Booklet History of the English Language - Libro de teoria 2024-152-260-34-71 PDF

144 CHAPTER...

144 CHAPTER 6 6 Oxford Berkhamsted ✵ Wallingford London Newbury Canterbury Battle of Hastings Dover Pevensey Middle English Hastings English Channel St. Valery Normandy So now they have made our English tongue a gallimaufry or hodgepodge of all other speeches. River Dives —EDMUND SPENSER F I G U R E 6.1 William the Conqueror first moved his invasion fleet from the River Dives in Normandy to St. Valery. The fleet landed at Pevensey without opposition and William defeated Harold Godwinson at Hastings. Dover was the next target; William needed the Channel crossing point. Canterbury fell and William marched to London. He was forced back and marched around London via Newbury and Wallingford to Outer History Berkhamsted. Here the Archbishop of York and the earls met William and accepted him as their new king. © Cengage Learning Linguistically, the English language between the mid-eleventh and the sixteenth centuries is sufficiently homogeneous to justify the single label of “Middle English.” The political and social status of both the language and its speakers in England a few years earlier. Rollo and his followers took control of the area of changed greatly during this period, and three distinct subperiods can be identified: northern France that became known as Normandy (Norman = “north man”). the sudden decline in the status of English after the Norman Conquest, the gradual The Normans soon gave up their own language in favor of French, but it was re-emergence of English as the national language, and the rise of a standard form a French heavily influenced by their original Germanic dialect, a fact that was of the language superimposed upon the many English dialects. much later to be of significance in the ultimate resurgence of English in England. Following his defeat of Harold Godwinson at Hastings in 1066, William 1066–1204: ENGLISH IN DECLINE rapidly subjugated the rest of southeast England. Rebellions in the north and west of England delayed his securing of these areas, but within about ten years The Norman invasion is arguably the single most cataclysmic event in English his- after the Conquest, all of England was firmly under William’s control. Most of tory. It was the last—but the most thoroughgoing—invasion of England by for- the Anglo-Saxon nobility was killed, either at Hastings or in the subsequent eigners (see Figure 6.1). It unified England for the first time in its history. And it abortive rebellions. The remaining English speakers accepted William’s kingship was the most important event ever to occur in the outer history of the English with resignation if not enthusiasm. One of the reasons for this relatively easy language. Politically and linguistically, it was a French conquest of England. acceptance was that William brought the land more unity, peace, and stability Ethnically, it represented the last of the great Germanic invasions of England. than it had experienced for generations. During his reign, the Viking attacks William I (William the Conqueror, Duke of Normandy) was a descendant ceased. The numerous internal squabbles came to an end. William established a of Rollo the Dane, the Viking who had terrorized northern France until, in ring of castles on the Welsh borders and thereby kept the Welsh under control. A.D. 911, the harassed French king, Charles the Simple, was forced to conclude William himself was a stern and ruthless ruler, but he was not genocidal; his sub- an arrangement with him similar to that King Alfred had made with the Danes jugation of England was a business matter, not a holy war. Where existing 143 Copyright 2010 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s). Copyright 2010 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s). Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it. Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it.  MIDDLE ENGLISH 145 146 CHAPTER 6 English laws and customs did not conflict with his own regulations, he allowed probably had English-speaking nurses for their offspring, and the children learned English practices to remain. English from these nurses and the other servants. Conversely, many Anglo-Saxons William replaced Englishmen with Frenchmen in all the high offices of would have attempted to learn French as a means of improving their social and both state and Church, partly to reward his French followers for their support, economic status. From the beginning, English speakers would have become famil- partly because he, justifiably, felt that he could not trust the English. Even the iar with such French words as tax, estate, trouble, duty, and pay. English household scriptoria of the monasteries were taken over by French speakers (although servants would have learned French words like table, boil, serve, roast and dine. From at Peterborough the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle continued to be written in English French-speaking clergy, the