native barons to collect taxes from the peasants they knew and whose language they spoke. So in 1086 William organised the great census - the Doomsday book was written registering the English population (in turned out to be about 2 mln?). He was the ruler of Normandy as well, and his domain was situated on the continent as well as on the island.
Following the Conquest many other Normans crossed the channel, and enlarged the population of England. The approximate number of French settlers was about 200 000. After the Civil war in the reign of king Stephen (1135-1154) new settlers made use of the anarchy in the country and seized the remaining lands. They spoke French, which, though had some peculiarities - it was, in fact, the language learned by the ethnic Germanic tribe of nordmonna that settled in that part of Europe yet in the 9th century. For almost three centuries the French language was the official language of the English kingdom; it was the language of the royal court, the church, courts of law, army and the castle. Education, as it was mainly controlled by the church was also in French, though the Latin language was traditionally also taught.
People in towns and cities spoke French, and English was debased to the speech of common churls from the country: it was mainly spoken and mutilated beyond recognition by the efforts of mutual understanding of the uneducated peasants and uneducated French soldiers, and the French population in general. A good knowledge of French was the sign of higher standing and gave a person a certain social prestige. Probably, some considerable part of the English population was already bilingual. A curious situation occurred when a nobleman was less expert in languages than common peasants. Several stories bear evidence that in some strained circumstances when a mighty bishop had to flee away from the anger of his sovereign Richard Coer de Lion, he to his utter surprise found out that common people, addressing him in English could speak French and understand him, while he was unable to speak or understand their language.
Peace in the country was however rather hard to maintain. In 1203 John the Lackland lost the original possessions of the Norman Dukes in Normandy, and probably that led - first only very slightly - to the feeling of hurt pride and was the first stimulus to reinstating the English language. But it took decades for the first recognition of this language. It was not until 1258 that king Henry III let the language into official use - his famous Proclamation to the councillors in the parliament was written in three instead of the earlier two languages - French, Latin and English.
The three hundred years of French domination affected the English language enormously.The first English kings after the Conquest did not know the English language; Henry IV, who succeeded Richard II on the throne in 1399, was the first king since Harold II whose mother tongue was English. But still in mid-14 century (1362), under King Edward II the Parliament acting on the petition of the City of London ruled that the courts of law should conduct their business in English. In the same year English was first used in the Parliament itself. About this time French was replaced by English in schools.
Why didn't the English language die altogether? Why was it not absorbed into the dominant Norman tongue? Three reasons are usually given. First - it was too well established, too vigorous, and too hardy to be obliterated. The English speakers, in spite of all, demographically prevailed, and they were not going to stop speaking it just because they were conquered. Second - to quell the natural resentment of their English subjects the Normans willy-nilly picked up some English to survive, and in this case the co-existence of the English and the Normans was more peaceful. Third - king John, later called the Lackland, lost most of the English possessions in France; by 1206, Philip II of France had conquered Anjou, Normandy, and Brittany. That did not re-introduce English into official use, but the country was no longer territorially bilingual. French was the language of the higher classes within the country the majority of the population of which was English-speaking.
There were other factors contributing to the revival of English. Among them the Hundred Years' War with France 1337-1454 (the name traditionally given to the Anglo-French conflicts that occurred between 1337 and 1453, but a more accurate set of dates would be the 150-year period from 1294 to 1444); an outbreak of mysterious disease known as The Black Death that is estimated to have killed off from 25 percent to 50 percent of the European population between 1347 and 1351 (mainly those that lived in cities, and in England that was the French-speaking part). The people that came later to the cities and towns from the rural territories brought with them their own, though much simplified and full of French borrowings, native English language.
Reduced population as a result of the Black Death (1349) made tenants and laborers scarce, encouraging impoverished peasants as well as prosperous artisans and urban workers to demand abolition of serfdom, an easing of the restrictions of the manorial courts, and repeal of the Statute of Labourers (1351), which aimed at imposing a maximum wage. Unrest peaked when a poll tax of a shilling a head was imposed (1380). Its collection sparked revolt simultaneously in Kent and Essex. Scared by the scale of the revolt and to pacify the rebels, King Richard II (then a boy) spoke to the peasants in English.
