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Palatal Mutation

§ 124.TheOE tendency to positional vowel change is most apparent in the process termed "mutation". Mutation is the change of one vowel to another through theinfluence of a vowel in the succeeding syllable.

Table 4

Palatal Mutation

This kind of change occurred in PG when [e] was raised to [i] and [u] could alternate with [o] under the influence of succeeding sounds (see § 55).

In Early OE, mutations affected numerous vowels and brought about profound changes in the system and use of vowels.

§ 125. The most important series of vowel mutations, shared in varying degrees by all OE languages (except Gothic), is known as "i-Umlaut" or "palatal mutation". Palatal mutation is the fronting and raising of vowels through the influence of [i] or [j] (the non-syllabic [i]) in the immediately following syllable. The vowel was fronted and made narrower so as to approach the articulation of [il. Cf. OE ān (NE one) with a back vowel in the root and OE æniʒ (NE any)derived from the same root with the root vowel mutated to a narrower and more front sound under the influence of [i] in the suffix: [a:] > [æ:].

Since the sounds [i] and [j] were common in suffixes and endings, palatal mutation was of very frequent occurrence. Practically all Early OE monophthongs, as well as diphthongs except the closest front vowels [e] and [i] were palatalised in these phonetic conditions.

Due to the reduction of final syllables the conditions which caused palatal mutation, that is [i] or [j], had disappeared in most words by the age of writing; these sounds were weakened to [e] or were altogether lost (this is seen in all the examples above except ǣnig and etpiediʒ).

§ 126. Of all the vowel changes described, palatal mutation was certainly the most comprehensive process, as it could affect most OE vowels, both long and short, diphthongs and monophthongs. It led to the appearance of new vowels and to numerous instances of merging and splitting of phonemes.

The labialised front vowels [y] and [y:] arose through palatal mu­tation from [u] and [u:], respectively, and turned into new phonemes, when the conditions that caused them had disappeared. Cf. mūs and mӯs (from the earlier *mӯsi, where [y:] was an allophone of [u;] before [i]). The diphthongs [ie, ie:] (which could also appear from diphthongisation after palatal consonants) were largely due to palatal mutation and became phonemic in the same way, though soon they were confused with [y, y:]. Other mutated vowels fell together with the existing pho­nemes, e.g. [œ] from [o] merged with [e, æ:], which arose through pal­atal mutation, merged with [æ:] from splitting (see § 117).

§ 127. Palatal mutation led to the growth of new vowel interchanges and to the increased variability of the root-morphemes: owing to pala­tal mutation many related words and grammatical forms acquired new root-vowel interchanges. Cf., e.g. two related words: OE ʒe-mōt n ‘meet­ing’ and OE mētan (NE meet), a verb derived from the noun-stem with the help of the suffix -j- (its earlier form was *mōtjan; -j- was then lost but the root acquired two variants: mōt-/mēt-). Likewise we find variants of morphemes with an interchange of root-vowels in the grammatical forms mūs, mӯs (NE mouse, mice), bōc, bēc (NE book, books), since the plural was originally built by adding -iz. (Traces of palatal mutation are preserved in many modern words and forms, e.g. mouse — mice, foot — feet, tale — tell, blood — bleed; despite later phonetic changes, the original cause of the inner change is i-umlaut or palatal muta­tion.)

§ 128.Another kind of change referred to umlaut in Early OE is the so-called "velar-mutation" found in some of the OE dialects. It was caused by the influence of back vowels in the succeeding sylla­bles, which transformed the accented root-vowels into diphthongs. Cf. OHG swestar, OE sweostor (NE sister); WS limu, other dialects liomu. (‘limbs’), WS cæru, caru, cearu (NE care).

§ 129.The dating, mechanism and causes of palatal mutation have been a matter of research and discussion over the last hundred years.

Palatal mutation in OE had already been completed by the time of the earliest written records; it must have taken place during the 7th c., though later than all the Early OE changes described above. This relative dating is confirmed by the fact that vowels resulting from other changes could be subjected to palatal mutation, e. g. OE ieldra (NE elder)had developed from *ealdira by palatal mutation, which occurred when the diphthong [ea] had already been formed from [æ] by breaking (in its turn [æ] was the result of the fronting of Germanic [a]). The successive stages of the change can be shown as follows: fronting breaking palatal mutation

[a] > [æ] > [ea] > [ie]

The generally accepted phonetic explanation of palatal mutation is that the sounds [i] or [j] palatalised the preceding consonant, and that this consonant, in its turn, fronted and raised the root-vowel. This "mechanistic" theory is based on the assumed workings of the speech organs. An alternative explanation, sometimes called "psychological" or "mentalistic", is that the speaker unconsciously anticipates the [i] and [j] in pronouncing the root-syllable — and through anticipation adds an i-glide to the root-vowel. The process is thus subdivided into several stages, e.g. *dōmjan>*dōimjan>*dœrnjari>*dēman (NE deem). It has been found that some OE spellings appear to support both these theories, e.g. OE secʒan has a palatalised consonant [gg'] shown by the digraph cʒ, Cōinwulf, a name in BEOWULF, occurring beside another spelling Cēnwulf, shows the stage [oi:] in the transition from PG [o:] to OE [œ:], and [e:]: OE cēn ‘bold’. The diphthongoids resulting from pala­tal mutation developed in conformity with the general tendency of the vowel system: in Early OE diphthongal glides were used as relevant phonemic distinctive features. In later OE the diphthongs showed the first signs of contraction (or monophthongisation) as other distinctive features began to predominate: labialisation and vowel length. (The merging of [ie, ie:] and [y, y:] mentioned above, can also be regarded as an instance of monophthongisation of diphthongs.)

§ 130.The following table shows changes of stressed vowels.

Table 5

Early Old English Vowel Changes

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