Language Focus: Phonological Changes in Early Modern English

Through the Early Modern English period English was becoming a language of literature and science, it needed to establish a regular and uniform orthographical system and to expand its vocabulary. The process of new vocabulary standardization was accelerated by the printing press introduced by Caxton in 1476. From that time the language was fixed in print but its sound system continued to develop. The biggest changes in Early Modern English period were connected with phonological system of the language. Since Chaucer`s time the system of consonants faced little change but the system of vowels was radically altered by the Great Vowel Shift.

The consonants were taking the form of those in Present Day English, the whole system of consonants was completely standardized by 1880.

The post-vocalic allophones of [h] either disappeared or became [f], usually after rounded back vowels such as in the word “cough”. The spelling “gh” today is the relic of the earlier fricative.

The sound [l] was lost in pronunciation after low back vowels, before labial or velar consonants (almond, folk, palm) or before dental or palatal consonants (belch, malt).

The stop elements [t] and [d] were lost in a consonant cluster with [s]: castle, handsome, landscape. The changes as well as losing [l] are often reversed today in many dialects and even by educated speakers. This is a result of widespread literacy and so-called “spelling pronunciation” which reflects spelling of the words. There was little change in the quality of vowels in accented syllables from Old English to Middle English. The Great Vowel Shift altered the English long vowel system and made English spelling less phonetic in character. The Great Vowel Shift began in the XV century and was completed by the beginning of the XVII century. Each non-high vowel rose one height and the high vowels which are unable to rise any further, become diphthongs. There were two stages in these changes. The phoneme [i:] as in wine and tide developed a series of “slurred” pronunciations of [oi] and [ai]. The same development occurred with long close back vowel [u]: [ou] and [au].

Finally the English vowel system as the result of Great Vowel Shift produced a very unbalanced system of three front vowels, two back vowels and no low vowel. Later the system developed long [a:] in a few words like father, but the whole system hasn`t changed till nowadays.