William Caxton, the first English printer is one of the most remarkable personalities. He introduced the printing press around 1476; he was the first editor-publisher, printing the works of G. Chaucer. W. Caxton's decision to reproduce the English of London and the South-east was crucial. He and his successors gave a special currency to London English. The effects of the French language on the Middle English are hard to overestimate. The changes in spelling that took place in that period laid the basis for present-day English spelling, a great number of words came into the language and the majority of them are still used, fully assimilated and no longer perceived as borrowings. The English grammar was much simplified. The language under Norman rule lost its natural immunity to foreign influence, the nationalistic spirit guarding the purity of the language was muffled, which made the language more liberal, more tolerant to variation and more flexible. And yet despite the many French loanwords, English remained English, not a dialect of French. English grammar, as opposed to vocabulary, remained virtually unaffected by French, and grammatical developments that had begun much earlier during Anglo-Saxon times continued without interruption through the Conquest. Even today it is still obvious that the grammatical structure of English resembles that of German far more than it resembles that of French.
It is at that time that English surnames, family names appeared. In Old English it was enough to be called Aethelred, son of Alfred. First, this was reduced to the suffix - son: Johnson, Thompson; then place names came into use, then occupation; if a person was a foreigner then his nationality might become a surname. The linguistic consequences of Scandinavian and Norman Conquests are presented in the tables:
Table 1
Linguistic Consequence of Scandinavian Invaasion
| OE Lazu Outlazu wǽpnazetǽc zriþ liþ òrenz husband laze skin Among them: nouns adjectives verbs pronouns | NE Law Outlaw Wapentake Peace Fleet Warrior Husband Leg Skin anger knife wing gate egg bull root seat sister skirt calf score smile window steak flat odd wrong low ugly ill rotten loose scant cast droop rise want give call guest scream smile take drown get seem die they (thai) theire same theym (theime) bathe (both) |
Table 2
Scandinavian suffixes in geographical names
| -by (O Sc byr-town) -dale (O Sc dalr-valley) -toft (O Sc toft-a grey spot) -ness (O Sc nes-cape) -beck (O Sc bakkr-rivulet) -wick, -wich (O Sc vik-bay) | Derby, Kirkby, Whitby Londsdale, Avondale Langtoft Inverness, Earthness Troutbeck Greenwich, Wicklow |
Table 3
Linguistic Consequences of the Norman Conquest
Borrowings from the Norman Dialect of French
| Semantic spheres | Examples | |
| Government and administration | crown state government reign | country? power minister parliament |
| Social relations | people (OE ðeod) | nation |
| Feudal system | feudal | vassal |
| Names of titles | prince peer duke | marquise baron viscount |
| Adjectives relating to court life | courteous noble fine | refined honour glory |
| Military terms | army battle arms march banner war peace | siege admiral officer enemy soldier force troops guard |
| Law terms | justice judge accuse jury | court traitor attorney crime |
| Church words | religion angel service saint | abbey miracle clergy pray |
| Words connected with cuisine | souse soup | roast sausage toast supper |
| Art and architecture | image figure design ornament | arch column tower cloister pillar palace |
Writings in Middle English
The English language existed in the form of several dialects at the very beginning of the Middle English period. The Southern group of dialects represented by the descendants of Kentish, West and East Saxon dialects of Old English. The following literary documents exemplify it: South-Eastern, or Kentish (Dan Michel's "Ayenbite of inwit" 1340; William of Shoreham's "Poems" early 14th century, "Poema morale" (anonymous) early 13 th c.); South-Western (Layamon's "Brut", contains elements of the Midland dialect, too 13 c., "Ancren Riwle" (Statute for Nuns) 13 c, Robert of Gloucester's "Rhymed Chronicle" ab. 1300, John Trevisa's "Polychronicon"', translation from Latin 1387.
