Old English Phonetics and Alphabet

 

Treatment of Fricatives. Hardening. Rhotacism. Voicing and Devoicing

 

After the changes under Grimm’s Law and Verner’s Law PG had the following two sets of fricative consonants: voiceless [f, θ, x, s] and voiced [v, ð, ɣ, z].

In WG and in Early OE the difference between the two groups was supported by new features. PG voiced fricatives tended to be hardened to corresponding plosives while voiceless fricatives, being contrasted to them primary as fricatives, developed new voiced allophones.

The PG voiced [ð] was always hardened to [d] in OE and other WG languages: Gt. goþs, godai [ð], O Icel gōðr and OE ʒōd (NE good). The two other fricatives, [v] and [ɣ] were hardened to [b] and [g] initially and after nasals, otherwise they remained fricatives.

PG [z] underwent a phonetic modification through the stage of [ʒ] into [r] and thus became a sonorant, which ultimately merged with the older IE [r]: Gt. wasjan, O Icel verja and OE werian (NE wear). This process, termed rhotacism, is characteristic not only of WG bur also of NG.

In the meantime of somewhat later the PG set voiceless fricatives [f, θ, x, s] and also those of the voiced fricatives which had not turned into plosives. That is, [v] and [ɣ], were subjected to a new process of voicing and devoicing. In Early OE they became or remained voiced intervocally and between vowels, sonorants and voiced consonants: they remained or became voiceless in the environments, namely, initially, finally and next to other voiceless consonants: Gt. qiþan, qaþ with [θ] in both forms, and OE cweðan [ð] between vowels and cweð [θ] at the end of the word (NE arch. quoth ‘say’).

The mutually exclusive phonetic conditions for voiced and voiceless fricatives prove that in OE they were not phonemes, but allophones.

 

West Germanic Gemination of Consonants

 

In all WG languages, at an early stage of their independent history, most consonants were lengthened after a short vowel before [j]. This process is known as WG “gemination” or “doubling” of consonants, as the resulting long consonants are indicated by means of doubling letters, e.g.: fuljan > OE fyllan (NE fill); sætjan > OE settan (NE set), GT. satjan.

During the process, or some time later, [j] was lost, so that the long consonants ceased to be phonetically conditioned. When the long and short consonants began to occur in identical phonetic conditions, namely between vowels, their distinction became phonetic.

The change did not affect the sonorant [r], e.g. OE werian (NE wear); nor did it operate if the consonant was preceded by a long vowel, e.g.  OE dāman, mātan (NE deem, meet) – the earlier forms of these words contained [j], which had caused palatal mutation but had not led to the lengthening of consonants.

 

Velar Consonants in Early Old English. Growth of New Phonemes

 

In Early OE velar consonants split into two distinct sets of sound, which eventually led to the growth of new phonemes.

The velar consonants [k, g, x, ɣ] were palatalized before a front vowel, and sometimes also after a front vowel, unless followed by a back vowel. Thus in OE cild (NE child) the velar consonant [k] was softened to [k’] as it stood before the front vowel [i]: [kild] > [k’ild]; similarly [k] became [k’] in OE spræc (NE speech) after a front vowel but not in OE sprecan (NE speak) where [k] was followed by the back vowel [a]. In the absence of these phonetic conditions the consonants did not change, with the result that lingual consonants split into two sets, palatal and velar. The difference between them became phonetic when, a short time later, velar and palatal consonants began to occur in similar phonetic conditions: OE cild [k’ld], ciest [k’iest] (NE child, cheast) with palatal [k’] and ceald, cēpan (NE cold, keep) with hard, velar [k] – both before front vowels.

Through the difference between velar and palatal consonants was not shown in the spellings of the OE period, the two sets were undoubtedly differentiated since a very early date. In the course of time the phonetic difference between them grew and towards the end of the period the palatal consonants developed into sibilants and affricates: [k’] > [t∫], [g] > [dʒ].

