Loss of Consonants

As stated above, the system of consonants underwent important changes in MdE and Early MnE. It acquired new phonemes and new phonemic distinctions, namely a distinction between plosives, sibilants and affricates, a phonemic distinction through sonority in the sets of fricatives, sibilants and affricates. On the other hand, some changes led to the reduction of the consonant system and also to certain restrictions in the use of consonants.

A number of consonants disappeared; they were vocalized and gave rise to diphthongal glides or made the preceding short vowel long. The vocalization of [γ] and [x] in Late MnE eliminated the back lingual fricative consonants. Speaking about the development of [x]: before [t] it was lost: bright [brixt] – [bri:t] – [brait], brought [brouxt]/[ bro:t ]; final [x] changed into [f]: enough, cough, laugh, etc. In a few words it was lost: though, through. With the disappearance of [x’] the system lost one more opposition- through palatalisation, as ‘hard’ and ‘soft’. (The soft k’ and g’ turned into affricates some time earlier).

Another important event was the loss of quantitative distinctions in the consonant system.

It should be recalled that in OE long consonants were opposed to short at the phonological level. This is confirmed by their occurrence in identical positions, their phonological application and the consistent writing of double letters (geminated consonants) especially in intervocal positions (sticca (stick) versus stica (stitch). In Late MnE long consonants were shortened and the phonemic opposition through quantity was lost. The loss of long consonants was attributed to a variety of reasons. Long consonants disappeared firstly because their functional load was very low (the opposition was neutralized everywhere except intervocally), and secondly, because length was becoming a prosodic feature, that is a property of the syllable rather than of the sound. In MnE the length of the syllable was regulated by the lengthening and shortening of vowels; therefore the quantitative differences of the consonants became irrelevant.

In addition to these changes, which directly affected the system of phonemes, some consonants underwent positional changes which restricted their use in the language. The consonants [j] and [r] were vocalized under certain phonetic conditions – finally and before consonants – during the MdE and Early MnE periods, thought they continued to be used in other environments, e.g. initially: rechen – reach, yeer- year; some consonants were lost in consonant clusters, which became simpler and easier to pronounce: [h] survived before vowels but was lost before sonorants: he:, but hlystan – listen, (further simplification: t dropped before s and n. In Early MnE the aspirate [h] was lost initially before vowels, thought not in all the words: honour, hit=it, but hope. [H] was lost in unstressed syllables: shepherd, forehead, Nottingham, etc.

Consonants were lost in clusters: lamb, climb, damn, hymn, castle, whistle, muscle, grandmother, landscape, as well as in initial clusters: kn, gn, pn, wh: knight, gnat, pneumonia, psyche, etc. In Early MnE the initial consonant sequences kn and gn were simplified to n as in knowen, gnat. Simplification of final clusters produced words like dumb, clim, in which mb lost the final b.

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