Midland, or central dialects are subdivided into: West Midland, where the best known literary works are:
"William of Palerme" (romance, early 13 c);
"Sir Gawaine and the Green Knight" (14 c); and East Midland, where such works were written as
Peterborough Chronicle (a sequel to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle)
Robert Mannyng of Bourne's "Handlyng Synne" - about 1300
"King Horn" romance 13 c;
"Havelock the Dane" - 13 c;
metric homilies of Orm "Ormulum" 13 c;
Genesis, Exodus (religious poems) 13 c. The dialect of London belonged to the same group of Midland dialects, and is also represented by a group of works: the Proclamation by Henry III 1258, the earliest official document written in Middle English, the poem "Evil Times of Edward IF, Adam Davy's "Poems" dated by early 14th century.
But real masterpieces of the period written in London dialect are the works of J. Gower and G. Chaucer. The poems of John Gower (1330-1408), a poet whose work, although largely neglected today, was once favorably compared with that of his friend Geoffrey Chaucer were very popular. Gower wrote in Latin and French, but his masteipiece is the long poem in English, "Confessio Amantis" (1390). Mixing medieval learning with classical stories often taken from the Latin poet Ovid, it discusses the Seven Deadly Sins and also develops the theme of courtly love with considerable rhetorical skill and delicacy.
Geoffrey Chaucer (1340-1400), is recognized as one of England's greatest poets. Modern study of the setting of his art has made clear that in his work there is a range of subtlety surpassing that of all other medieval writers, with the exception of Dante Alighieri. He is best remembered for The Canterbury Tales. But his contribution to language development and English literature is not limited to it. He was an able translator, having a good command of three languages (Latin, French and Italian); he did much to bring the masterpieces of world literature to the English reader. His earliest models were probably French, the culture most familiar to the English court. A surviving copy of a partial translation of "Le Roman de la Rose" may be his; Chaucer claims to have translated that most influential poem, and echoes of it abound in much that he wrote. He also translated (1380) a number of meditative Latin works whose terms had been, and would increasingly become, important in his own artistic terminology: Boethius's "Consolation of Philosophy" Pope Innocent Ill's "On the Misery of the Human Condition", the translation of which is lost but survives in part in the Canterbury Tales in the "Man of Law's Tale" and "A Life of Saint Cecilia" from the "Golden Legend". He may also have translated a condensed French version of part of the "Book of Consolation and Counsel" by Albertanus of Brescia, which appears as the "Tale of Melibeus" in "The Canterbury Tales".
At about the same time Chaucer also wrote or began to write a satirical dream-vision, "The Parliament of Fowls" (1382), "The Legend of Good Women", an unfinished series of nine so-called lives of Cupid's saints like Cleopatra and Dido, and "Trailus and Criseyde". "The latter, being", a penetrating and humane "tragedy" in five books and more than 8,200 lines in rhymed royal stanzas, is often called the finest of all medieval romances.
Between 1386 and his death Chaucer sought to complete The Canterbury Tales, an undertaking which, in its final form, would have presented 30 tellers and tales within a unified dramatic and philosophical design. Twenty-four tales, a few of them incomplete, were written. They range from the lofty to the scurrilous. Chaucer made consummate use of all the intellectual and poetic possibilities of his day and expanded them. He subtly adapted language and perspectives to his individual tellers and thus established a model for Shakespeare and the Elizabethan dramatists.
Chaucer's generous good humor, wit, and ability to tell a good story well have always been recognized. Today he is generally valued, in addition, as a highly sophisticated intellectual writer who incorporated into his poetry the major philosophical and artistic concerns of his age. He did so with an apparent ease achieved by no other English poet before Shakespeare.
The Northern dialects developed from Old English Northumbrian. In the Middle English such works as Richard Rolle de Hampole's "The Pricke of Conscience" (14 c.), Townley Plays (14 c.) and York Plays (early 15 c.) appear in this dialect.
Scotland, separate though closely related with the English state at that time, developed a distinct dialect of English - Lowland Scots that has been significant as a literary language since the time of John Barbour's Bruce (1375) and the works of the 15th-century Scottish Chaucerians Gawin Douglas, Robert Henryson, and William Dunbar, whose poetry was notable for its satirical and epic qualities and its richness of language.
John Barbour (1316-1395) is often considered Scotland's first identifiable poet. While archdeacon of Aberdeen (1357-95) he wrote the national epic romance "The Bruce" (1375). This work, based largely on fact, celebrates Scotland's victory under King Robert the Bruce over the English at the Battle of Bannockburn (1314).