English would have learned such words as religion, sav- until 1154). ior, pray, and trinity. Most of these words do not appear in written English until Along with his French officials, William also imported the principle of the after 1204, but only because little written English has survived from the period of feudal system, the notion of the state as a hierarchy in which every member was 1066–1204. When such words do appear in writing, they are used with the confi- directly responsible to the person above him in the hierarchy. Vassalage was dence of familiar, universally known words. hereditary from the dukes directly under the king at the top to the peasants at the bottom. Although these peasants were not slaves, they were bound to the land. Hence the English speakers of one area had few opportunities to commu- 1204–1348: ENGLISH IN THE ASCENDANT nicate with those of other areas, and dialectal differences among the regions increased. There were few towns of any size where speakers from various areas King John of England lost, in 1204, all of Normandy except the Channel Islands. could congregate, thereby reconciling the most outstanding dialectal differences. Thereafter, landowners who held possessions in both France and England were Without literacy and a standard written language—or any written language at forced to give up their lands in one of the two countries. Although vast parts of all—to act as a brake on change, dialectal differences in English proliferated. southern France remained under nominal English control, they had always been During much of the Middle English period, the kings took French wives too far away to support the easy and continuous intercommunication that had and spent most of their reigns in their extensive possessions in France. They did previously characterized England and Normandy. not speak English at all, though some of the later kings apparently understood it. With the loss of Normandy came a predictable decline of interest in France The English court was a French-speaking court. Indeed, some of the finest and French among those Anglo-Norman landholders who had opted to stay in French literature of the period was written in England for French-speaking England. This lack of interest—even hostility—to French was only exacerbated English patrons by Anglo-Norman writers including Marie de France, Wace, by the fact that the French that they spoke, by now a recognizably different dia- Béroul, and Thomas of Britain. lect called Anglo-French, was ridiculed by speakers of the rising standard French The linguistic situation in Britain after the Conquest was complex. French was based on the Parisian dialect. There could have been a reversal to the decline in the native language of a minority of a few thousand speakers, but a minority with the influence of French in the mid-thirteenth century when King Henry III of influence out of all proportion to their numbers because they controlled the England brought in hundreds of French acquaintances and gave them official political, ecclesiastical, economic, and cultural life of the nation. The over- positions in England. However, these newcomers were speakers of Central whelming majority of the population of England spoke English, but English French and were loathed by even the Anglo-French speakers, so Henry III’s had no prestige whatsoever. Latin was the written language of the Church francophilia had little permanent effect on the erosion of French in England. and of many secular documents; it was also spoken in the newly emerging Even as the loss of English possessions in France was making French a less universities and in the Church. Norse was still spoken (but not written) in the important language in England, other conditions were contributing to the rise in Danelaw and other areas of heavy Scandinavian settlement, though it was soon use and prestige of English. Among them was increased communication among to be assimilated to English, its influence being restricted primarily to loanwords English speakers of the various regions. This intercourse led to a smoothing out in English and to dialectal peculiarities of the area. Beyond the borders of England of the most striking dialectal differences and to the beginnings of a new standard proper, Celtic languages still prevailed in Wales and Scotland (where a new stan- English, based on the London dialect but including features from all dialectal dard Scots English was eventually to develop, based on the English of Edinburgh). areas. From the time of the First Crusade (1095), English speakers from all over Within a short time after the Conquest, there was probably a fair amount of the nation congregated periodically in coastal towns to sail to the Holy Land. bilingualism in England. Even if the kings had no English, most of the nobility The rise in popularity of pilgrimages also brought speakers of many dialects would have had to learn English words in order to communicate with their together; Canterbury became a popular