History of English Phonology & Orthography

Question 1

What is the length feature in OE?

Answer 1

Both vowels and consonants in OE can be ‘long’. A long vowel contains two mora (In 1968, American linguist James D. McCawley defined a mora as “something of which a long syllable consists of two and a short syllable consists of one”). Long vowels are not differentiated orthographically. Whereas long consonants are written as two consecutive consonants and are articulated as such (scyp.pend).

Question 2

Allophonic variation in OE.

Answer 2

N is velarised before g & k.
G becomes ɣ (voiced velar fricative) after a vowel.
j is realised dʒ after n or when long.
Fricatives are voiced between vowels (e.g hus and huses)
H becomes ç (voiceless palatal fricative) in coda position after front vowels, and as x (voiceless velar fricative) in coda position after back vowels.
Hw, hl, hn, hr are realised as the voiceless sonorants ʍ, l̥, n̥, r̥.

Question 3

How does the vowel system of OE differ from PDE.

Answer 3

Length is a distinguishing factor. the rounded equivalent of i: y is a phoneme. The vowels are i, y, e, æ, ɑ, u, o.

Question 4

Diphthongs in Old English

Answer 4

iy/ie, eo, æɑ

can be long or short

Question 5

Orthographic Conventions in OE

Answer 5

Θ written with edh or thorn. Whilst edh is used in IPA to indicate voicing this is not the case in OE. 
Tenuto over vowel indicates length. (And on first vowel of diphthong) (this is editorial!)
Ea =  æɑ. 
G = [j]
C = tʃ 
Sc = ʃ 
Cg = dʒ
7 = ond/and 
Ƿ = w 
Ȝ = g

Question 6

Why is it difficult to identify non-phonological sound change?

Answer 6

Minkova (2014) we have no phonetic info for OE and phonological info is limited by orthography.

Question 7

What is non-phonological sound change?

Answer 7

Sound changes which don’t affect the phonemic inventory, for example the change in the realisation of a single phoneme

Question 8

why is the great vowel shift a phonological sound change

Answer 8

the great vowel shift was a chain shift and resulted in the loss of the length distinction in English

Question 9

What are the types of phonological change?

Answer 9

(Gorlach 1996): split (allophones become phonemes), merger, loss (merger is where a single phoneme is used in place of one or more phonemes causing a reduction in the phonological inventory. Loss is considered a type of merger where the phoneme is replaced by Ø) and shift (shift is a process by which phonemic distinctions remain the same but phonetic quakity of the phonemes changes, chain shift is a set of sound changes in which one change triggers the other Murray 2001.

Question 10

What are the mechanisms of sound change?

Answer 10

external - language contact, sociolinguistic pressure (hard to identify in historical languages), internal - relating to phonetic properties of adjacent segments, ease of articulation.

Question 11

Important consideration when studying sound change

Answer 11

Our assumptions about phonetic properties of segments based on their modern counterparts are just that, assumptions and this lack of reliability should be noted.

Question 12

What are conditioned and unconditioned sound changes?

Answer 12

conditioned occur in specific contexts whereas unconditioned occur in all contexts

Question 13

Explanation for unstressed vowel reduction.

Answer 13

Minkova 2014 suggests that the loss of variation is due to the difficulty maintaining F1 and F2 during such a short sound. It could also be that the quality distinction in such a short sound was difficult to perceive for L2 learners (of whom there were plenty). The reduction/weakening to schwa is a process by which sonority or complexity of a vowel sound is reduced in unstressed position which eventually leads to apocope (deletion of the vowel) in the ME period. Minkova thinks this reduction is related to the contact situation between ON and OE meaning that speakers would be eager to discard language specific inflectional information and focus on the semantic stem in the interest of communication.

Question 14

Explanation for breaking

Answer 14

Vocalisation of [j] > [i], [w] > [u] and [ɣ] > [u]. A second type of breaking we find in ME is that new diphthongs develop (a glide is inserted) between a non-high vowel and a velar or palatal consonant. Minkova 2014 - ɣ is first lenited to w (ease of articulation) then strengthened into a vowel due to the now coda position of [w] (which could only occur in initial position). She thinks the development of the i and u endpoint allow for a longer trajectory of the vowel and are thus more perceptually salient. Now onto glide insertion (call it glide epenthesis) this is supposedly due to ease of articulation between a non-high vowel and a palatal consonant (the position of the glide is physically between the two sounds).

Question 15

explanation for pre-cluster shortening

Answer 15

long vowels become short preceding all consonant clusters except /ld nd mb/, and in the antepenultimate syllable of trisyllabic+ words.
Jim explains that ceepte(kept) (CVVC.CV) becomes ceept (CVVCC) due to vowel reduction, but according to moraic theory there is a preference for smaller number of units per syllable hence shortening.

Question 16

explanation of homorganic lengthening

Answer 16

HOMORGANIC LENGTHENING: Short (especially high) vowels lengthen before clusters of nasal/liquid + homorganic voiced obstruent /ld/, /nd/ and /mb/ (but not in clusters of 3 or more). Is this due to a perceptual change?

Question 17

explanation of fricative voicing

Answer 17

FRICATIVE VOICING: phonological contrast influenced by French loans (Gorlach 1996 - vain as opposed to fain), shortening of geminates creating word internal voiceless fricatives (gorlach), later loss of unstressed vowels exposing word-final voiced fricatives (Millward and Hayes 2012). Same authors - dialect contact (southern dialects supposedly already using voiced in non intervocalic positions e.g pronouncing sin as zynn.) also function words as they are only lightly stressed so it is easier to voice them (such as ‘the’ I guess). These alternations still present in frequent PDE words (less susceptible to analogy)

Question 18

Great Vowel Shift

Answer 18

It is not clear whether this is a drag chain or a push chain. Gorlach 1996
A drag chain would see (for the front vowels) i change first leaving gaps in the vowel space that the other vowels shift to fill, whereas a push chain would see a change first creating a crowding effect to trigger t he change in other vowels.
Gorlach suggests a push chain given that in Yorkshire dialects long o changed to oe, and thus long u is still used in e.g houses, suggesting that u did not have to move.

Gorlach 1996 identifies that in PDE vowel length is not phonologically differentiating and depends on following consonant. Example? God and good in OE. He suggests that the loss of unstressed final vowels and morphological inflections meant that the complementary distribution of long and short vowels became opaque and led to levelling. As a result, vowel length became a redundant and predictable distinction, relating to consonant clusters and syllable structure. (OE length distinctions have developed into quality distinctions.