Middle English and Early New English consonant system.

The most important developments in the history of English consonants were the growth of new sets of sounds, affricates and sibilants, and the new phonological treatment of fricatives. Both changes added a number of consonant phonemes to the system. some consonants were lost or vocalised, which affected both the consonant and the vowel system.

Growth of sibilants and affricates.

In OE there were no affricates and no sibilants, except [s, z]. The earliest distinct sets of these sounds appeared towards the end of OE or during the Early ME period. The new type of consonants developed from OE palatal plosives [k’, g'] (which had split from the corresponding velar plosives [k] and [g] in Early OE, and also from the consonant cluster [sk']. The three new phonemes which arose from these sources were [tʃ],[dʒ] and[ʃ]. The opposition of velar consonants to palatal - [k, k'; y, j]—had disappeared; instead, plosive consonants were contrasted to the new affricates and in the set of affricates [tʃ] was opposed to [dʒ] through sonority.

Treatment of fricative consonants

Phonologisation of voiced and voiceless fricatives was a slow process which lasted several hundred years. The first pair of consonants to become phonemes were [f] and [v]. In Late ME texts they occurred in identical phonetic environment and could be used for differentiation between words, which means that they had turned into phonemes. The two other pairs, [θ, ð] and [s, z], so far functioned as allophones. A new, decisive alteration took place in the 16th c. The fricatives were once again subjected to voicing under certain phonetic conditions. Henceforth they were pronounced as voiced if they were preceded by an unstressed vowel and followed by a stressed one. the endings took no accent but could be followed by other words beginning with an accented syllable. This supposition is confirmed by the voicing of consonants in many form-words: articles, pronouns, auxiliaries, prepositions; they receive no stress in speech but may be surrounded by notional words which are logically accented.

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