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Development of Diphthongs

§ 118. The PG diphthongs (or sequences of monophthongs, see § 56) — [ei, ai, iu, eu, au] — underwent regular independent changes in Early OE; they took place in all phonetic conditions irrespective of environ­ment. The diphthongs with the i-glide were monophthongised into and [a:], respectively; the diphthongs in -u were reflected as long diphthongs [io:], [eo:] and [ea:]. (The changes are shown in Table 2.)

Ifthe sounds in PG were not diphthongs but sequences of two sepa­rate phonemes, the changes should be defined as phonologisation of vowel sequences. This will mean that these changes increased the num­ber of vowel phonemes in the language. Moreover, they introduced new distinctive features into the vowel system by setting up vowels with diphthongal glides; henceforth, monophthongs were opposed to diph­thongs.

Table 2

Old English Reflexes of Proto-Germanic Diphthongs

(or Bi-Phonemic Sequences)

§ 119. All the changes described in § 117, 118 were interconnected. Their independence has been interpreted in different ways.

The changes may have started with the fronting of [a] (that is the change of [a] to [æ]), which caused a similar development in the long vowels; [a:] > [æ:], and could also bring about the fronting of [a] in the biphonemic vowel sequence [a + u], which became [æa:], or more precisely [æ:ə], with the second element weakened. This weakening as well as the monophthongisation of the sequences in [-i] may have been favoured by the heavy stress on the first sound.

According to other explanations the appearance of the long [a:] from the sequence [a+i] may have stimulated the fronting of long

[a:], for this latter change helped to preserve the distinction between two phonemes; cf. OE rād (NE road)and OE rǣd (‘advice’) which had not fallen together because while [ail became [a:] in rād, the original

[a:] was narrowed to [æ:] in the word rād. In this case the fronting of [a:] to [æ:] caused a similar development in the set of short vowels;

[a] > [æ], which reinforced the symmetrical pattern of the vowel system.

Another theory connects the transformation of the Early OE vowel system with the rise of nasalised long vowels out of short vowels before nasals and fricative consonants ([a, i, u] plus [m] or [n] plus [x, f, θ or s]), and the subsequent growth of symmetrical oppositions in the sets of long and short vowels (see § 143).

Assimilative Vowel Changes:
Breaking and Diphthongisation

§ 120. The tendency to assimilative vowel- change, characteristic of later PG and of the OG languages, accounts for many modifications of vowels in Early OE. Under the influence of succeeding and preceding consonants some Early OE monophthongs developed into diph­thongs.

If a front vowel stood before a velar consonant there developed a short glide between them, as the organs of speech prepared themselves for the transition from one sound to the other. The glide, together with the original monophthong formed a diphthong.

The front vowels [i], [e] and the newly developed [æ], changed into diphthongs with a back glide when they stood before [h], before long (doubled) [ll] or [l] plus another consonant, and before [r] plus other consonants, e.g.: [e] > [eo] in OE deorc, NE dark. The change is known as breaking or fructure. Breaking is dated in Early OE, for in OE texts we find the process already completed; yet it must have taken place later than the vowel changes described above as the new vowel [æ], which appeared some time during the 5th c., could be subjected to breaking under the conditions described.

Breaking produced a new set of vowels in OE — the short diphthongs [ea] and [eo]; they could enter the system as counterparts of the long [ea:], [eo:], which had developed from PG prototypes (§ 118).

§ 121. Breaking was unevenly spread among the OE dialects: it was more characteristic of West Saxon than of the Anglian dialects (Mercian and Northumbrian); consequently, in many words, which contain a short diphthong in West Saxon, Anglian dialects have a short monophthong, cf. WS tealde, Mercian talde (NE told).

§ 122. Diphthongisation of vowels could also be caused by preceding consonants: a glide arose after a palatal consonants as a sort of transi­tion to the succeeding vowel.

Table 3

Breaking and Diphthongisation

After the palatal consonants [k'], [sk'] and [j] short and long [e] and [æ] turned into diphthongs with a more front close vowel as their first element, e.g. Early OE *scæmu>OE sceamu (NE shame). In the resulting diphthong the initial [i] or [e] must have been unstressed but later the stress shifted to the first element, which turned into the nucleus of the diphthong, to conform with the structure of OE diph­thongs (all of them were falling diphthongs). This process known as "diphthongisation after palatal consonants" occurred some time in the 6th c. (see Table 3).

§ 123. Breaking and diphthongisation are the main sources of short diphthongs OE. They are of special interest to the historians of English, for OE short diphthongs have no parallels in other OG languages and constitute a specifically OE feature.

The status of short diphthongs in the OE vowel system has aroused much dis­cussion and controversy. On the one hand, short diphthongs are always phoneti­cally conditioned as they are found only in certain phonetic environments and appear as positional allophones of respective monophthongs (namely, of those vowels from which they have originated). On the other hand, however, they are similar in quality to the long diphthongs, and their phonemic status is supported by the sym­metrical arrangement of the vowel system. Their very growth can be accounted for by the urge of the system to have all its empty positions filled. However, their phonemic status cannot be confirmed by the contrast of minimal pairs: [ea], [æ], [a] as well as [eo] and [e] occur only in complementary distribution, never in identical phonetic conditions to distinguish morphemes; they also occur as variants in different dialects. On these grounds it seems likely that short diphthongs, togeth­er with other vowels, make up sets of allophones representing certain phonemes: [a, æ, ea] and [e, eo]. Perhaps the rise of short diphthongs merely reveals a tendency to a symmelrical arrangement of diphthongs in the vowel system, which was never fully realised at the phonemic level.

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