ModE Spelling

NE Spelling

ME Spelling

OE Spelling

Historical Background of Modern English Spelling

Lecture 13

Loss of Some Consonants

Fricatives

New English

Palatalisation – as a result of reduction of unstressed vowels several consonants merged into one:

ME Sounds	NE Sounds	ME	NE
[sj] à	[∫]	commissioun [komi’sjon]	commission [kə’mi∫ən]
[zj] à	[ζ]	pleasure [plə’zjurə]	pleasure [‘pleζə]
[tj] à	[t∫]	nature [na’tjurə]	nature [‘neit∫ə]
[dj] à	[dζ]	procedure [,prosə’djurə]	procedure [prə’sidζə]

There were some exceptions though, e.g. mature, duty, due, suit, statue, tune, etc.

Voicing – occurredin the 16^th c. (NE) to fricatives:

· in functional words and auxiliaries that are never stressed;

· when preceded by an unstressed and followed by a stressed vowel.

ME Sounds	NE Sounds	ME	NE
[s] à	[z]	possess [pə’ses]	possess [pə’zes]
[q] à	[ð]	this [qis] ,the [qə], there [qεə]	this [ðis] ,the [ðə], there [ðεə]
[f] à	[v]	of [of]	of [ov]
[ks] à	[gz]	anxiety [,ən’ksaiəti]	anxiety [,ən’gzaiəti]
[t∫] à	[dζ]	knowledge [‘kno:lət∫ə]	knowledge [‘no:lidζ]

In NE some consonants were vocalised or gave birth to diphthongs and triphthongs.

· [r] was vocalised at the end of the word in the 16^th -17^th c. (see Lecture 11);

· [j] disappeared as a result of palatalisation (see palatalisation in Lecture 12); [j] remained only initially (e.g. year, yard, etc.);

· [х, х’] were lost (e.g. ME taughte [‘tau х tə] – NE taught [to:t], ME night [ni х’ t] – NE night [neit]

· [kn] à [n] (e.g. ME know [knou] – NE know [nou]);

· [gn] à [n] (e.g. ME gnat [gnat] – NE gnat [næt]);

H/w: 1. Ex. 10-14, 17 on p. 219 in “История английского языка” by Т.А. Расторгуева (copies).

· based on phonetic principle;

· employed Latin characters;

· one letter = one sound;

Exceptions: ζ, f, s, ð (1 letter = 2 or more sounds).

· based on conventional principle;

· more ambiguous and less stable (printing was not introduced yet and the manuscripts contained numerous variants of spelling – practically each scribe had its own way to spell the words);

· digraphs (2 letters = 1 sound) appear + 1 letter = several sounds, several letters/combinations of letters = 1 sound (these were the deviations from phonetic principle):

1 letter = several sounds	several letters/combinations of letters = 1 sound
letter	sounds	letters	sound
o	[o], [u], [o:], [ǿ]	g, dg, j	[dζ]
c	[s], [k]	k, c, q	[k]
g	[g], [dζ]
u	[u], [v]

· based on conventional principle was preserved;

· new digraphs appeared (indicated borrowings from other languages) – ph, ps, ch;

· spelling became fixed.

There reasons for such stabilisation were as follows:

· Introduction of Printing (1475) (see Lecture 9) à one obligatory standard!

· Normalisation of the language (17^th – 18^th c.) (see Lecture 9)à one obligatory standard!

Modern English spelling reflects pronunciation of the 14^th – 15^th c.

See also Table 12 on p. 216-218 in “История английского языка” by Т.А. Расторгуева.