There was no general standard in spelling as well as in choice of words and grammatical forms, but the London dialect as that of the political center of the country gradually develops into the prevailing and officially recognized.
The material for analysis chosen in our study will be limited to the samples from Geoffrey Chaucer's works as the most representative of the general line of the language development.
3. Phonetic Changes in Middle English
In the ME period a great change affected the entire system of vowel phonemes. OE both short and long vowel phonemes could occur in any phonetic environment, so they were absolutely independent phonemic units. As a result of important changes coming into the vowel system in the 10-th-12th centuries, the ME vowel system was basically disserent. While in OE quantity (length/shortness) was a distinctive phonemic feature, in ME (by the 13th century) this is nolonger so. Quantity of vowels becomes dependent on their environment, to be exact, on what follows. With a few exceptions the situation in ME is briefly this: in some phonetic environments only short vowels can appear, while in other phonetic environments only long vowels can appear. The quantity (length/shotness( of a vowel is with few exceptions still to be considered unambiguously predetermined by the envirnonment. Thus quantity ceases being a phonemically relevant feature and becomes a merely phonetic peculiarity of a vowel sound.
A long vowel occurring before consonants (including doubled) is shortened: fedan (OE) – fedde (ME)- feed (NE). The vowels are shortened before two consonants, but remain long in other environment. However, long vowels remain long before the ‘lengthening’ consonant groups ld, nd, mb, st, rd, ng, i.e. those consisting of two voiced consonants articulated by the same organ of speech: wenan, wende (OE) – wende (ME) – think (NE).
In the 13th century short vowels were lengthened in open syllbles. This was another item of the development which deprived quantity of its status as a phonemic fearyre. Lengthening affected the short vowels a,e,o. In the Northern dialects it started in the 12th century and in the 13th it spread all over the England. The long vowels e, o which resulted from this change were open vowels, thus long e from short e coincided with long e from æ and long ea; the long o from short o with long o from long (in Midland and Southern dialects): caru – care, talu-tale. The narrow vowels I and u remained as a rule unaffected by this change and thus the difference between short I and long I and also between short and long u retained its quality as a phonemically relevant feature. In a few words, however, the narrow vowels were wodened in the process, thus short I changed into long em short u changed into long o, as in wikes – wekes (weeks), dures – dores (doors), This change mainly occurred in the Northern dialect. It partly also affected the East Midland dialect.
OE short a usually remains unchanged in ME. OE a/o befor nasal developed differently in different dialects, In West Midland o was preserved: mon (man), con (can). In other dialects, that is in Northern, East Midland and Southern we find a: man, can. OE long a also developed in different ways in different dialects. IN the Northern dialect it remained unchanged, while in Midland and Southern it changed into long open o. Thus, in all dialects, except the Northern, the following changes took place: ham – hom (home), rad – rod (rode). OE short æ in most dialects developed in short a: wæs – was. However, in the West Midland and Kentish dialects OE æ changed into e: gled, wes. OE West Saxon long æ changed into long open e, as in slæpan – slepen (sleep), in other dialects (northern Midland and Kentish) this æ had changed into closed e.
OE short y developed differently in different dialects. In Northern and East Midland it changed into short I, that is it was unrounded. In Kentish short y became e, that is it was both unrounded and widened. In the remaining dialects (West Midland and South-Westerm) short y remained unchanged. In this way OE words containing an y-sound, were split in ME into three dialectal variants: hyll (OE) – hill, hell, hyll. OE long y developed in the sameway as short y. OE long and short e, long and short I and short o were unchanged in ME. OE long o mostly remained unchanged: boc – bok. However, in the Northern dialects the long o began to develop into long u in the 13th century. OE short u and long u remained unchanged in ME.
All OE dipthongs were monophthongized in ME. OE short ea became a passing through the stage æ, as in eals – ald (old). OE ea before ld yielded different results in dofferent dialects: in Southern dialects – eals –eld (with long e); in Midland dialects an a corresponded to southern ea. Before ld this short a was lengthened into long a, and the long a changed into long open o. OE eas before h and the cluster ‘h+ consonant’ also yielded different results: eah into eh,eih (in Sothern dialects), eah into ah, auh (in Northern and Midland dialects). OE long ea changed into open long e, as in deawe – fewe (few). In Kentish dialect long OE ea developed into ye, ya, as in dead – dyed, dyad.
