Middle English phonetic sistem

CONTENTS 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

INTRODUCTION 

   The Middle English period was a time of unprecedentedly rapid development of the language. For the first three centuries English was only a spoken language, and as such had no norm and could develop without any restrain. All the elements of the language changed fundamentally.

   The development from the very Germanic and highly inflected language Old English into Middle English was in two main directions. Like Old English, Middle English was a language that varied greatly over time and space. Several distinct dialects can be distinguished through the period. All language development is of course continuous, and children can understand their parents, but the cumulative change from Middle English to the present Modern English means that Middle English is hard to read for modern English speakers without some teaching. So none of what follows is absolute truth. It must always be read with an understanding that it describes general trends, not actual changes. With that in mind, no precise dates can be given to define the period of Middle English. , Old English is the most appropriate name for the language spoken in some parts of the country into the thirteenth century; in other parts, Middle English was developing as early as the eleventh century..)

• Although Middle English retained much Germanic structure and basic vocabulary, the inflections were much simplified: for most everyday purposes, a speaker of Modern English finds no difficulty in the structures, inflection and word order of fourteenth century English.
• The aim of our work is to describe and compare changes in phonetic system in Old English, Middle English and New English periods.
• The scientific interest of this work can be the following: we will familiarize ourselves with consonant and vowel systems of Old English, Middle English and New English periods (in particular Middle English period); learn how sounds differ from each other during these periods, which monophtongs changed their quality in Middle English period, what certain changes in quantity underwent vowels under stress.
• According to this the tasks of the work will be the following:

      1) to analyze qualitative changes of  long and short vowels in Middle English;

2) to find out what changes did the unstressed vowels undergo in Middle               English and how did it affect the grammatical endings;

3) to find out vowels under stress and give examples;

      4) to find out which affricates and fricatives are appeared in the      consonant   system of the language.

       While analyzing this play we used different sources, for example: the textbook “A history of English language», different dictionaries and internet resources. 
 
 
 
 
 
 

CHAPTER 1. PHONETIC PROCESSES IN MIDDLE ENGLISH 

   1.1. The system of vowels

     In Old English stress usually fell on the first syllable of the word, rarely on its second syllable. Word stress in Old English was fixed: it never moved in inflection and seldom in derivation. This way of word accentuation was considerably altered in the succeeding periods. The word accent acquired greater positional freedom and began to play a more important role in word derivation. These changes were connected with the phonetic assimilation of thousands of loan-words adopted during the Middle English period. Gradually, as the loan-words were assimilated, the word stress was moved closer to the beginning of the word. It is known as the “recessive” tendency, e.g.: vertu [ver´tju:] became New English virtue [və:t∫ə]. In words of three or more syllables the shift of the stress could be caused by the recessive tendency and also by the “rhythmic” tendency. Under it, a secondary stress would arise at a distance of one syllable from the original stress. Sometimes the shifting of the word stress should be attributed not only to the phonetic tendencies but also to certain morphological factors. Thus stress was not shifted to the prefixes of many verbs borrowed or built in Late Middle English and in Early New English, which accords with the Old English rule: to keep verb prefixes unstressed, e.g.: present. Corresponding nouns sometimes received the stress on the first syllable: New English ΄present n - pre΄sent v; ΄discord n - dis΄cord v. The latter pairs of words show that the role of word accentuation has grown: word stress performs a phonological function as it distinguishes a verb from a noun.

     Unstressed vowels. In Early Middle English the pronunciation of unstressed syllables became increasingly indistinct. As compared to Old English, which distinguishes five short vowels in unstressed position [e/i], [a] and [o/u], Late Middle English had only two vowels in unaccented syllables: [ə] and [i], e.g.: Old English talu – Middle English tale [΄ta:lə] – New English tale, Old English bodiз – Middle English body [΄bodi] – New English body. The final [ə] disappeared in Late Middle English though it continued to be spelt as -e. When the ending –e survived only in spelling, it was understood as a means of showing the length of the vowel in the preceding syllable and was added to words which did not have this ending before, e.g.: Old English stān, rād – Middle English stone, rode [´stone], [´rode] – New English stone, rode. It should be remembered that while the Old English unstressed vowels thus were reduced and lost, new unstressed vowels appeared in borrowed words or developed from stressed ones, as a result of various changes, e.g.: the shifting of word stress in Middle English and New English, vocalization of [r] in such endings as writer, actor, where [er] and [or] became [ə].

     Qualitative vowel changes. Development of monophthongs

     Out of seven Old English short monophthongs: a, e, o, i, u, æ, y — two changed their quality in Middle English, thus [æ] became [a] and [y] became [i], the rest oft he monophthongs remaining unchanged, for example:

     Old English pæt — Middle English that, Old English wæs— Middle English was, Old English fyrst— Middle English first. But Old English tellan —Middle English tellen, Old English hors—Middle English hors, Old English singan— Middle English singen, Old English putan —Middle English putten.

