OE phonology (cont.)

Consonants

‘Long’ consonants phonemic

• bed ‘prayer’ and bedd ‘bed’ were minimal pairs (M p.84)
• man ‘one’ and mann ‘man’ used to be too
  • in practice OE spelling is variable and you will find man(n) 'man'

[ŋ] was not a phoneme

• just an allophone of /n/ before velar stops
  • OE <sing> /sIŋg/ [cf. PDE <rink> is still /rIŋk/]

voiced fricatives [z], [v] and [ð] were not phonemic

• just allophones of /s/, /f/ and /θ/ between voiced sounds
• i.e. there were no ‘minimal pairs’ like feel and veal, seal and zeal

In a front vowel environment Gmc velar stops /k/ and /g/ -> alveopalatal affricate /č/ and alveopalatal semivowel /j/

• corn /k/ but cild /č/
• example of assimilation (neighbouring sounds become more like each other)

OE vowels (selection)

OE long vowels different from PDE

• pronounced differently
  • OE <mús> /mus/, OE <gós> /gos/, OE <gés> /ges/
• and there was a high front rounded vowel y

Modern transcription                  OE words

i,  y              u          <rídan><mýs>             <mús>

                                       <fýlð>                 <fúl>

e                  o                 <gés>                 <gós>

                                       <fédan>               <fód>

æ:                α:                <hæ:lan>             <hα:l>

 

Important sound change called Front mutation (=i/j mutation)

• occurred between Gmc and OE
• caused irregularities within and between paradigms:
  • e.g. singular gós has plural gés

Irregularities are illustrated here first with PDE examples

§       explains irregularities WITHIN paradigms of the 'same' word

o     noun plurals: goose, geese

o    comparative adjective form: old, elder

o    past and present tense forms of a few irreg verbs: sought, seek

§       explains different root vowels of derived words

•   e.g. verbs and their related nouns/adjectives
  • food, feed
  • whole, heal
  • tale, tell
  • lust, list (archaic)
• e.g. nouns and their related adjectives
  • foul, filth
  • strong, strength

§         in all of these cases, the vowel in the second form has been either

·        ‘fronted’ (if back), e.g. from high back /u/ to high front /y/ or

·        ‘raised’ (if low)

 

One example of front mutation with */gósiz/, plural of */gós/

1. *gósiz ->
2. mid back vowel /o/ fronts to mid front vowel /e/ in *gésiz ->
3. inflexion disappears to produce OE gés

 

Conditions for front mutation

• affects vowels in stressed syllables
• followed by an unstressed syllable containing a high front sound
• /i/
• /j/ [the semivowel like it]
• sounds present in Gmc/early OE inflexions like
• plural *iz
• comparative/superlative adjective *ir, *ist
• abstract noun suffix *iθ
• verb-forming suffix *jan

Another example

1.    Input                               *mús           *mús-Iz

2.    Front mutation              *mús           *mýs-Iz

3.    I/j-deletion                     *mús           *mýs

4.    Output                          mús             mýs

It happened after palatalization of /k/ and /g/

1.    WGmc input                     *kinni ‘chin’          *kunnj- ‘kin’

2.    Palatalization of /k/->/č/          *činni                  *kunnj-

near front vowel

3.    Front mutation                        *činni                  *kynnj-

if possible

4.    I/j deletion                                   *činn                     *kynn

5.    OE spelling                          cinn                       cynn

Sound changes and loanwords

Front mutation also explains

§       how scholars date Latin loanwords as ‘continental’ (early): the Latin loans must have been in OE in time to undergo front mutation, since the Latin words have back vowels and the OE words have front vowels

• Latin uncia -> OE ynce
• Latin strata -> OE strae:t
• Latin puteus -> OE pytt

§       NB we have to infer that in spoken Latin, the second syllable has an /i/ or /j/,

e.g. classical Latin puteus -> Vulgar Latin *putj-

 

Another early OE sound change: */sk/ -> /š/

*/skip/ -> /šip/ <scip>

If loanwords have /š/ then we know they had been borrowed in time to undergo this change

• OE disc /dIš/ an early borrowing from Latin

Any word in English pronounced /sk/ postdates this change. So,

• school from Latin
• skill from ON
• skipper from Middle Dutch or German