OE short eo changed first into the long vowel o, which survived in Wesy Midland and South-Western dialects until the 14th century. In other dialects it became e in the 12th century: heorte – herte. OE long eo changed into long closed e, often spelt ee, as in deop – deep, deor-deer. OE west Saxon ie,i,y after a palatal consonant yielded in ME South-Western dialect an I or u, in other dialects OE e without dipthongization is preserved: yeten, yelden (given).
An important change characteristic of the ME perios affected the unstressed vowles. All of them were as a rule weakened and reduced to a neutral vowel like Ə, which was denoted by the letter e. Thus, for exaple the infinitive suffix an was reduced to en, as in bindan – binden, tellan – tellen. The nominative plural ending as became es, as in stanas – stones. The weakening of unstressed vowles is closely connected with the developments in declension and conjugation. Whereas the stressed position allows a distinction of many vowle phonemes, the number of unstressed vowle phonemes was greatly reduced in ME.
Significant changes also took place in the system of consonants in ME. OE palatal c, which occurred initially befor front vowels except those which were a result of mutation, medially before i and finally after i developed ibto the affricate ʧ as in cild – child. In the Nortern dialects anfd in the northern part of the Midland variants are also found with k-sound. The preservation of the K-sound in the verbs (seken(seek), thinken (think) may also be due to the influence of the short forms of the 2-nd and 3-rd persons singular present indicative. OE clister cs changed into ʃ: scip – ship.
The OE long consonant denoted by the spellin cʒ developed into the voice affricate dʒ, as in brycʒ - bridge. In the Sourthen dialects initial f become voiced, as in f æder – vader (father). In Kent initial s in words of OE was also voiced as in synne – zenne (sin). In a few words the consonants v when followed by another consonant changed into u.
New dipthongs arise in ME, basically different in type from the OE dipthongs, which were monopthongized in ME. The new dipthongs originate from groups consisting of a vowel and either a palatal or a velar fricative. The palatal fricative ʒ [j] and the velar spirant ʒ [ɣ] are vocalized, cpmbime with the preceding vowel, and yield dipthongs of a new type.
The palatal consonant yields dipthongs in –I, and the velar one, which seems to have possessed a labial element in its articulation from the outset, yields dipthongs in –w.
The following changes took place accordingly:
rise of dipthongs in –i;
rise of dipthongs in –w;
rise of front vowels;
rise of long back labialized vowels.
When a vowel was followed by the voiceless spirant h, a glide developed between them and a dipthong arose: a+h – auh, augh (naht-naught); in Midland and Sothern dialects a+h – ough (dah – dough); in Northern dialect a+h - agh (dagh); o+h –ough (brohte – broughte); long o + h – ough, ugh (ploh – plough). The ü changed in the 13th century into u befor ʧ, lʧ, dʒ, n ʧ, ʃ (OE mycel (large) – ME mu ʧƏl).
The ME sound system, as prepresented, for example in Chaucer’s works, differs materially from OE system, as found in the works of king Alfred. So the following changes took place:
oe diphtongs of the ea or eo type have disappeared;
dipthongs of the ei, ai type have arisen;
vowel quantity (shortness/length) has become dependent on phonetic environment;
the affricates ʧ, dʒ have arisen;
vowel quantity has lost its phonemic significance, that is two vowel phonemes can no longer be distinguished by quantity – length vs. shortness, thus the number of vowel phonemes has been reduced;
the appearance of the new dipthongs ai, ei, au, ou marks the rise of four new vowel phonemes;
the number of consonant phonemes has increased, the sounds f and v, s and z which in OE had been allophones of one phoneme, dependent on the environment, have become separate phonemes, no longer dependent on the environment
For various reasons - nobody knows what the primary and what the secondary reason of the most fundamental changes in Middle English language structure were. The first change in the phonological system to be mentioned is the levelling of sounds - vowels in the unstressed syllables. As we know. Old Englishhad a fixed stress on the first syllable. So not only the final, but also middle sounds in polysyllabic words tend to change various sounds to one neutral sound shwa, [3] marked as e. In Old English at the end of the words we might find whatever sound: cara, cam, care - now all the forms merged into one care; in this way we may say that the paradigm was simplified; at the same time in verbs various endings also merged into a single sound form -writan, writen, writon - writen; writad, writed- to writethfy\nu\ sounds m and n are pronounced indistinctly in such forms and are also on the way to being lost altogether: carum, stanum - care, stone. Final n was either pronounced or not depending on the following sound - and so we have variants in some forms (the form of the infinitive writen - write).