     The Old English close labialized vowels [y] and [y:] disappeared in Early Middle English, merging with various sounds in different dialectal areas. The vowels [y] and [y:] existed in Old English dialects up to the 10^th century, when they were replaced by [e], [e:] in Kentish and confused with [ie] and [ie:] or [i] and [i:] in WS. In Early Middle English the dialectal differences grew. In some areas Old English [y], [y:] developed into [e], [e:], in others they changed to [i], [i:]; in the South-West and in the West Midlands the two vowels were for some time preserved as [y], [y:], but later were moved backward and merged with [u], [u:], e.g. Old English fyllan – Middle English (Kentish) fellen, (West Midland and South Western) fullen, (East Midland and Northern) fillen – New English fill. In Early Middle English the long Old English [a:] was narrowed to [o:]. This was an early instance of the growing tendency of all long monophthongs to become closer, so [a:] became [o:] in all the dialects except the Northern group, e.g.: Old English stān – Middle English (Northern) stan(e), (other dialects) stoon, stone – New English stone. The short Old English [æ] was replaced in Middle English by the back vowel [a], e.g.: Old English þǽt  Middle English that [Өat] New English that.

     Development of diphthongs. Old English possessed a well developed system of diphthongs: falling diphthongs with a closer nucleus and more open glide arranged in two symmetrical sets – long and short: [ea:], [eo:], [ie:] and [ea], [eo], [ie]. Towards the end of the Old English period some of the diphthongs merged with monophthongs: all diphthongs were monophthongised before [xt], [x’t] and after [sk’]; the diphthongs [ie:], [ie] in Late WS fused with [y:], [y] or [i:], [i]. In Early Middle English the remaining diphthongs were also contracted to monophthongs: the long [ea:] coalesced (united) with the reflex of Old English [ǽ:] – Middle English [ε:]; the short [ea] ceased to be distinguished from Old English [æ] and became [a] in Middle English; the diphthongs [eo:], [eo] – as well as their dialectal variants [io:], [io] – fell together with the monophthongs [e:], [e], [i:], [i]. As a result of these changes the vowel system lost two sets of diphthongs, long and short. In the meantime a new set of diphthongs developed from some sequences of vowels and consonants due to the vocalization of Old English [j] and [γ], that is to their change into vowels. In Early Middle English the sounds [j] and [γ] between and after vowels changed into [i] and [u] and formed diphthongs together with the preceding vowels, e.g.: Old English dæЗ > Middle English day [dai]- New English day.

     These changes gave rise to two sets of diphthongs: with i-glides and u-glides. The same types of diphthongs appeared also from other sources: the glide -u developed from Old English [w] as in Old English snāw, which became Middle English snow [snou], and before [x] and [l] as in Late Middle English smaul and taught.

     Thus in Middle English there appeared four new diphthongs: [ai], [ei], [au], [ou].

     Quantitative vowel changes in Early Middle English. Besides qualitative changes mentioned above vowels under stress underwent certain changes in quantity. In Later Old English and in Early Middle English vowel length began to depend on phonetic conditions. The first lengthening of vowels took place as early as Old English (IX century). All vowels which occurred before the combinations of consonants such as –mb, -nd, -ld became long. The earliest of positional quantitative changes was the readjustment of quantity before some consonant clusters:

     1) Short vowels were lengthened before two consonants – a sonorant and a plosive; consequently, all vowels occurring in this position remained or became long, e.g.: Old English wild – Middle English wild [wi:ld] – New English wild.

     2) All other groups of two or more consonants produced the reverse effect: they made the preceding long vowels short, and henceforth all vowels in this position became or remained short, e.g.: Old English cēpte Middle English kepte [΄keptə] – New English kept.

     3) Short vowels became long in open syllables, e.g.: Old English nama Middle English name [na:mə] – New English name. In spite of some restrictions no lengthening occurred in polysyllabic words and before some suffixes, Old English bodiз Middle English body [΄bodi] – New English body.

     Through phonetic processes the lengthening and the shortening of vowels mentioned above left traces in grammar and word-stock.

     Due to it vowel interchange developed in many cases between:

• Different forms of the same word;
• Different words formed from the same root.

     For instance:

     Middle English   [i:] — [i] child            but              children

                              [e:] — [e] kepen          but              kept

                              [i:] — [i] wis                but             wisdom         

     1.2. The system of consonants

     English consonants were on the whole far more stable than vowels. A large number of consonants have probably remained unchanged through all historical periods. Thus we can assume that sonorants [m, n, l], plosives [p, b, t, d] and also [k, g] in most positions have not been subjected to any noticeable changes. The most important developments in the history of English consonants were the growth of new sets of sounds, - affricates and sibilants. In Old English there were no affricates and no sibilants, except [s, z]. The new type of consonants developed from Old English palatal plosives [k`, g`], which had split from the corresponding velar plosives [k] and [g], and also from the consonant cluster [sk`]. The three new phonemes which arose from these sources were [t∫], [dз] and [∫]. Thus:

     [k`] > [t∫]- Old English cild- Middle English child, Old English benc-Middle English bench, Old English cin-Middle English chin.

