Early Old English Consonant Changes

Consonant Changes in Old English

• Consonants were generally more stable than vowels during historical periods.
• Proto-Germanic (PG) language, Old English (OE) was expected to include all consonants from Grimm's and Verner's Laws.
• Few OE noise consonants mirrored PG sounds. Consonants underwent considerable changes (qualitative and quantitative, independent and positional) during the intervening period.
• Some consonant changes are categorized as "West Germanic" (WG), shared across WG subgroup languages.
• WG changes possibly happened during the transition from Proto-Germanic to Early Old English (before Germanic settlement of Britain).
• Other changes were specifically English developments within Early Old English.

Consonant Changes in Pre-Written Periods

• Consonants generally displayed more stability in history than vowels.
• Even so certain changes happened during historical periods.
• A typical OG language might expect all consonants created under Grimm and Verner's Laws.
• Only very few noise consonants in OE match PG sounds.
• Consonants in the intervening periods frequently changed in nature (qualitative or quantitative).
• The changes were also dependent or related to their position in the word.

Early Old English Consonant Shifts

• After Grimm's and Verner's Laws, PG had voiceless [f, θ, x, s] and voiced [v, ð, y, z] fricatives.
• In WG and OE, the difference between voiced and voiceless fricatives became more pronounced.
• Voiced PG fricatives commonly became plosives in OE.
• Voiceless PG fricatives didn't transform into plosives. They contrasted with plosives instead.
• Voiceless fricatives developed new voiced allophones.

Further Old English Consonant Changes

• The voiced PG [d] (due to Verner's Law) hardened to [d] in OE and other WG languages.
• The same applied to two other fricatives, (v) and (y), which hardened to [b] and [g] initially and after nasals.
• PG voiceless fricatives [f, θ, x, s] and voiced fricatives [v, ð, y, z] underwent further changes.
• PG voiced and voiceless fricatives were voiced or devoiced through intervocally and between vowels.
• These fricatives remained voiceless when after or next to other voiceless consonants, initially or finally.

Table Descriptions

• Proto-Germanic fricatives had various reflexes in Old English and other related languages.
• Early Old English consonants underwent changes impacting voiced and voiceless fricatives.

West Germanic Gemination

• In WG languages, consonants were often lengthened after a short vowel before a [j].
• This is called WG "gemination" or "doubling", marked through language.
• The use of doubled letters represented the lengthened consonants.
• [j] was lost later in time, so that long consonants weren't phonetically determined.
• Between vowels, distinctions between short and long consonants became phonemic.

Old English Velar Consonants

• Velar consonants changed into distinct sets in Early OE, evolving into distinct phonemes.
• Velar consonants are palatalized before front vowels and in some cases after.
• Palatalization occurred when followed by a front vowel but not after a back vowel.
• Velar consonants maintained their identity when not palatalized.
• Velar and palatal consonants became distinguishable phonemically due to phonetic differences.

Old English Fricative Consonant Changes

• OE loss of fricatives happened between vowels and before plosive consonants.
• The loss caused intervening or following vowels to be longer.
• The vowel loss was accompanied by a change impacting subsequent syllable structure.

Semi-vowel and Consonant Loss

• Semi vowels and consonants were often lost in unstressed final syllables.
• Loss of these sounds happened after various phonetic changes in the root.
• Palatal mutation frequently affected vowels, while changes in consonants followed short vowels.

Old English Consonant System

• Old English consonants formed sets based on correlates and noise-related characteristics.
• Noise consonants were divided into fricatives and plosives.
• Plosives were divided by voicing (voiced, voiceless).
• Fricatives were divided by voicing (voiced, voiceless).
• Sonority was a phonetic difference between allophones within some subsets.

Distinctions in Old English Consonant Spelling

• Voiced and voiceless fricatives weren't distinguished in Old English.
• Palatal and velar lingual consonants (k,k') (g,g') distinguished phonemically.
• Velar and palatal consonants were usually shown by phonetic differences.
• Some scholars suggest one more palatal consonant (sk) was sometimes used as a sequence of sounds.
• Some OE sounds became sibilants and became affricates in Middle English.

OE Consonant Chart

• Chart displayed the different categories of Old English consonants and their characteristics.
• Categories included articulation place (labial, labiodental, forelingual, mediolingual, and backlingual), manner of articulation (plosive, fricative, and sonorant/nasal), and voicing.