In the unstressed syllables of the verb forms most frequent is the case that it was preserved in the forms of the participle, and tended to be lost in the infinitive; but even in the participles it was lost if the root of the word already had a nasal sound (binden - bound - bounden - later simply bound; exceptions are possible, and in present day English we have cases of variant forms of the participles, say got - gotten (Br.-Am.); but always forgotten).
The same phenomenon is seen in the numeral an (one) that became an indefinite article (a) in present day English, and in possessive pronouns mine and thine that have forms my and thy if they are not followed by a noun that begins with a vowel.
With the stressed vowels the situation was different. Here we may mention the general tendency as well as the behaviour of various individual vowels.
There were quantitative changes in vowels. In Old English a short or a long vowel might be found in any position; they were absolutely independent phonemic units. The Middle English vowel system was basically different-The quantity of vowels becomes dependent on the environment, on what followsjhevowel. With a few exceptions the situation in Middle English is briefly this: in some phonetic environment only short vowels are possible; in the other the vowels are invariably long. Thus quantity becomes a positional characteristic of a sound.
First, a long vowel before two consonants (including a geminated consonant marking a long consonant sound) is shortened; the exception here are the clusters mb, Id, nd (i.e. two voiced sonorants) or when the two consonants belonged to the second syllable of the word {masste, lest -> most; least).Compare: OE сёрап - cepte ME kepen, kepe - kept; OE fedan -fedde - ME feed - fed
In the 13th century short vowels were lengthened in the open syllables. This lengthening affected the short vowels a, o, e. cam - care became similar to words formerly having short vowel: talu - tale, и and 1 mainly remained unaffected.
The most significant change was monophthongization of Old English diphthongs. The sounds that appeared as a result of this process were not new to the English language - they simply coincided with the sounds that already existed in the language, in many cases returning the vowel to its previous quality, which was changed in the course of breaking, diphthongization after palatal consonants, and mutations: short ea —>æ—>a, short eo —> e closed (e).
Long diphthongs behaved a little differently. The changes were as follows:
éą> æ -> æ(this sound might be represented by the letters e, ea) east - e:st Long eo merged with long open e (found mainly in the open syllables) and short eo with short closed e (in the closed syllables). Other important changes are:
long â turned into long o: st â n - stóne (stone) ham - home (home) Long and short у gave i in the north and east
u in the west
e in the south
So, all in all, the system of vowels contained short i, e closed, Ҽ open, а, о and и which developed i - from Old English, e - from Old English, a - from Old English, o- from Old English, u - from Old English. The origin of OE long vowels looks like the following: long I from OE, long closed e – from OE, a – from OE, a – from OE, o – from OE, u – form OE. The origin of OE long vowels looks like the following: long I form OE, long e – from OE, etc.
New diphthongs appeared in Middle English as a result of the changes in the consonant system of the language.
The changes in consonants were as follows:
к' - [tʃ] marked by ch
cild - child
cm - chyn, chin
sk' - [ʃl marked by sh (the process began in Old English but was completed in Middle English) sceal -shall sap - ship
h at the beginning of the word was lost in clusters hr, hi, hn, hw
The sound у (marked by j) in the intervocal position vocalised and turned into w, which led to the following diphthongs: a Ʒ- aw(au) draƷ an - drawen
Alongside the changed English sounds Middle English had a number of French unassimilated sounds паШге, nasal a, e, о and w, the consonant j. Their fate was to assimilate later. Joy, nature, simple, entren, abandoun, -the words with French sounds we have in present day-English are the borrowings from later periods.