goal of pilgrims shortly after Thomas à Anglo-Saxon underlings. Estate officials and household supervisors must have Becket’s assassination there in 1170. There were many other shrines popular with used English to give orders and to receive reports. Even though the kings usually the English, both in England and on the Continent. did not take English wives, many of the nobility soon did; the result would have By the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the children of the English been bilingual children. Even if both the lord and his lady spoke only French, they nobility no longer learned French as their native language and had to be taught Copyright 2010 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s). Copyright 2010 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s). Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it. Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it.  MIDDLE ENGLISH 147 148 CHAPTER 6 it, either by imported teachers or by being sent overseas. For about three hun- recognition of a fait accompli; by the end of the fourteenth century, everyone in dred years after the Conquest, French was the language in which Latin was England spoke English, and even those who spoke French were bilingual in taught in the schools, but by the late fourteenth century, English was the normal English. Further, English had supplanted not only French but also the Norse medium of instruction. The rapid decline in knowledge and use of French dur- spoken in the Danelaw. Much more slowly, but just as inexorably, it was also ing this period is evidenced by rules requiring the use of French and by the supplanting the Celtic languages spoken in Wales, Cornwall, and Scotland. appearance of books designed to teach people French. Throughout the period, great dialectal differences persisted in the English spoken (and written) in various parts of the country. At the same time, however, a standard spoken and written English based on the London dialect was emerg- 1348–1509: ENGLISH TRIUMPHANT ing. This new standard was not to replace the dialects; instead, it was superim- posed upon them. And this London dialect is the basis of all the national French remained the official language of England until well into the second half standards of today, not just Received Pronunciation (the upper-class standard) of the fourteenth century, but two events of that century sealed its fate and in Britain, but also the standard versions of American, Canadian, Australian, guaranteed the resurgence of English. The first of these events was the Black New Zealand, South African, and Indian English. Death (bubonic and/or pneumonic plague). The first cases appeared in England London English was a logical and obvious basis for a standard language. in 1348, and successive outbursts followed every few years for the next three London speech was essentially an East Midlands dialect, but the city attracted peo- hundred years. Because this epidemic was the first of its kind to strike Europe ple from all over the country and its speech was to some extent influenced by all since the sixth century A.D., the population was extremely susceptible. Roughly these other dialects. It was, therefore, a natural compromise dialect. As the largest one-third of the people in England died of the Black Death between 1348 and city, the major seaport, and the biggest commercial center of the nation, London 1351. The resulting social turmoil is easy to imagine. automatically had a prestige that carried over to its speech. London was near the Because of the high mortality rate of the Black Death, labor shortages court at Westminster, and the court lent its glamour to London. When, toward became chronic, and surviving workers demanded higher pay for their labor. the end of the fifteenth century, printing came to England, the printers set up Despite laws designed to keep peasants on the farms, many used the accompa- their establishments in London and printed their books in the London dialect. As nying upheavals and social disorganization to escape to the freedom of towns and these books spread throughout the country, they brought the written version of cities where they could earn more. Wages increased in spite of legislation fixing London English with them. The greatly increased literacy of the fifteenth century them. Like it or not, the ruling classes were forced to respect the lower classes meant that more and more people were exposed to this rising standard dialect. because they needed them so badly. This respect increased the prestige of The ascendancy of Henry VIII to the throne in 1509 coincides with the end English, which was the only language of the lower classes. of the Middle English period. The revival of English as the national language of The second event that assured the resurgence of English in England was the England was assured, and a national standard English based on London speech Hundred Years War (1337-1453). In this intermittent conflict between England