Palatal mutation led to the growth of new vowel interchanges and to the increased variability of the root-morphemes: owing to palatal mutation many related words and grammatical forms acquired new root-vowel interchanges. The diphthongs were largely due to palatal mutation and became phonemic in the same way, though soon they were confused with. The labialized front vowels and arose through palatal mutation from and, respectively, and turned into new phonemes, when the conditions that caused them had disappeared (cf. Due to the reduction of final syllables the conditions which caused palatal mutation, that is or, had disappeared in most words by the age of writing these sounds were weakened to or were altogether lost. The vowel was fronted and made narrower so as to approach the articulation of. Palatal mutation is the fronting and raising of vowels through the influence of or in the immediately following syllable. The most important series of vowel mutations, shared in varying degrees by all OE languages (except Gothic), is known as “ i-Umlaut” or “palatal mutation”. Mutation is the change of one vowel to another through the influence of a vowel in the succeeding syllable. This process is known as “diphthongisation after palatal consonants”. In the resulting diphthong the initial or must have been unstressed but later the stress shifted to the first element, which turned into the nucleus of the diphthong, to conform with the structure of OE diphthongs. After the palatal consonants, and short and long and turned into diphthongs with a more front close vowel as their first element, e.g. Diphthongisation of vowels could also be caused by preceding consonants: a glide arose after palatal consonants as a sort of transition to the succeeding vowel. Breaking was unevenly spread among the OE dialects: it was more characteristic of West Saxon than of the Anglian dialects. Breaking produced a new set of vowels in OE – the short diphthongs and they could enter the system as counterparts of the long, , which had developed from PG prototypes. The change is known as breaking or fracture. The front vowels, and the newly developed, changed into diphthongs with a back glide when they stood before, before long (doubled) or plus another consonant, and before plus other consonants, e.g.: > in OE deorc, NE dark. The glide, together with the original monophthong formed a diphthong. If a front vowel stood before a velar consonant there developed a short glide between them, as the organs of speech prepared themselves for the transition from one sound to the other. Under the influence of succeeding and preceding consonants some Early OE monophthongs developed into diphthongs. The tendency to assimilative vowel change, characteristic of later PG and of the OG languages, accounts for many modifications of vowels in Early OE. Assimilative vowel changes: Breaking and Diphthongization The diphthongs with the i-glide were monophthongised into and, respectively the diphthongs in –u were reflected as long diphthongs, and. The PG diphthongs – – underwent regular independent changes in Early OE they took place in all phonetic conditions irrespective of environment. The other directions can be interpreted as positional deviations or restrictions to this trend: short could change to or and long became before a nasal the preservation of the short was caused by a back vowel in the next syllable. The principal regular direction of the change – > and > – is often referred to as the fronting or palatalisation of. The PG short and the long, which had arisen in West and North Germanic, underwent similar alterations in Early OE: they were fronted, and in the process of fronting, they split into several sounds. It may also lead to the merging of old phonemes, as their new prevailing allophones can fall together. It may result in the splitting of phonemes and their numerical growth, which fills in the “empty boxes” of the system or introduces new distinctive features. The change begins with growing variation in pronunciation, which manifests itself in the appearance of numerous allophones: after the stage of increased variation, some allophones prevail over the others and a replacement takes place. The development of vowels in Early OE consisted of the modification of separate vowels, and also of the modification of entire sets of vowels. Changes of stressed vowels in Early Old English
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