     [sk`] > [∫]- Old English scip-Middle English ship, Old English sceal- Middle English shall.

     [g`] > [dз]- Old English brycз- Middle English bridge.

     In Early Middle English they began to be indicated by special letters and digraphs, which came into use mainly under the influence of the French scribal tradition – ch, tch, g, dg, sh, ssh, sch. As a result of these changes – and also as a result of the vocalization of [γ] – the consonant system in Late Middle English was in some respects different from the Old English system.

     Special notice should be taken of the development of such consonant phonemes that had voiced and voiceless variants in Old English, such as:

     [f]- [v] in spelling  f

     [s]- [z] in spelling s

     [O]- [ð] in spelling p, ð

     They became different phonemes in Middle English.

    Analyzing the first chapter we can say that no principally new monophthongs in the system of the language appeared, but the monophthongs of the [o] and [e] type may differ: they are either open-generally those developed from the Old English ā (stān > ston) or close – developing from the Old English o (boc > bok (book)).

    Out of seven principal Old English monophtongs two changed their quality in Middle English, thus [æ] became [a] and [y] became [i], the rest of the monophthongs remain unchanged.

    The quantity of the vowel depends upon its position in the word.9a, o, e –always long in an open syllable or before –ld, -nd, -mb. All vowels are always short before two consonants, with the exception of –ld, -nd, -mb.

    Only in one position- in a closed syllable before one consonant vowels of any quantity could be found (wis but pig) 
 
 

CHAPTER 2. PHONETIC ANALYSIS OF HAMLET, ACT III, SCENE II.

THE PERFORMANCE 

     In the practical part of this work we decided to consider a preamble and one extract taken from the tragedy by William Shakespeare “Hamlet”. We made the phonetic analysis of the preamble and the extract on the basis of existing theoretical information to analyze about changes in the phonetic system of Middle English.

       Hamlet. Act III, Scene II. Performance.

       The Trumpet sounds. Dumbe show followes: Enter a King and a Queene, the Queene embracing him, and he her, he takes her vp, and declines his head vpon her necke, he lyes him downe upon a bancke of flowers, she seeing him asleepe, leaues him : anon come in an other man, takes off his crowne, kisses it, pours poyson in sleepers eares, and leaues him; the Queene returnes, finds the King dead, makes passionate action, the poysner with some three or foure come in againe, seeme to condole with her; the dead body is carried away, the poysner wooes the Queene with gifts, shee seemes harsh awhile, but in the end accepts loue.

       Oph. What meanes this my Lord?

       Ham. Marry that munching Mallico, it meanes  mischiefe.

       Oph. Belike this shoe imports the argument of the play.

       Ham. We shall know by this fellow.[Enter Prologue.]

                The Players cannot keepe, they’le tell all.

       Oph.   Will a tell vs what this show meant?

       Ham. I, or any show that you will show him, be not

                you asham’d to show, heele not shame to tell

                  you what it meanes.

       Oph. You are naught, you are naught. Ile mark the play.

       Prol.   For vs and for our Tragedie,

                 Heere stooping to your clemencie,

                 We begge your hearing patiently.

       Ham. Is this a Prologue, or the posie of a ring?

       Oph. Tis breefe my Lord.

       Ham. As womans loue.

       Enter King and Queene

            King. Full thirtie times hath phebus cart gone round

                 Neptunes salt wash, and Tellus orb’d the ground,

                And thirtie dosen Moones with borrowed sheene

                About the world haue times twelue thirties beene

                Since loue our harts, and and Hymen did our hands

                Vnite comutuall in most sacred bands.

           Quee.  So many iourneyes may the Sunne and Moone

                 Make vs againe count ore ere loue be doone,

                 But woe is me, you are so sicke of late,

                 So farre from cheere, and from our former state,

             That I distrust you, yet though  I distrust,

             Discomfort you my Lord it nothing must.

             For women feare too much, euen as they loue.

             And womens feare and loue hold quantitie,

             Eyther none, in neither ought, or in extremetie.

             Now what my Lord is proofe hath made you know,

             And as my loue is ciz’d, my feare is so,

             Where loue is great, the litlest doubts are feare.

             Where little feares grow great, great loue growes there.

            King. Faith I must leaue thee loue, and shortly to,

              My operant powers their functions leaue to do

             And thou shalt lieu in this faire world behind,

             Honour’d belou’d, and haply one as kind,

             For husband shalt thou.