was being disseminated throughout the country by means of the printed word. and France, England had several notable successes such as the famous victories at Crécy (1346), Poitiers (1356), and Agincourt (1415). But the French, galvanized into action by Joan of Arc, eventually defeated the English, and England lost all her Continental holdings except the port of Calais. Once England was without Inner History French possessions, the English no longer had important practical reasons to learn and use French. MIDDLE ENGLISH PHONOLOGY Well before the end of the Hundred Years War, however, French had already become an artificially maintained second language in England, even Historians of the English language are fortunate in having fairly extensive written W 6.5 among the nobility. By the mid-fourteenth century, English was widely used as records from at least one dialect of Old English. They are less fortunate with the language of instruction in schools. In 1362, English became the official lan- respect to the early stages of Middle English. Because the Norman Conquest guage of legal proceedings. The kings of England had spoken English for some made French the official language of England for about three hundred years, time. The number of manuscripts written in English increased enormously in this English was written down relatively infrequently, especially during the period same century. By the fifteenth century, English was more common in legal 1100–1200. Yet the English language was changing rapidly, and dialectal differ- documents than either French or Latin. ences were becoming, if anything, even greater than during Anglo-Saxon times. Unpopular as France and the French were in England during the Hundred By the time English was once again written down regularly, many changes had Years War, the substitution of English for French as the official language was not occurred in all aspects of the language. The match between the sound system a policy decision based on animosity toward France. Rather, it was the and the spelling was much worse than in Old English. French scribes (most of Copyright 2010 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s). Copyright 2010 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s). Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it. Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it.  MIDDLE ENGLISH 149 150 CHAPTER 6 them probably not even fluent in English, let alone being native speakers) and Why, when English had gotten along nicely for half a millennium without a French loanwords had introduced a fair amount of confusion into the spelling voiced/voiceless contrast in its fricatives, should it develop one during the system of English. For instance, Old English had used the grapheme hci to Middle English period? A combination of factors contributed to the change, spell /k/ and /č/, and hsi to spell /s/. Under French influence, /č/ came to be notably, the influx of loanwords, mixture of dialects, assimilation, and the voic- spelled hchi, and hci was used not only for /k/ but also for /s/ in loans from ing of fricatives in function words. French (coat, city) and even in native English words (mice, since). Loanwords. One pressure came from the great influx of loanwords. French To make matters worse for the historian of the language, the new standard already had a phonemic distinction between /f/ and /v/, so, in English, the English that arose in the fourteenth century was not a direct descendant of West only difference between loans such as vine and fine or between the French loans Saxon, the dialect in which most of our Old English texts survive. Instead, the vetch, view, and vile and English fetch, few, and file, respectively, would have been new standard in Middle English was based on London speech, essentially an East the voiced /v/. French, however, did not have /z/ in initial position, and it did Midlands dialect, although with some unique characteristics and some features not have the sounds /T/ or /ð/ at all. Nor were the loanwords with contrasting of other dialects. Our discussion of Middle English is necessarily based on this /f/ and /v/ numerous. Besides, languages can easily tolerate a few homophones. London dialect (roughly, the dialect of Chaucer’s writings) and not on the Therefore, the French influence alone would scarcely have been adequate to Southern dialect that was a direct descendant of West Saxon. effect a structural change in the English phonological system. Dialect mixture. Another impetus to the development of voiced fricative Consonants phonemes was dialect mixture. Even in Old English, some Southern dialects As we saw in the preceding chapter, the inventory of consonants in Old English were apparently voicing all fricatives in initial position (synn ‘sin’ was /zyn:/ did not differ dramatically from that of Present-Day English. The Middle English not /syn:/), although this pronunciation was not usually reflected in the inventory, not surprisingly, looks even more like that