Growth of Sibilants and Affricates

LECTURE 6

HISTORICAL PHONETICS AND PHONOLOGY

EVOLUTION OF CONSONANTS THROUGH THE PERIODS

English Consonants were on the whole far more stable than vowels. A large number of consonants have probably remained unchanged through all historical periods. Thus we can assume that the sonorants [m, n, l], the plosives [p, b, t, d] and also [k, g] in most positions have not been subjected to any noticeable changes. They are found in many words descending from OE though their correlations in the system of phonemes have altered to a varying degree.

The most important developments in the history of English consonants were the growth of new sets of sounds, – affricates and sibilants, and the new phonological treatment of fricatives.

Both changes added a number of consonant phonemes to the system. On the other hand, some consonants were lost of vocalized, which affected both the consonant and vowel system. Like vowel changes, consonant changes can be shown as occurring in the transition period from written OE to the language of the 18^th century, that is in the Early MnE period.

Growth of Sibilants and Affricates

In OE there were no affricates and no sibilants, except [s, z]. The earliest distinct sets of these sounds appeared towards the end of OE or during the Early MdE period. The new type of consonants developed from OE palatal plosives [k’, g’] (which had split from the corresponding velar plosives [k] and [g] in Early OE, and also from the consonant cluster [sk’]. The three new phonemes which arose from these sources were [tS], [dZ] and [S]. In Early MdE they began to be indicated by special letters and digraphs, which came into use mainly under the influence of the French scribal tradition – ch, tch, g, dg, sh, ssh, sch. See the table below.

It must be added that the affricates [tS] and [d ʒ] could also come from a different source: they entered the English language in loan-words from French, eg. MdE charme, gentil. As a result of these changes and as a result of the vocalization of [γ] the consonant system in Late MdE was in some respects different from the OE system. The opposition of velar consonants to palatal [k k’, γ j] – had disappeared; instead, plosive consonants were contrasted to the new affricates and in the set of affricates [tS] was opposed to [dZ] through sonority.

Another development accounting for the appearance of sibilants and affricates in the English language is dated by Early MnE and is connected with the phonetic assimilation of lexical borrowings.

In the numerous loan-words of Roman origin adopted in MdE and Early MnE the stress fell on the ultimate or penultimate syllable: na’cion, plea’saunce. In accordance with the phonetic tendencies the stress was moved closer to the beginning of the word. The final syllables which thus became unstressed, or weakly stressed, underwent phonetic alterations: the vowels were reduced and sometimes dropped; the sounds making up the syllable became less distinct. As a result, some sequences of consonants fused into single consonants. In Early MnE the clusters [sj, zj, tj, dj] – through reciprocal assimilation in unstressed position – regularly changed into [S], [ʒ] [tS] and [dʒ]. Three of these sounds merged with the phonemes already existing in the language, while the fourth [ʒ] made a new phoneme. Now the four sounds formed a wells-balanced system of two correlated pairs. Examples are given in the table below.

Compare these words to MnE suit, mature, duty, where the same consonant clusters were preserved in stressed syllables. In some modern English words we still find variants of pronunciation: issue [iSju:] where [j] is preserved and US variant [`issju:]; schedule (2 variants), etc. These variants may be due to Early MnE dialectal differences or else to the fact that the assimilation has not been completed and is still going on in MnE.

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