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Major Changes in the sound system. - Coggle Diagram
Major Changes in the sound system.
The consonants
Consonantal changes in the system are slight during this period.
Characteristic of future English.
Certain voiced consonants became voiceless and viceversa
Consonant changes from old to middle english
There where other that lost a final consonant (n,c,b).
There were words thar lost the initial h- preceding a resonant (l, n and r).
Other words, found a simplification of the cluster /sw/
Finally, other word changed in the way voiceless consonants where produced in different dialects.
Vowels in stressed syllables
There were little changes in the vowels in stressed syllables.
Most of the short vowels, passed unchaged into ME.
The mosy important change was the raising and rounding of long a> o:
Long ae in OE represented two sounds.
Long e appears as long e: in ME.
In manyr words ae was a sound resulting from the i-umlaut of a.
The souns were raised, and are noe identical with (i;) ; clean.
Some OE vowels presevered their quality in ME.
OE diphthongs were simpligied and ME diphthongs are result of a simple vowel with the following consontant (i) or (w).
Vowels in unstressed syllables
The general obscuring of unstressed syllables in ME is a significant sound that is the cuase of the loss of inflection.
Every unstressed /a/, /e/ and /u/ tended to become an <e> in spelling, pronounced as /schwa/
Lengthening and shortening
Lengthening of a, e and o, took place in open syllables of disyllabic words.
Long vowels are ore tense and short vowels more lax.
Shortening occurred in Early ME .
Before double consonants and consonant clusters, except the clusters above that caused lengthening.
In the firs syllable of a trisyllabic word.
Lengthening did not occur if a third consonant followed as in children with a following liquid.