of Present-Day English; standardized spelling of Old English. With the increased communication indeed, it lacks only phonemic /Î/ and /ž/ to be identical. between regions during the course of Middle English, speakers from various areas would have become accustomed to hearing both voiced and voiceless Voicing of Fricatives Table 6.1 shows the Middle English consonants. Com- fricatives at the beginning of words.1 W 6.3 paring Table 6.1 with Table 5.1, we see that the only systemwide change Assimiliation. A third source of contrastive voiced fricatives was the loss of final between the consonants of Old English and those of Middle English is the addi- vowels. In Old English, fricatives were voiced only when surrounded by voiced tion of phonemic voiced fricatives, the shaded consonants in Table 6.1. (Voiced sounds. For example, in most forms of the verb husian /huzian/ ‘to house’, the s fricatives did occur in Old English, but only as allophones of voiceless fricatives.) was pronounced /z/ because it was preceded and followed by a vowel, a voiced None of the Old English consonant phonemes were lost between Old English sound. After the loss of the final /n/ and then the preceding vowel or vowels, and Middle English. the s stood in final position in many forms. Nevertheless, it retained its /z/ pronunciation, thus contrasting directly with the singular noun house (OE hus, /hus/), which had always been pronounced with a final /s/.2 T A B L E 6.1 Middle English Consonants Function words. A fourth development producing voiced fricatives in previ- Point of Articulation ously unvoiced positions was the voicing of fricatives in very lightly stressed Manner of Articulation Bilabial Labiodental Interdental Alveolar Alveopalatal Velar words, especially function words like is, was, of, his, the, then, that, and they. The usual explanation is that voiced consonants require less energy to pro- Stops voiceless p t k duce than do unvoiced consonants; we can still observe the process in the voiced b d g PDE variant pronunciations of with as either /wIT/ or /wIð/. Affricates voiceless č voiced J̌ Fricatives voiceless f T s š h 1. Although the Midlands and Northern forms usually prevailed, PDE still retains the Southern vixen beside the Mid- voiced v ð z lands fox. The Southern form vat ousted the Midlands fat in most dialects only after the eighteenth century; colonial Nasals m n New England records still have the spelling fat. Lateral l 2. This distinction in house as a noun and house as a verb is retained in PDE, despite the identity in spelling. Parallel distinctions remain in such pairs of related forms as cleave/cleft, lose/lost, and bathe/bath. In Old English, a number of Retroflex r nouns had a vowel in plural endings that did not appear in the nominative singular (nom. sg. cnif ‘knife’/nom. pl. cnifas). Semivowels w j Here also, the alternation in the voicing of the final consonant of the stem remains to this day in such words as knife/ knives, path/paths, and, of course, the noun house/houses. Copyright 2010 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s). Copyright 2010 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s). Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it. Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it.  MIDDLE ENGLISH 151 152 CHAPTER 6 The voiced fricatives became phonemic in English hundreds of years ago, Loss of /j/ in the prefix ge-. The very common Old English prefix ge- ample time, we might think, for the newcomers to become completely natural- (pronounced /jE/ or/jI/) lost its initial consonant sound and was reduced to ized. Yet /v/, /ð/, and /z/ are still more limited in their distribution than most /I/, spelled y or i. Thus, for example, Old English genog /jeno/ ‘enough’, other English consonants. Almost all words beginning with /v/ or /z/ are loan- ME [Inux]; and OE genumen /jInum@n/ ‘taken’, ME inome(n) /Inom@n/. words, and only function words like the definite article, the demonstrative pro- Among the sporadic changes in consonants during Middle English are the voic- nouns, the third-person plural pronouns, and adverbs like then, thus, and there ing of fricatives under certain conditions, the loss of unstressed final consonants, have initial /ð/. (Try it; how would you pronounce a new word spelled thale the simplification of consonant clusters, and the appearance of intrusive or thorvine?) consonants. Even though /f/, /T/, and /s/ developed corresponding voiced phonemes during Middle English, /š/ did not. Voiced /ž/ was not to become phonemic Voicing of fricatives. Initial and final fricatives of words that normally until the Early Modern English period and then under highly limited conditions. received very light stress (e.g., is, the, of ) tended to become voiced in Also, /Î/ was not yet phonemic in Middle English. The consonant /h/ still could Middle English. However, voicing did not occur (or at least did not remain) appear after vowels or consonants in the form of the allophones [ç] (ME niht in