 

The date of the palatalisation can be fixed with considerable precision in relation to other Early OE sound changes. It must have taken place after the appearance of [æ, æ:] (referred to the 5^th c.) but prior to palatal mutation (late 6^th or 7^th c.); for [æ, æ:] could bring about the palatalisation of consonants, while the front vowels which arose by palatal mutation could not. In OE cēpan (from kōpjan) and OE cyninʒ (with [e:] and [y] through palatal mutation) the consonant [k] was not softened, which is confirmed by their modern descendants, keep and king. The front vowels [y] and [e:] in these and similar words must have appeared only when the splitting of velar consonants was well under way. Yet it is their appearance that transformed the two sets of positional allophones into phonemes, for a velar and a palatal consonant could now occur before a front vowel, that is, in identical phonetic conditions: OE cyninʒ and cyse (NE king, cheese).

 

Loss of Consonants in some positions

 

Comparison with other OG languages, especially Gothic and O Icel, has revealed certain instances of the loss of consonants in WG and Early OE.

Nasal sonorants were regularly lost before fricative consonants; in the process the preceding vowel was probably nasalized and lengthened:

Gt. fimf, O Icel fim, OHG fimf – OE fif (NE five)

Gt. uns, OHG uns – OE ūs (NE us)

Fricative consonants could be dropped between vowels and before some plosive consonants; these losses were accompanied by a compensatory lengthening of the preceding vowel or the fusion of the preceding and succeeding vowel into a diphthong: OE sēon, which corresponds to Gt. saihwan, OE slēan (NE slay), Gt. slahan, G. schlagen, OE sæʒde and sæde (NE said).

We should  also mention the loss of semi-vowels and consonants in the unstressed final syllables. [j] was regularly dropped in suffixes after producing various changes in the root: palatal mutation of vowels, lengthening of consonants after short vowels. The loss of [w] is seen in some case forms of nouns: Nom. trēо, Dat. trēowe (NE tree); Nom. sæ, Dat. sæwe (NE see).

 

Old English Consonant System

 

The system consisted of several correlated sets of consonants. Al the consonants fell into noise consonants and sonorants. The noise consonants were subdivided into plosives and fricatives; plosives were further differentiated as voiced and voiceless, the difference being phonemic. The fricative consonants were also subdivided into voiced and voiceless; in this set, however, sonority was merely a phonetic difference between allophones: OE pin – bin, where the difference in sonority is phonemically relevant (NE pin, bin) and OE hlāf [f] – hlāford [v] where the difference is positional: the consonant is voiced intervocally and voiceless finally. The opposition of palatal and velar lingual consonants [k] – [k’], [g] – [g’] had probably become phonemic by the time of the earliest written records. (Some scholars include in the system one more palatal consonant: [sk’], spelt as sc, e.g. OE scip (NE ship); other treat it as a sequence of two sounds [s’] and [k’] until Early ME when they fused into a single sibilant [∫].) It is noteworthy that among the OE consonants there were few sibilants and no affricates.

The most universal distinctive feature in the consonant system was the difference in length. During the entire OE period long consonants are believed to have been opposed to short ones on a phonemic level; they were mostly distinguished in intervocal position. Single and geminated (long) consonants are found in identical phonetic conditions: OE læde – 1^st p. sg Pres. of lædan (NE lead) and læde (Past); OE sticca (NE stick) – stica (Gen. case pl of OE stice, NE stitch). In final position the quantitative opposition was irrelevant and the second letter, which would indicate length, was often lacking, e.g. OE man and eal are identical to mann, eall (NE man, all).

 

 

 

 

 

Bibliography

 

1. Rastorgueva T.A. The History of English Language, 2003.
2. Ilish B.A. The History of English Language, 1968.
3. Arakin V.D. The History of English Language, 2003.
4. Old English/Anglo-Saxon (Englisc) http://www.omniglot.com/
5. Old English http://www.wikipedia.org/