ENG 121: Changes from OE to ME; Background Notes

September 29, 1997

									September 29, 1997
 
ENG 121: Changes in English From OE to ME: Notes to accompany September 29 lecture. 
 


I. Changes in Spelling
 
	1. New letter "g" for stop sound
	2. New letter "j" for [j] sound
	3. New letter "v"
	4. New digraph "th" used extensively
	5. New digraph "ch" for [c] sound
 


II. Changes in Pronunciation

	1. OE [y] disappears, commonly moves to [i] sound

	2. OE [ae] -- [e] Pronounced then as [ :]

	3. OE [e/eo] -- [e] Pronounced as [ :]

	4. OE [a] and [o] were spelled same in ME, re-separated in MO with "oa" and "oo" 
		spelling respectively (goat, goose).

	5. OE [ae] -- [a]

	6. OE diphthongs to pure vowels

	7. New diphthongs arise in combination with semivowels ("w," new" y")

	8. Vowel weakening in unstressed syllables, usually to [ ].

	*9. Vowel lengthening:

		a. Short V to Long V before "ld" consonant clusters: child, wild, field
			Didn't happen with 3-consonant clusters (children); this is why we 
			have different pronunciations for 'child' and 'children'
		b. (In ME itself) Short V to Long V in Open syllables of 2-syllable words
 			baken -- ba:ken; but not in 'thanken', not open syllable!
			and not in 'cradeles', plural of 'cradel', since it was now 
			3-syllable word when made into the plural! "cradel' (singular) did 
			lengthen, and in MoE it made the plural to become lengthened also.
		c. Key vowels were short [a, o, e]. 
			-[a] became [a:] as in ba:ken
			-[o] became [ :] sound; now two [ :] sounds in ME.
				why we have 'boat/throat' and 'hope/home' with same 
				pronunciation now!
			-[e] (from OE [ae]) became [ :]; now two [ :] sounds in ME.
				why we have 'sea/lead' (sae/laedan) versus 'meat/steal' 
				(mete/stelan) merging in MoE, but were different in OE. 
		d. Sometimes both long V and Short V forms were kept. So we have 'staff' 
				and 'stave'. 'staff was one-syllable word (stayed short); 
				'stave' was two-syllable word. (lengthened).

	10. In ME, loss of final syllables (weakening)

		a. MoE 'bake' - ME [baken - ba:ken - ba:ke - ba:k - ba:k ]. The 'e' was 
			kept in the spelling. This procedure led to MoE silent 'e' rule! 
			So by end of ME, the silent 'e' helped to indicate words where the 
			vowel had lengthened. 
		b. In MoE, we added this rule to many more words (home, stone - OE: [ham], 
			[stan])!
		c. This change also led to a MoE rule of spelling to double a consonant 
			that needs to be pronounced as a short vowel ('copper').



III. Changes in Morphology
 
	1. The inflectional systems were being destroyed because of weakening of final 
		syllable pronunciation on words (ease of communication), and by L2 speakers
		of English.
		
		a. [a, u, e] -- [e]
		b. [an, on, un, um] -- [en] -- [e]
		c. [as, es] -- [es]
		d. [ath, eth] -- [eth] -- [e]
		e. Then, for many words, [e] -- [o]!

	2. The case system for nouns is greatly reduced (no one could hear the differences 
		anymore). Went from four cases to two (Nominative/accusative/dative versus 
		genitive). Plural takes one additional form for most words.

	3. Two plurals (from many) develop: [en] in South, [es] in North. [es] wins by EmoE! 
		Some [en] plurals can be found in Shakespeare's plays!  We still have a few 
		[en] plurals: children, oxen, brethren.
		Other noun declensions still seen in English: 1) feet, geese; 2) deer, 
			sheep.

	4. Loss of case endings also with adjectives and determiners (loss of endings).
		-Adjectives just take a single form.
		-Determiners reduce to the, a, this/that.

	5. Loss of grammatical gender in ME (same problem of loss of endings).
 
 

IV. Changes in syntax
 
	1. Loss of SOV word order. Mostly SVO with some VSO ordering.
	2. Rise of, and increasing use of, prepositions.
	3. Rise of auxiliary system: Helping verbs 'be', 'have', 'do', and modals (will, 
		must, can, may, should, shall, could, would, might ).
	4. Use of 'have' expands for perfect tense, end use of 'be' for this purpose.
	5. Beginning of use of continuous tenses (I am going today).. This only starts in 
		late ME.
	6. Only after 1700 can perfect and progressive tenses be combined in all the 
		complications we use today!