similar words like for and so. In addition, the final -s of plurals and [nIçt] ‘night’) and [x] (ME thurh /Turx/) ‘through’. third-person singular present indicative verbs became voiced after voiced sounds but remained voiceless after voiceless sounds through assimilation. Changes in Distribution of Consonants Although the only systemwide Compare the pronunciation of flies /flaIz/ with takes /teks/. The voiced change in the English consonant inventory between Old and Middle English vowel sound causes the inflectional ending to be pronounced as the was the addition of phonemically voiced fricatives, numerous adjustments within voiced /z/. The voiceless /k/ causes the final hsi to be pronounced as the the system affected the distribution of individual consonants. Some of these voiceless /s/. changes were systemic; that is, they occurred wherever the conditioning factors Loss of unstressed final consonants. Unstressed final consonants following appeared. Other changes were sporadic, occurring under given conditions in a vowel tended to be lost in Middle English. Thus OE ic ‘I’ became ME i some words but not in others. Among the systemic changes were loss of long and the OE adjective ending -lic became ME -ly. Examples of this change can consonants, loss of initial /h/ before certain consonants, loss of [γ] as an allo- be seen in the words OE gastlic, ME goostly (‘ghostly’); OE anli, ME only; and phone of /g/, and loss of /j/ in the prefix ge-. OE heofonlic, ME heavenly. In OE, a final -n had characterized various parts of Loss of long consonants. As noted in Chapter 5, Old English had had verbal paradigms, including the infinitive, the plural subjunctive, and the phonemically long consonants; that is, words could be distinguished on the plural preterite indicative. During the course of ME, final -n was lost in all basis of the time spent in producing the consonant. For example, the word these positions; it has remained, however, in the past participle of many strong “bed” (prayer) was pronounced /bed/ and the word “bedd” (bed) was verbs (seen, gone, taken). Final -n was also lost in the possessive adjectives my pronounced /bed:/, with distinct utterance of the final d. This distinction and thy before words beginning with a consonant sound and in the indefinite was probably being lost at the end of words by late Old English and was lost article an, but remained in the possessive pronouns mine and thine. in all positions by the end of Middle English. Hence the difference between Simplification of consonant clusters. Certain consonants tended to be such Old English words as man ‘indefinite pronoun, one’ and mann ‘man, lost when they appeared in clusters with other consonants. mankind’ disappeared. a. The semivowel /w/ dropped after /s/ or /t/, though it is sometimes still Loss of inital /h/ sound. The consonant /h/ was regularly lost in the retained in spelling: sword, sister (OE sweostor), such (OE swilc), sough clusters /hl/, /hn/, and /hr/. In some dialects /h/ was also lost before /w/, (OE swogan), and two. It was retained after /s/ or /t/ in such words as but other dialects have of course retained /hw/ to the present day (as in swallow, swim, swelter, twin, and twain. what, whale, whimper). Examples include the change from Old English b. The consonant /l/ was lost in the vicinity of /č/ in the adjectival hlǣfdige /hlǣfdij/ ‘lady’, hnecca /hnec:a/ ‘neck’, and hræfn /hræv@n/ ‘raven’ to pronouns each, such, which, and much (OE ǣlc, swilc, hwilc, and micel ). late Middle English ladi, necke, and raven. However, in some other words, /l/ remained in this environment Loss of [γ] sound. The Old English allophone [γ] of the phoneme /g/ ( filch, milch). regularly vocalized (made a vowel) or became the semivowel /w/ after /l/ c. The fricative /v/ tended to drop out before a consonant or vowel plus and /r/. Thus Old English swelgan [swelγan] ‘to swallow’ and the fēolaga consonant. Compare OE hlāford ‘lord’, hlǣfdige ‘lady’, hēafod ‘head’, and [feolaγ@] ‘partner’ became Middle English swolwen /swolw@n/ and felawe hæfde ‘had’ with ME lord, ladi, hed, hadde. The /v/ was not lost in such /felaw@/. Old English morgen [morγ@n] ‘morning’ and sorg [sorγ] ‘sorrow’ words as OE heofon ‘heaven’, hræfn ‘raven’, or dreflian ‘to drivel’. became Middle English morwen /morw@n/ and sorow /soro/. Copyright 2010 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s). Copyright 2010 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s). Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it. Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it.  