Consonant changes in ME and NE (growth of affricates, loss of certain consonants).

A large number of consonants have probably remained unchanged through all historical periods. The most important development in the history of new sets of sounds, - affricates and sibilants, - and the new phonological treatment of fricatives.

Growth of affricates: The new type of consonants developed from OE palatal plosives [k’, g’] and also from the consonant cluster [sk’]. The 3 new phonemes which arose from these sources were [t∫], [dʒ], [∫]. In Early ME they began to be indicated by special letters and digraphs, which came into use under the influence of the French scribal tradition – ch, tch, g, dg, sh, ssh, sch. The sound changes: k’ > t∫; g’ > dʒ; sk’ > ∫.

In ME the opposition of velar consonants to palatal – [k,k’,g,j] – had disappeared, instead, plosive consonants were contrasted to the new affricates and in the set of affricates [t∫] was opposed to [dʒ] through sonority.

In the numerous loan-words of Romance origin adopted in ME and Early NE the stress fell on the ultimate or penultimate syllable: the stress was moved closer to the beginning of the word.

In Early NE the clusters [sj, zj,tj,dj] - through reciprocal assimilation in unstressed position – regularly changed into [∫,ʒ, t∫, dʒ]: [sj]> [∫], [zj]>[ ʒ], [tj]> [t∫]; [dj]> [dʒ].

Loss of certain consonants: In Late ME long consonants were shortened and the phonetic opposition through quantity was lost. long consonants disappeared firstly because their functional load was very low, and secondly, because length was becoming a prosodic feature, that is a property of the syllable rather than of the sound. In ME the length of the syllable was regulated by the lengthening and shortening of vowels.

In Early NE the aspirate [h] was lost initially before vowels – though not in all the words. In Early NE the initial consonant sequences [kn] and [gn] were simplified to [n], as in ME. Simplification of final clusters produced words like NE dumb, climb, in which [mb] lost the final [b].

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