The Development of Germanic diphthongs in Old English

The old Germanic diphthongs were four in number: au, ai, eu/iu. All Germanic diphthongs underwent specific changes in Old English.

au > O.E. ea

ai> O.E. ā

eu/iu> O.E. eo

Germanic *ai – became ā (long a), Germanic au > ea, eu/iu > eo. (the sign * before a word means that the form is hypothetical, reconstructed by comparative philology *mann – реконструированная форма). As a result of this development in OE there appeared long diphthongs and one long monophthong.

O.E. ān // Goth. ains

// O.H.G. ein [ain];

O.E. bān // O.H.G. bain;

OE stān// Goth stains (stone)

Germanic au > OE ea[æa]

OE eaʒe // OHG Auge (eye)

OE eaand eo} > Modern English [i:]

However, the difference in spelling has been preserved up to now

Modern English beam, ear < OE ea(OE beam, eaʒe)

Modern English deep, deer < OE eo(OE deop, deor(r)

3 Breaking

Breaking is a change of a simple vowel into the diphthong under the influence of a consonant following it. The old English three short vowels – ĭ,ĕ, æ (with the same mark) (all of them front) underwent breaking which was caused by the consonants h, l, r. As a result these short vowels became diphthongs – io, eo, ea [æa] (in these diphthongs the first element coincides with the short vowel itself – i, e, æ).

OE feoh (скот, деньги) //Goth. faihu [fehu];

OE feorr (далеко) // Goth. fairra [ferra]

OE heorte// Goth herto

The three consonants (h, l, r) differed in their influence, the most active of them being [h] as it caused breaking of all the three vowels (i, e, æ). L and r influenced the preceding vowel only when they were doubled or followed by another consonant.

O.E. eahta [æahta] // Goth. ahta, ae+h=ea. – преломление.

4. Mutation (мутация) (or Umlaut)- перегласовка или умляут – one of the most common phenomena of OE. It took place in all Germanic languages except Gothic. Mutation is the change of a vowel produced by a vowel ior a semivowel jin the following syllable. In Old English several vowels could produce mutation but the only one that preserved its effect in modern English is the so called i-mutation. It took place between the 6th and the 7th centuries. The phenomenon of mutation may be stated in the following way: whenever in OE a stressed vowel was followed by an ior j in the succeeding syllable, it got assimilated to this [i] or [j] i.e. it got palatalized. In fact mutation as a phonetic change is the case of regressive assimilation.The stressed vowels changed according to the following scheme:

	Front	Back
High	i	ū > y
Mid	ĕ > i	o > œ > e
Low	æ > e	a (å) > e

 

Diphthongswere also mutated: all of them changed into ie.

As it is seen from the scheme when i or j followed a front vowel, only short front vowels underwent breaking. If ior j followed a back vowel both long and short vowels were palatalized. The change of front vowels consisted in the rise of a vowel, while the change of back vowels (velars) consisted in their palatalization. The phenomenon of mutation is rather simple though the cause of it is often obscured by the fact that after mutation took place I or j that caused mutation were frequently weakened to e or lost altogether, so that many cases of the change may be traced only through a comparison with Gothic which, as it has been mentioned, does not show any mutation. The unstressed I or j was regularly lost in OE after a long syllable (the syllable was long if it consisted of a short vowel followed by a consonant cluster or or of a long vowel followed by one consonant).

OE ān (one) but æni3 (any) < *ān +i3

OE ånʒul (angle) but Englisc < ån3l + isc (English)

OE Frånc (frank) but Frencisc < Frånc + isc (French)

OE full – adj. (full) but fyllan – verb (to fill) < *fullian //Goth. fulljan (to fill)

OE larian > læran – verb (to learn) but OE lar – noun (учение, обучение)

OE halian > hælan (to heal) – verb (лечить)

Mutation played an essential part both in the grammatical structure and lexical system of English. After the loss of unstressed endings it became the chief means of distinguishing various words as well as different forms of one and the same word. Being originally a phonetic phenomenon mutation later on assumed morphological value as it was used in word-formation (inflection) and word derivation (word building). In the following cases mutation was used as a means of word-form derivation.

1) Denominative verbs (глаголы, образованные от существительного или прилагательного)

Denominative verbsin English show mutation as they were originally derived from the corresponding nouns or adjectives with the suffix [j] :

OE dōm (noun) // Goth. dōmjan (verb) >OE dēman (verb) (to doom – обрекать на что-либо);

OE fūll (adj) // Goth. fulljan > OE fyllan (verb) (to fill)

OE cūÞian (verb) > cythan // Goth. cuÞjan (to inform)

OE fōda (noun – food) > fēdan (verb – to feed ) //Goth. fōdjan

OE blōd (noun – blood) > blēdan (verb – to bleed) //Goth. blōdjan

2) Causative verbs (with the meaning to make somebody perform an action)

Causative verbs were formed by adding the suffix jto the past tense form of the corresponding non-causative verb:

OE sittan (non-causative verb сидеть) – past tense sæt+j+an > settan (causative verb – посадить) //Gothic sittan (a non-causative verb) – sat – satjan (causative verb)

OE licʒan (a non-causative verb лежать) –the past tense form læʒ > lecʒan (a causative verb положить, уложить)

OE drincan (a non-causative verb – пить) – the past tense form drånk – dråncjan > drencan (a causative verb – напоить)

In modern English only a few of these pairs have preserved their connection in meaning: food – to feed, blood – to bleed, drink – to drench.

3) Abstract nouns

Abstract nouns in OE were derived from corresponding adjectives by adding the suffix -þu which comes from an earlier –iþu as shown by Gothic iþa:

OE lånʒ (adj.) – lenʒþu (abstract noun length – длина) < * lånʒiþu

OE strånʒ (adj.) – strenʒþu (abstract noun strength – сила) < * strånʒiþu

In the following cases mutation was used as the means of inflection

( forming new grammatical forms of a word):

4) Comparative and superlative degrees of adjectives and adverbs In OE the Comparative and superlative degrees of adjectives and adverbs were formed with the help of the suffixes -iza/oza – comparative degree and -ista/osta – superlative degree. There was no mutation in case with the suffixes -oza, -osta. Mutation took place only when the suffixes –iza, -ista were added :

OE lånʒ – lenʒra – lenʒsta

OE strånʒ – strenʒra – strenʒsta The Germanic suffixes were -iz and –ist

Goth. ʒod – batiza – batista (better – best) // OE betera – betsta (better – best)

OE eald – ieldra – ieldsta (old – older – oldest)

OE feorr – fierra – fiersta (far – farther – farthest)

In Modern English vowel variation in all these adjectives has been removed, the only exception being the adjective old – elder – the eldest.

5) Formation of the plural of some nouns, namely the nouns belonging to root declension. The characteristic features of these nouns were the absence of stem-forming suffix between the root and the inflection. And thus the inflection was added directly to the root. Since the suffix of the plural contained an i or a j, the root vowel got mutated:

OE mån – sg. mån +i (j) > måni > men – pl (man – men)

OE tōþ – sg. tōþ +i > tōþi >teþ (tooth-teeth

OE hnūtu (nut) – sg. hnyta – pl. < *hnūti

OE mūs (mouse) – sg. mys – pl. < * mūsi (mice)

The number of the nouns belonging to this declension in OE was greater than now (about 30 nouns belonged to root declension) but only a small part of these nouns has been reflected in Modern English and form their plural by means of interchange of the root vowel (man-men, woman-women, foot-feet, goose-geese etc).