MIDDLE ENGLISH 153 154 CHAPTER 6 d. By the end of ME, at least, a final /b/ after /m/ was being lost in pro- Vowels nunciation, though not in spelling (lamb, comb, climb), but the cluster ı̄ u¯ Diphthongs /mb/ remained in medial positions (timber, amble). ʊ Iu I ʊI Intrusive consonants. Consonants inserted into the middle of words ē ə o¯ ɔI appeared, especially before the resonants /l/, /r/, and /n/, in many words in ɛʊ ɛ˘¯ ɔ˘¯ ɔʊ Middle English. aI aʊ a˘¯ a. Intrusive /b/ after /m/ was common: OE brēmel ‘bramble’, nǣmel ‘nimble’, ǣmerge ‘ember’ became bremble, nimble, and ember in ME. F I G U R E 6.2 Middle English Consonants However, this development was not universal: OE hamor ‘hammer’ and camel ‘camel’ developed no such intrusive /b/. In a few words, an intrusive /b/ appeared after final /m/ in ME, though it was later lost in tentative than our statements about consonants. The system presented in Fig- pronunciation. Thus OE þūma ‘thumb’, ME thombe; compare the PDE ure 6.2 for London English during the Middle English period will thus not pronunciation of thumb with its derivative thimble (OE þȳmel). agree in all details with that postulated by some other scholars. b. Parallel to intrusive /b/ after /m/ was intrusive /d/ after /n/ in final position or before a resonant: OE dwı̄nan, ME dwindle; OE þunor, ME Qualitative Changes from OE to ME Table 6.2 presents the regular develop- thunder; late ME sound from Old French son ‘noise’. Again, this was not ment of the vowels that Middle English inherited from Old English. consistent; OE fenol ‘fennel’ and canne ‘metal container’ developed no As Table 6.2 shows, the majority of OE vowels remained unchanged in ME, intrusive /d/. at least with respect to their regular development. Changes did occur, however, c. In a number of words, ME developed an intrusive /t/ after /s/ in the in eight of the eighteen OE vowels and diphthongs. same positions in which intrusive /b/ and /d/ appeared. Thus we find, 1. OE /y/ and /ȳ/ had unrounded to /I/ and /ı̄/ in some dialects during the for example, ME listnen ‘listen’ (OE hlysnan), ME hustle (from Middle OE period. In the West Midlands, they remained as rounded vowels, spelled Dutch husselen), and ME beheste (OE behǣs). But no intrusive /t/ appears u, until late in the ME period. In the South, they had unrounded to /E/ and in similar words such as ME vessel (from Old French vessel ), lessen (from /ē/, respectively, during OE and remained thus during ME. By the end of the adjective less), or cros ‘cross’ (OE cros). ME, all dialects had /I/ and /ı̄/. Despite the many adjustments in the distribution of consonants during the 2. OE /æ/ apparently had lowered to /a/ in all dialects by the end of ME. Middle English period, several combinations remained that have since simplified. However, its development is somewhat obscured by the fact that the graphic The initial stops of the clusters gn- and kn- were still pronounced in ME: OE symbol hæi was abandoned early in ME; to what extent the grapheme hai gnæt and gnagan, ME gnat and gnawe(n); OE cnāwan and cnafa, ME knowe(n) and represented both /æ/ and /a/ is uncertain. In the South, OE /æ/ apparently knave. Also, the fricative /h/ could still appear in positions other than at the was /E/, not /a/, during the ME period. beginning of a syllable; þought ‘thought’ was pronounced [Toxt] and high was [hIç]. On the other hand, /h/ was often lost in unstressed positions: OE T A B L E 6.2 Middle English Development of Old English Vowels hit, ME it. Short Vowels Long Vowels Diphthongs * Vowels OE ME OE ME OE ME The vowels of English have always been less stable than its consonants. The i > I ı̄ > ı̄ eǝ > ɛ problem of ascertaining exactly what the vowel phonemes were at a given y > I ȳ > ı̄ æǝ > a period is exacerbated by the fact that, throughout its history, the English writing e > ɛ ē > ē ēǝ > ē system has suffered from a paucity of graphemes (letters) to represent its rich æ > a ǣ > ɛ̄, ē ǣǝ > ɛ̄ inventory of vowel phonemes. For example, a typical PDE American dialect a > a ā > ā has fourteen vowels and diphthongs but only seven graphemes to spell o > ō > ō them—including hwi and hyi, both of which double as consonants and are Ɔ restricted in their use as vowel symbols. Because we must rely heavily on u > Ʊ ū > ū written evidence in reconstructing the phonology of earlier stages of the lan- * We assume, though without direct evidence, that the short vowels had a lax pronunciation, similar to that of PDE, by guage, our conclusions about vowel phonemes are necessarily much more the end of ME. Copyright 2010 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s). Copyright 2010 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s). Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it. Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it.  MIDDLE ENGLISH 155 156 CHAPTER 6 3. In Figure 5.7 we show only one symbol for /æ/ in West Saxon Old English. As Table 6.2 shows, OE /ā/ became /Ō / in ME, but /ā/ remained among However, other OE dialects had had two different phonemes here, reflect- the ME vowels; it had two sources, one within English itself and one in loan- ing two different origins. One of them, /ǣ/1, came from West Germanic *ā words. The first came from the lengthening of (short) /a/ and /æ/ in open syl- and had become /ē/ in OE dialects other than West Saxon; this /ē/ lables (see “Quantitative Changes” below). For instance, OE baþian became ME