“The Great Vowel Shift”
What
it is
§ single name given to a
series of sound changes
§ notice how giving a name to
something makes it more real, e.g. poltergeist, post-traumatic stress
syndrome
What
it explains
o
why English
long vowels differ from those in other languages
o
why vowels of
some loanwords differ from that of their source
o
e.g. English employee
/i/ vs French /e/
o
variant English
pronunciations of loanwords
o
e.g. divorcee
/e/ or /i/?
o
e.g. viva
/i/ or /ay/
o
e.g. syllabi
/i/ or /ay/
o
chronology of
loanwords (sometimes)
·
e.g.
were polite and oblige
borrowed before police and machine?
o
why English
‘short’ (lax) and ‘long’ (tense) vowels differ in quality as well as quantity,
e.g. bit and bite, mat and mate
o
inconsistencies
in the GVS cause glitches in English spelling system
o
why some words
sound the same but are spelled differently, e.g. meat and meet
o
why some words are
spelled the same but are pronounced differently, e.g. meat and great
o
some rhymes in
older poetry
o
on /e/: away,
sea; rail, steal
o
some dialect
differences: GVS isn’t fully realized in all dialects
o
Ireland: beat /e/, not /i/ (think of Yeats and Keats)
·
Scotland: house,
mouse /u/, not /au/
·
Canada!: why bite
and lout have /*I/ and /*U/ but bide and loud
have /aI/ and /aU/
What
it did
§ affected all long vowels in
stresed syllables
o
wasn’t
‘phonetically conditioned’
§ changed them from something
like the sounds of mainland European languages (French useful point of
reference for us) to the sounds they have now
§ raised the vowels that could
be raised
o
e.g. OE->ME meet
/e/ -> /i/
o
e.g. Old French
lessé ->ME /e/ -> lessee /i/
§ diphthongized the ones that
couldn’t go any further
o
e.g. wise
/i/ -> /ay/
·
e.g.
polite /i/->/ay/,
o cf. French poli /i/
Where
you can read more about it
·
Pyles
and Algeo, pp. 160-163
·
Crystal,
p. 55
A
good online source: Melinda Menzer’s Great Vowel Shift website
|
key
words |
ME |
eModE |
PDE |
|
Bite |
i: |
*i |
aI |
|
Meet |
e: |
i |
i |
|
Meat |
ε: |
e |
i |
|
Mate |
a: |
æ:
-> ε: |
e |
|
Out |
u: |
*u |
aU |
|
boot |
o: |
u |
u |
|
boat |
) |
o |
o |
) = bore * = ‘schwa’
ME
i bide loud
u:
e: meet boot o:
ε: meat boat )
a: mate
eModE
i meet boot u
e meat *i bide loud * u boat o
ε:
æ: mate
PDE
(some dialects)
i meet,
meat boot u
e mate boat o
ai bide loud au
Why
it may have happened
Further reading:
Lass, Roger. The shape of English:
structure and history. London: Dent, 1987. 129-131.
[Short clear explanation;
the book is a great account of modern English from the historical point of
view.]
Lass, Roger. “Phonology and morphology.” Volume 3 of The Cambridge history
of the
English Language.
Cambridge: CUP, 1999. 72-85.
[A
much more detailed linguistic account, including summaries of different theories.]
Smith, Jeremy. An historical
study of English: function, form, and change. London &
New York: Routledge,
1996. 86-111.
[Considers
sociolinguistic factors, such as dialect contact in London.]
Linguistically
o
was it a ‘pull’
chain?
o
(i.e. the high
vowels diphthongized, leaving room for the other ones to rise)
§ problem: in the north, /u/
didn’t diphthongize (Sc. house /u/)
o
or a ‘push’
chain?
o
(i.e. the mid
vowels raised, pushing/diphthongizing the high vowels and creating a space for
the lower vowels to rise)
§ more manuscript evidence for
this
· esp very early spellings of
<ou> for what had been ME /o/
§ doun ‘to do’, bloude
‘blood’
· only a bit later do you get
<i> spellings for what had been ME /e/
o
e.g. hyre
‘hear’, appyr ‘appear’
Sociolinguistically
o
coexistence in
London of different dialect speakers
o
some
distinguished /ε:/ and /e/ (e.g. meat and meet)
§ of these, some
(higher-status speakers) also had even higher variants of /ε:/ and /):/
[in words showing lengthening in open syllables]
· vowels all got higher when
the lower-status ones imitated the higher-status ones who tried further to
differentiate themselves from them!
o
some groups
(e.g. East Anglians) didn’t distinguish /ε:/ and /e/ at all
§ as in PDE !